Some intriguing thoughts on causing offence and being offended.
- Ultra-orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with women they are not married to are being offered “modesty glasses” which blur their view in such a way that they do not fall over and yet they cannot see the (scantily-clad?) women they are trying to avoid.
- In Bangkok’s Grand Palace, as with other places, they do not like shorts and exposed shoulders. Rather than ban you, they lend you apparel they deem suitable.
- Airlines are considering child-free zones on planes. I’ve yet to have a flight really disrupted by children, but I know it is possible, and would probably choose such a zone if it existed.
I very much like all of these routes of minimising offence by either shielding the potential offendee from those that might offend them or helping the potential offender avoid creating offence in the first place without curtailing their rights or freedoms in any damaging way. Wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if we all worked this way?
Sidebar: I didn’t know that the practice of covering women’s hair was originally for the higher classes.