When human rights commissions were established both federally and in all the states, we assumed this was a good thing – surely nothing could go wrong with defending basic human rights? But this whole ‘human rights commission’ idea has gone wrong – badly wrong. Most importantly, it has gone wrong because of their abuse of the word ‘offended’. Under the legislation that covers most of these bodies, someone is allowed to complain if they feel ‘offended’ by something that has been said or written.

Now, am I the only one who can see the stupidity of this? It is fairly normal in human life to be ‘offended’ from time to time. It is simply part of living life in a normal society. All the dictionaries agree that ‘to offend’ someone means to hurt someone’s feelings. The word ‘offend’ is recorded in English from the 14th century, having arrived from Middle French via Anglo-Norman – and somewhere in the background is a classical Latin word meaning ‘to stumble’.

It seems all the human rights bodies around Australia have collectively decided that it should be possible to go through life without ever having your feelings hurt. Really? Is that a rational and intelligent approach to life? Our grandparents certainly never expected to get through life without have their feelings hurt. And that is just normal. That is reality.

Those human rights bodies who think they can protect people from having their feelings hurt are slightly mistaken (or in more technical language: they are unhinged halfwits). And to those snowflakes who make complaints about ‘feeling offended’, the sensible, adult answer is: grow up and stop behaving like a feeble, insecure, immature, thumb-sucking wimp.

The whole human rights movement, as it currently functions in Australia, is a massive abuse of the word ‘offended’. They embody the bizarre belief that speech inflicts harm equivalent to physical violence. In other words, this movement is based on a lie.

In the end, their childish belief that they can stop words that hurt people’s feelings can only ever have one result – the death of free speech. Because part of the right to free speech is the right to speak bluntly – to have your feelings hurt from time to time. I would like to see some government somewhere (state or federal) have the courage to call out this nonsense and to explain that this attempt to protect the feelings of certain people will always be unachievable.

Do we live in a ‘civilisational moment’? That expression was coined by Os Guinness – an English author, theologian and social critic (the great-great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Irish brewer). Every great civilisation, he says, has a dynamism and a source of inspiration. But there comes a point where a civilisation loses touch with what made it great: ‘We are at a watershed moment in the West. We have rejected the faith story and ideological foundations which provided for dynamism and inspiration. The attempt to replace it with Enlightenment secularism and reason has proven inadequate. And today we watch as critical theorists unpick the institutions that bind us together.’

In other words, Australia (and the rest of the Western world) has been built on the value of the individual person. Every human life has been seen as infinitely valuable, and worthy of respect. But there is a force in our society (call it whatever you like – ‘progressivism’ or ‘wokeness’ or whatever) which is pushing us away from seeing every human soul as precious. This replacement view wants us to value people according to the group they belong to. To them, human beings only matter if they have the right ‘identity’, be it indigenous or persecuted or transgender or whatever. So, can we return to confidence in our values and renew a belief in the importance of each individual, in human dignity, truth, conscience and freedom? Os Guinness argues this is the question – the ‘civilisational moment’ – that confronts us. You and I (in our small ways) can play our part by choosing to remain civilised – and by making fun of the ‘elite’ and their nonsense (they hate to be laughed at!)