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> A random woman in the audience getting offended is silly and useless. I don't think this is how "getting offended" works. She felt angry and offended, not b
by jtheory 15y ago
> A random woman in the audience getting offended is silly and useless.
I don't think this is how "getting offended" works.
She felt angry and offended, not because it served a purpose, but because that's how she felt. Are you only offended when it's useful? I think I'd have been pretty irritated by the presentation as well (and I'm a guy), which suggests to me that her reaction wasn't some personal idiosyncrasy. Kagan should, in fact, pay some attention to what happened here & why, if he wants to be invited to give more important talks.
And if he does or has been thinking about that, that would be useful, after all.
- danssig 15y agoKagan's mistake here wasn't that it was offensive. I don't think there was a rational reason for anyone besides his ex-girlfriends to get offended about this and there's no point in bothering with people who look for reasons to be offended. His mistake was that this made him look petty and childish ("Oh look at me, I'm in front of people so now I can call people I'm mad at names!") while serving no positive purpose.