When someone tells us that we’ve hurt their feelings, it can be difficult to tell if we’ve actually done them emotional damage. When what we’ve said is a betrayal of our personal commitment to treating them well, we are responsible for having hurt them. But, if it is simply our choice of words that offends some social standard they believe everyone should live up to, then it is their reaction to what we’ve said that is causing them pain.
Social standards for behavior have their own importance, but we should not confuse manners with morals. When we teach our children formal table manners, it allows them both the tool of following the rules when they want to comply for political purposes and the weapon of breaking the rules when they want to rebel.
To be effective in the world, we need to learn not to hurt others’ feelings by accident.