Phenomenology of offense

Abstract

Introduction.Everyone tends to deal with offense sometimes in his/her own life, and understanding of this phenomenon may be classified as an “eternal” philosophical issue. However, the current situation creates conditions for the massiveization of its experiencing and for the new dangerous mindsets, which darken individual and social being. Despite the need for a holistic understanding, in the scientific literature, offenseis studied rather fragmentarily, the definitions appear to be contradictory, reflecting diverse aspects, but not grasping the uniform ground of the phenomenon. Hence an urgent task consists in searching for the offense essential core, which does not depend on concrete manifestations, and, on this basis, in tracing a strategy for overcoming this destructive feeling.Materials and Methods.Since the aim is to understand the essence of offense as a phenomenon of human being, the existential-phenomenological approach seems to be the most productive for this study. In contrast to the abstract-theoretical and reductionist, this methodology allows analyzing the phenomenon in its entirety and paradoxicality. Also it helps to outline the ways to deal with offense through the analysis of its real manifestations, of its experiencing and understanding by individuals “from within” the concrete situations.Results. Phenomenological analysis of offense shows that it is a distorted (wrong) vision of the human “I” either byOther(s), or byhim-/herself. Offense is experienced as a painful dissonance between the represented/desired and the real state of affairs, therefore its source may be found entirely in the individual imagination, and its “vector” appears to be ultimately directed towards self-destruction. Even being inflicted from the outside, the offense must pass into the plane of personal representations in order to become such, threatening the integrity of a person’s “worldview”. In this regard, the offense should be opposed to the understanding of “the own” as a unique individual existential ground, unapproachable for the Other. The practice of “accepting” is helpful: to return to the present (real) as it is; to struggle with unproductive fears and desires; to aware of the purpose of the own existence as self-realization.Discussion and Conclusions.An existential-phenomenological analysis of offense was carried out; life examples were used to highlight its similarities and differences with close phenomena of envy, hatred, resentment, etc.; its ontological grounds and opposite phenomena were studied to trace possible ways to overcome this destructive feeling.