Just Human?

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Offence

It is inevitable, given that we aim to talk about difficult subjects which people care deeply about, that at some point someone will take offence to something which has been said.  There are two important perspectives on this subject.

Perspective 1: we seek to avoid offence

The first perspective is that we will do what we can to avoid this situation, and, if it arises, to deal with it with integrity and compassion.

One of our few rules is that members must not deliberately give offence.  If something offensive has been said, please let us know and we will ask for it to be changed.  If there is anything else we can reasonably do, again, please let us know.

However, questions about intention and offence are inevitably subjective, and any attempt to resolve such situations is likely to be unsatisfactory for one of the parties, and perhaps both.  In which case, we apologize.  There is (there will be!) an appeal system, but it may not be possible to provide a satisfactory resolution.  At this point, all we can say is that we are trying to do our best in an imperfect world, and we will seek to acknowledge and learn from our failures.

Perspective 2: we seek to move beyond offence

The second perspective is that we recognize honest and sincere people hold beliefs and perform actions which we believe to be wrong and find offensive.  And, similarly, other honest and sincere people will find some of the things we believe and do to be offensive.  While, on the one hand, we never seek to give offence, and we always seek to find gentle and sensitive ways of acting and communicating what we believe, on the other hand, we never avoid doing what we believe to be right or speaking what we believe to be true just because someone will find it offensive.

If we are to make real progress, as individuals and as a society, we must learn how to engage in a sensitive and compassionate way with those who we disagree with, and with those who believe and do things we find offensive.  If we treat the giving of offence as justified grounds for breaking off contact, then we have already given up on the possibility of finding common ground and moving beyond the conflict.  Conflict may be resolved in various ways, but it will never be resolved if we ignore and refuse to engage with one another.  You may deeply believe that something is wrong: we ask you, while you hate the wrongdoing, to love the person who does it.  We recognize that this is not always possible, and it may take some time in some specific situations to reach this way of behaving but, when it is not currently possible, we want to hold onto this as a goal to work towards.  Even if we cannot talk about something right now, we believe this is only a temporary situation, and desire to work towards changing it.