Consider these 4
statements, and which ones are good positions to hold:
1) Everyone has a right to be offended
2) Everyone has a right
not to be offended
3) No one has a right to
be offended
4) No one has a right not
to be offended
I think statement 4 is a
strong 'yes' - 'no one has a right not to be offended', because there is no
right that protects you from hearing something that offends you. Things are
bound to crop up that will offend, because the honest pursuit of facts and
truths makes that inevitable.
Given the foregoing, the
statement 'everyone has a right to be offended' (statement 1) has concomitance
with statement 4 'no one has a right not to be offended' - as both involve the
environment of free expression, frankness, and probability of being challenged
or affronted.
This leaves statements 2
and 3. Some people advocate the principles of statement 2 - 'everyone has a
right not to be offended' - but as a viewpoint I think it is manifestly unhelpful,
as such a right would be to insist on being quarantined from any contra-views
that might affront you. Similarly I can't even envisage a condition under which
'some people have a right not to be offended' is ever going to be useful to
anyone. As for statement 3 'no one has a right to be offended' - that is also
one to reject if we agree that free expression, frankness, and being challenged
are qualities bound up in our having a right to be offended and no right not to
be offended.
