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I feel this is just begging the question. It's not about being "capable of empathy" but directing that empathy toward very specific groups of people. To illustrate: how much would you modify your behavior to accommodate someone who is offended by gay marriage?

So now we're left with: why this set of people?

And while I'm sure there is a complex framework of narratives and rationalizations and models of power structures, etc. in support of who gets to be in the in-group and who doesn't, to me it seems mostly like a case of mindless tribalism.

Presenting/accepting horrifyingly bad arguments like "you don't share my viewpoint because you're incapable of empathy" is not done because people actually believe in them, but as a signal of tribal membership.

> To illustrate: how much would you modify your behavior to accommodate someone who is offended by gay marriage?

Not a whit, because after considering the situation I have concluded that same-sex marriage, while it may offend them, does not harm them. There's a world of difference between offended and harmed. My thought process goes, "hey, I can see people being harmed by not being able to get married to the person they love, while these people over there who are offended are going to be just fine not-gay-marrying each other."

I think those who prioritize their offense over others' harm really do lack empathy. (This is why, despite a personal dislike of a number of rather loud social justice activists, I'll go to bat for the causes that they support, while I can be offended by their conduct, they are right and others are being harmed. I am an adult and can put up with being offended to help others not be harmed.)

There's probably not a good way to succinctly prove my capacity for empathy to you, but I think trying to link social grace and empathy is also incorrect in general.

Assume for the sake of argument that, as you suggested, you've identified a statement in the course of conversation that someone else might find offensive. What's your recourse and how does it benefit society?

If you've simply misinterpreted the person's meaning (which I'd argue is more often than not the case), you probably force them to spend time clarifying and maybe they endeavor to spend more time and effort to avoid similar misunderstanding in the future - all to avoid the hypothetical situation where they might have actually offended someone (who could have just asked for similar clarification).

Perhaps instead you've actually identified some unintentionally disclosed socially unacceptable bias that the person holds. The offense you've taken is still imaginary (I guess you'd argue it's actually empathetic) so chances are you're not in a good position to reshape that person's belief system - especially since hiding the belief in the first place suggests they know it's socially unacceptable. Rather, you're more likely just teaching the person to hide their bias more convincingly. I think most people find hidden bias much more insidious.

The best case, I suppose, is shaming some intentionally offensive statement. This one seems reasonable to me. However, if the statement was intentionally offensive, you probably didn't need the mental gymnastics to identify it in the first place.

I'm open to any counter-arguments you might have; I just thought I'd clarify my own stance since your accusation seemed a little harsh.

> You're aware that what you said was impolite, but you can't think of a way to be more polite.

Wrong point of view in my opinion. I had the same question on my mind and it needs a qualifier not because it's impolite, but because you might be offended by it. Those are two entirely separate things.

That said, nothing of what you said makes it any easier to accept your answers, for me personally, because i still have no idea what things you're seeing as offensive that you might've missed earlier and i still can't compare whether i would've missed the same things, or whether those things weren't present in my environments.

Would you care to bring up some concrete examples?

> i still have no idea what things you're seeing as offensive that you might've missed earlier and i still can't compare whether i would've missed the same things, or whether those things weren't present in my environments.

That's not what the GP asked. They asked

> Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?

which is an entirely different question (with a very obvious subtext to boot).

Honestly, i still stand by my post.

I can completely see how the chain of posts, especially when one ignores the first one, may be read differently.

However i personally still read the posts as culminating the in the question:

What are concrete examples, so I may gauge whether i need to pay more attention, or have a different environment?

People seem more sensitive now than before. Or maybe they always were, but now it just isn't taboo to admit it? In any case, just using myself as an example -- I've found that I become more and more sensitive and easily offended the more I involve myself and try to find disagreeable things (see: online echo chambers centred around a common identity of "the other side is bad/laughable/hurtful!"). And in the modern Information Age, that isn't hard at all.