There is always someone who can be offended

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More from David Wells on "Self", chapter five of his book, The Courage to Be Protestant.
As it turns out, we are a nation, frankly, in which we are all underappreciated. Even worse, we have all been victimized by someone. And worse yet, we are all about to collapse unless we get in touch with our feelings by getting entirely naked. Or, as those in the know say, by becoming “vulnerable.” Beneath the surface of normality, you see, is a car wreck about to happen. Everywhere. In everyone. That is what we are all assuming. And that is how we are now looking at every aspect of life...

Quite a few public schools have banned competitive games because they dent the self-esteem of those who do not win. Most schools have so elevated self-esteem over performance, feeling good over doing well, that we have produced a nation of children whose estimate of themselves is sky-high but whose academic performance lags ever further behind that in many other nations...

America has become a very sensitive nation. There is always someone here who can be offended, if not by what is said, then by what is not said. Or by what could potentially be intended in what was said. Or by what could be read into what was not said.

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