The Golden Age of Being Offended

I am angry all the time. I am constantly upset to the point that I can’t eat and can barely sleep. Just the sight of other people laughing fills me with painful rage. Because that’s how tolerant I am.

We are in a golden age of progressivism. We are hurtling to new frontiers of tolerance and understanding that not even the most fevered imagination could have conceived of a decade ago. And that’s because we’ve unlocked the core of progressivism, the sine qua non of people of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual preferences, and categories yet to be added getting along: being offended.

Everyone remembers stories about the Puritans. They were religious types who judged each other and were offended constantly by normal human behavior. We look at them with contempt now, though, as the scope of what offended them was too narrow. Their imaginations about what sorts of things to get angry about were too limited. And never once did they use papier-mâché puppets in a protest. But now that the secular world has taken over being offended by everything, we are truly in a renaissance.

I am now upset by more things before breakfast than a normal man used to be upset by all month. And every day, social scientists are busy conducting studies, performing experiments, and consuming heavy amounts of drugs in order to come up with brand new things for the enlightened individuals in society to be offended by. It’s thrilling. Think of it — not that long ago, referring to only women having babies would have been as offensive as saying that two plus two equals four, but now it’s highly insensitive and will get you screamed at and protested. And saying two plus two equals four is also offensive because it’s falnumericalnormative. I just made that word up. Because that’s the glorious world we’re in now: one where we have to constantly make up new words to describe brand new concepts that offend us.

But if I think I’m advanced at being offended, it won’t compare at all to the next generation. Right now, tomorrow’s progressives are on college campuses being trained to have a sensitivity to offense far beyond normal human senses. With trigger warnings, safe spaces, and advanced microaggression-detection techniques, they have become so sensitive that the slightest breeze out of place will shatter them into pieces and leave them gibbering, offended messes that will take years of expensive therapy to put back together. They are so tolerant and understanding of others that they can’t ever hope to function in normal society without constant mental breakdowns caused by the huge offenses that only they are trained enough to see.

And with this course we’re on, think of what the future will be like. We will evolve to be so tolerant that there will be nothing left that doesn’t offend us. We will search the streets for anyone enjoying themselves, and when we find such fiends, we’ll scream at them, “How dare you?! How can you smile when there is so much that is offensive everywhere? What sick kind of bigot are you that you can enjoy life for even a moment?”

Soon everyone will shuffle along silently, staring at their feet to try to avoid the screaming and protests. But it won’t work — we will be offended by the silence. We will screech at the day and be enraged by the night. We will have such finely honed senses for offense that you can lock us in a sensory deprivation chamber, and we will still find things to rage against. And when absolutely everything a human can utter or do is found to be a grave offense, we will turn to the animal world and learn to communicate with them — find out what they have to say and then scream at that. And when there is nothing left on Earth that doesn’t enrage us, we will turn to space. We will explore the deepest, darkest corners of the universe and shout and wave placards at them.

Eventually, all of creation — all of reality — everything conceivable and everything imaginable will be declared offensive. We will do nothing but scream constantly. We will have no feelings but anger — except for the few fleeting moments of happiness when we have discovered yet a new thing that offends us.

And then we will have true tolerance and understanding.