Is There Such a Thing as Being "Oversensitive?"

The word "oversensitive" strikes me as one of those about which a person should display some circumspection. The accusation of oversensitivity, after all, is one that abusers and bullies make to delegitimize others' reactions to their behavior.

"What, can't take a joke?"

"Don't you have any sense of humor?"

Any right-thinking person has to find this kind of thing disgusting.

Still, it seems to me that there are at least two occasions when one can reasonably think of a reaction to a perceived offense to be excessive.

1. When the Offense is Just Unsatisfied Narcissism.
Encountering the word "narcissism" one may ask what I mean by it. I think one can usefully speak of it not as some supposedly excessive self-love, but as the kind of demand one makes on others. They demand that everyone else think of them, first, last and always, while thinking of no one else ever--and react to anything else as an offense. The burden they place on others to satisfy their wants, the complete lack of reciprocity on their part--and their response when their unreasonable demand is unmet--seem to me to qualify as excessive.

2. When People are Offended Because They (Perversely) Want to Be Offended.
H.G. Wells once offered rather a useful definition of hatred as something more than extreme dislike. Rather he called it a "chronic condition of vindictive disapproval" toward someone, or something. This leaves people looking for occasions to be offended, and find satisfaction in being offended, because it validates their feeling, and gives them a chance to act on it.

I think that, put that way in the abstract, few would find what I said objectionable. But trying to assert it in a particular case is another thing. After all, accusations of narcissism and hatred are made all the time in bad faith, while in a society where people worship at the altar of their own subjectivity they are hardly inclined to take a fair-minded, nuanced view of people they dislike, or question their own prejudices. (Indeed, a great many people, demonstrating their hatefulness, set impossible standards for others--demanding nothing less than moral perfection in them--so that they can take satisfaction in seeing them fall short of the mark morally, and then bashg them for it). Still, it would probably be uncontroversial to say that there really is plenty of narcissism and hatred about, often in the same toxic package--generally making the world a worse place.