Click Here For The Many Facets of Collectivism, by John T. Wenders

The Many Facets of Collectivism, by John T. Wenders: "Being offended is another industry of our popular culture. Again, it comes down to collectivism, this time group identity. Individuals now self-identify themselves, not with what they, individually, are and do, but with what others are and do, a group often conveniently defined by others. In popular culture, people get, and are encouraged to get, their identities from without, not within. When one gets his identity from associating with, or belonging to, something other than himself, he then becomes offended by any perceived questioning or attack on these other things. It is the group identity syndrome: an attack on others with whom a person identifies is viewed as an attack on that person.

This whole idea of being offended is a double-barrelled exercise in collectivism. To indiscriminately attack a group defined solely by the fact that they have something in common is, of course, often an exercise in illogical collectivism to begin with. Groups don't act, individuals do, and to attack a group for what individuals do is often logical only from a collectivist perspective. But this mistake is compounded on the other end when individuals self-identify with some group, and then take personal offense in an illogical attack on that group.

And even if one really does not take personal offense to something done to others, the group identity syndrome makes it beneficial to feign such offense. What is it that gives one the opportunity to gain the approval of others by feigning offense? It is, of course, because these others also get their identity by association with the feigner. And why would one want this approval of others by feigning offense? Again, it is because one's identity is tied not to one's self but to what one has in common with others -- identity from without rather than from within: collectivism. And, again, popular culture has spawned whole industries based on real or feigned offense."