The right to offend vs. the right to be offended

Today, I am struggling with the notion of personal responsibility.

Well, to be honest, I’m struggling with reading tenth grade papers and am looking to procrastinate, so I let my mind wander and lo, and behold, it wandered to “personal responsibility.” I’m sure that there is some irony in there somewhere, but I won’t dwell on that.

I read in the news about some students who were in a confrontation with some other people. I’m not linking anything or taking a particular stand on the specifics because I neither know enough, nor care enough to stake a claim and engage anyone in a useless flame war about the issue. But one thing which I can concede is that some number of students (1 to 1 million, apparently) wore a red hat with the “Make America Great Again” slogan on it. Others seem to have responded to the hat and the political position it apparently invokes.

So then my question arises – to what level are we responsible for our own actions? It is easy for us to go all first amendment and say “they have a right to wear what they want – and though people have the right to be offended, their offense cannot stop the wearing of the hat.” If we defend those whose outrage was inspired by the hat, aren’t we blaming the victim? Is it acceptable to say to a woman who wears (next to) nothing in an area rife with men of a certain gender that she was asking for their catcalls and unwelcome approaches? Does my wearing ostentatious jewelry absolve a thief of his personal obligation not to break the law?

But on the other hand, do I have a responsibility not to be an idiot? Under the law, as far as I can glean from the little dabbling I have done, there is an idea when driving of “contributory negligence.” If I do something stupid then, while the blame might mostly lie with someone else for an accident, I bear some burden of guilt because I was not being careful. Is there, in life, a parallel idea of contributory insensitivity? If I walk into a minority community with a shirt emblazoned with “F___ minorities!” am I blameless if it elicits a response? Isn’t there an expected human response to this kind of incitement which is, to some degree, understandable? [I’m thinking of a scene in Die Hard 3]

In Jewish law, there is a concept of “you shall not but a stumbling block in front of a blind person.” If I know that my actions will entice another person towards a particular (inappropriate) behavior, then I have an obligation not to take that action. And we know that under American law, there is such a thing as hate speech, and that DIRECT incitement to violence is not protected under the 1st amendment, but what about inevitable but indirect incitement? How responsible am I for the behavior of others, especially when their response is foreseeable? Can I push all the buttons I want and then wash my hands of the result? Though legal, is that morally defensible? But, then must I monitor my every word and action because someone might be induced to respond by anything I do or say? Where do we mandate sensitivity and where do we expect self-control in the face of incitement? What lines can ever be drawn to protect us from ourselves while we are being protected from others?

The extremes make it sound obvious. Each person is responsible to control himself no matter how provocative the incitement. Sure, that’s easy – 100% on the self to stop the self. But is that reasonable and feasible? OK, let’s let the pendulum swing the other way – the individual has to consider the feelings of others and can’t offend others; the concept of forbidden hate speech becomes the absolute. But there goes my freedom of expression and we all become coddled snowflakes, triggered at every breath, unable to stand hearing an opinion which doesn’t comport with our worldview. So the extremes are not the answer. The truth, it seems, lies somewhere in the middle, allowing everyone the right to be a jerk without fear of getting pummeled, but ensuring that no one’s jerkiness crosses some line into hatefulness because people are allowed to want to defend themselves from even non-physical attacks.

Yeah, I have no answers and (I just checked) those papers have yet to grade themselves. So I’ll err on the side of not being a jerk but defend to the pain the right of others to say what they want. At least until it really annoys me.