Sensitivity

‘Sensitivity’ is one of those words that’s changed its meaning. It was once used mostly to refer to sore teeth and gums. But just as ‘community’ now means people complaining and ‘activist’ now means sitting at home swearing on the internet, to be sensitive simply signifies you’re politically progressive.

In 2015, in this magazine, I invented the term cry-bully to describe a new type: ‘A hideous hybrid of victim and victor, weeper and walloper.’ Cry-bullies are everywhere, the duplicitous Pushmi-Pullyus of the personal and the political. And for a cry-bully, almost everything’s too insensitive.