Although not being offensive is an important skill, not being offended is an important skill as well.
Ultimately, there's a line between offensiveness and empathy that requires judgement in order to get things done.
Getting offended is basically never a good thing because it stops you from hearing their message. Similarly offending others is basically never a good thing because it stops them from hearing your message. So the best way to communicate is to be liberal with what you accept and strict with what you send out. Also called the robustness principle.
Do you really have control of anything?
I've found that if someone is offended, if you react with openness and a willingness to listen to what they are saying, then the outcome will likely be positive.
If you are more concerned with defending yourself than listening to the other person, then it's likely the outcome is going to be negative.
This isn't rocket science. The problem is that people tend to react defensively. The only utility in such a reaction is a protection of your own ego. The irony is that in attempting to protect your own ego, you just end up making the situation worse, including for yourself.
Listening is a superpower.
I mostly agree, but a safer statement would be “The only thing you can ever have any direct control over is your own actions”.
Sleepwalking, inebriation, low blood sugar, hypoxia — these can all lead to degradation or total loss of conscious control of one’s actions. For many people, there are many other triggers, and some of these triggers are even less physiologically driven than the above.
Knowing one’s own limitations is also important.
By your logic the person who is offended has it entirely within their power not to be offended. Since in this scenario they are the one having the more extreme emotional reaction, perhaps it would be more reasonable to ask that they regulate their emotions to some degree, rather than criticize the way in which the person absorbing the brunt of their emotional onslaught does so.
> This isn't rocket science.
That's a bit condescending.
> The problem is that people tend to react defensively
I really don't think it is.
Do you really have control of anything? Maybe not, but you have to at least assume so or become a passive participant in life.