Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The giving and taking of offence

Someone once called me a 'try-hard offence taker'. I thought that was overly generous on the amount that I try, but still: there's something to be addressed there, I suppose. There's a kind of way in which some of us - sometimes me, sometimes not - wander around the Twittersphere and blogosphere and the crumbling mainstream media and whatever, looking for things that irritate us, finding things that irritate us, writing about how much they irritate us, and then repeating until fade. Is that being an offence taker, or just trying to express some kind of dissatisfaction with things that we know we can't avoid anyway?

I suppose it's not black and white, and there's a degree of both every time someone takes to a keyboard to spray a little bit of bile into the ether. Richard Littlejohn might be annoyed by the latest barminess of elfnsafetygawnmad, then put together an angry column saying how it's all bonkers, then someone else might be annoyed by Richard Littlejohn's latest barminess about elfnsafetygawnmad, then write an angry blogpost about how annoying it all is.

You might ask the question: are they both stark raving mad? Can't Littlejohn just not worry about elfnsafety, and look at pictures of kittens? Can't the angry blogger just ignore the ramblings of Littlejohn, and look at pictures of kittens? Well, no, and no; that's not the way things work, really, is it? We confront ourselves daily with a slew of things that make us angry, or frustrated, or annoyed; and life has a way of sticking them in our way, whether we like it or not. Once readers who enjoy Littlejohn's writing realise the kind of thing he writes about, they'll start telling him more and more about the latest piece of bonkersness that you couldn't make up; once readers who enjoy blogs about Littlejohn realise that bloggers are writing about how annoying they find Littlejohn, they'll start telling the bloggers about Littlejohn's latest missive. And so on, and so it continues. We all have a bit of fun.

But then there's something else that creeps along into all of this, and that's the giving and taking of offence. People might be offended by what someone writes, either the blogger or the paid columnist, and be angered by it, or upset by it. But that is very much part of the pantomime, I suppose. Some of us are trying to be provocative and trying to annoy you. Some of us are trying to cause controversy in lieu of real talent. Some of us just prefer painting with big brushstrokes rather than soft sfumato. That's the way it's always been. If you can't be good, you can always try and be controversial: it guarantees you a lot of attention, if that's what you seek; it'll get you a lot of hits on the web, if that's what you're looking for; and it'll get people reading what you want to be read, even if a lot of them are disagreeing with you.

It's a very tempting thing to do, and it would be ludicrous for me to pretend that I've never done it. I have. Lots of times. I've done it far too often, and I try to avoid doing it nowadays. But there it is: look back through anyone's blog, if they have one, and you're bound to find something that you don't agree with, or that sticks out as being stupid, or dumb, or badly argued; that's the price you pay for having these things archived and forever public - it's the price that columnists and politicians pay for being on the record as well, but to a greater extent I suppose. And there's always going to be some smart alec trawling through what you've said in the past to try and conjure a whiff of hypocrisy. A lot of us have done it, and some of us have had it done to us. It's all part of the game you play when you put words out there, and have them read by others.

There's also the idea of mock horror, and pearl-clutching, or deliberate offence taking. It's something you can see when the likes of the Daily Mail feign surprise at something saucy, then show you all the pictures to prove just how awful it really is, and how on earth can our children be exposed to such filth? It's also an accusation thrown at the spectral 'left' whenever there's grumbling or outrage on Twitter about something like a columnist saying that Ricky Gervais looks like he's lost so much weight that if he was gay you'd say he had Aids; or the anger that was unleashed last week over David Cameron's 'calm down dear' comment. Oh come on, people say: did it really offend you, or are you just taking offence to take offence, to show that you're taking offence? And there's a valid point in there, at times, I suppose, though I don't think it's right to be automatically dismissive of what people take offence at. Though sometimes the Daily Mail is just talking for and to its readers when it clutches those pearls, regardless of whether the people putting it together are genuinely appalled by a joke from Russell Brand or Frankie Boyle or whoever it is this week; sometimes it has a point, of course; and sometimes people 'on the left' (I am using that term not because I like it, but because it's used that way) are genuinely upset by what they've read, or seen, and feel it's something worth complaining about, because of the attitudes it reveals.

And we live in a coarsened world, I suppose, at least a world that appears to be coarsened, although perhaps in reality it isn't. This is the world where pornography is everywhere, accessible to everyone, for better or worse; where people swear a lot more on television, and swear a lot more in everyday life, I think. There are people out there offending everyone, left, right and centre, and enjoying it, and being enjoyed. Tasteless jokes are all over the place. Some of them make me roar with laughter; others make me wince. I suppose that's the same for everyone. Sometimes the boundaries get pushed a little bit too much, and people get bricks chucked at them. Was it always this way? I think it was; I think that things are just a bit easier to access now.

There is a sense in which there is genuine offence that can be taken. Sometimes some people need to be offended. Sometimes some people should be offended. Sometimes it's important that we're allowed to offend people, regardless of whether we're being cheap, or coarse, or crass, or dumb in doing so. But then there is another kind of offence, the kind that really does upset someone, the kind that really offends someone above and beyond 'a bit of banter' or beyond them being 'a try-hard offence taker'. What then?

I say this because, for the first time really, I tweeted a joke this week that seemed to really offend someone, and I didn't mean it at all. I just meant it as a chuck-away, as a thing that I didn't think too hard about; and it was just a tweet on Twitter, just a brainfart, just a thing that you consign to that place, and forget about forever, or for a while, anyway. I needn't repeat it here, but it wasn't anything incredibly controversial (or designed to be) by me; all I wanted was a cheap laugh. But I seemed to really say something that was found offensive to some people: genuinely offensive, beyond someone delighting or revelling in being offended and then telling the whole world how offended they were, but someone really being upset, and telling me about it in a very polite and reasonable way. What do you do about it then? Do you brush it off as just an accident or one of those things? Do you have to watch what you say in future? Do you forget about it? It's funny but I feel like I can't forget about it, because I really didn't intend or mean any offence, but I caused some, all the same.

So what can you do, or I do? I just said sorry, which I was, and I carried on. I don't know what you should do, whether you should just shrug your shoulders and try to forget about these things, or not. I do feel awful about it. When you offend someone who isn't just an offence taker, who is just offended because they're offended, who doesn't make a big deal out of it, but just is disappointed in you rather than angry at you, then that seems to make a difference, to me. That seems to be something altogether different. But I suppose I just carry on, as we all do, with the cheap shots and the easy laughs, and hope that I do as little harm as possible, or rather try to do as little harm as possible. I suppose that's all you can do.

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