Honest question. If it really smelt, would you still be offended? I am genuinely curious. I watched Bill Burr stand up comedy routine recently and he touches upon a similar topic. Though its comedy, I thought he made a good point - shame is a valid human emotion, why are we as a society so against feeling it, even when it is justified.
Define "valid" human emotion. And after feeling shame or embarrassment, if someone then transitions to feeling offended, is that somehow not a valid emotion?
I can see Bill Burr's angle - just own up to what's yours, be honest about your own shortcomings and move on with life. But everyone handles negative emotions differently, often in spectacularly unproductive and defensive ways. Which might help explain the abundance of stand-up comedian talent in the world today :P
I guess I was trying to paraphrase the comedian there, I guess I can just remove the "valid" qualifier and use embarrassed instead of offended, but the point I was trying to make pretty much remains the same.
My point, shame has always been useful, at least for me. Feeling ashamed is a sign of knowing I can be doing better, and it generally motivates to do better. Its not easy. But, why do we draw lines that shouldn't be crossed on anything that might make us feel this.
You shouldn't call a smelly apartment smelly, because someone might feel embarrassed, even if you are not trying to be a dick. For instance, the author researches and publishes an article about a popular course and the people offering it and gets called an asshole for one sentence without any judgemental qualifiers, ignoring everything else in the article.
The person you replied to never used the word "offended". The word they used was "embarrassed"; I doubt the embarrassment would be substantially affected by whether or not the room actually smelled.
