‘We’re all members of the Stasi now’: Irvine Welsh interviewed

The history of the word ‘offend’, from the Latin offendere, to hit, attack, injure, is a revealing one. From its starting point in physical violence to transgression against God in the Middle Ages, today ‘offence’, understood as displeasure or upset, is seemingly everywhere. The word may no longer refer to direct physical harm, but culture of all kinds, from artworks to comedy to literature to music, seems to have an upsetting quality to some. Words, we are told, are ‘violence’, images are hurtful, differing opinions are dangerous and must be suppressed. Even silence is ‘violence’, as this year’s Black Lives Matter protests reminded us.

Social media has undoubtedly encouraged this fantasy slippage from physical to moral or mental harm. By short–circuiting the gap between the individual and the world, the internet has generated new kinds of sensitivities as well as new modes of punishment. You wrote an offensive tweet? It’s very easy to find out where you work and ensure your employer is pressured into firing you.

There is a grim kind of horizontalism at work: everyone is plugged into the same platforms. If you are so inclined, it is entirely possible to find someone or something to be offended by whenever you feel like it. If you are feeling sadistic, you can easily indulge your desire by hounding, mobbing and snitching. It’s all the more delicious if you can say this is in the name of the ‘good’ because you, or someone else, or a group, has been somehow ‘offended’.

Arts institutions which really, as flag-bearers of free expression, should be exhibiting much more courage, have become afraid of offending real or imaginary members of the public. The past few months have seen major institutions postpone a Philip Guston retrospective for fear of his Ku Klux Klan images appearing insensitive; the Prado has come in for serious criticism over an exhibition of women’s art deemed inappropriately feminist; and many places have quietly acquiesced to having their statues vandalized or toppled.