2. If you tell me the truth and you're a jerk about it, I may get offended by the truth, but I'm almost certain to get offended by you being a jerk. You are absolutely the cause of that part of us getting upset.
I'm refuting the narrower argument that is sometimes made that just because something is true, it doesn't give you the right to say it.
In regards to point #2, I agree that if I deliver the truth and include a side payload of being-a-jerk, certainly, I'd be responsible for that payload. But many people in many cases think that just stating the truth simply, plainly, no extra malice or attacks, just stating a disagreeable truth bluntly, is being a jerk. In those cases I think the upset really is just about the underlying unpleasant truth itself.
Like spending a wedding reception saying to everyone "there are people starving to death right now". Is that true? Yes. Are people upset by that knowledge? Yes. Are they, completely separately, pissed off at you for being an asshole that decided everyone should think about starving people during the wedding reception? Yes, quite reasonably.
Am I crazy? I feel like what I'm describing is a near universal phenomenon and everyone knows what I'm referring to/has experienced this. I'm talking about how in general, people just don't like people who are right all the time. People don't like criticism delivered bluntly even when it's correct, relevant and actionable. People don't want to hear things with implications that go against their moral values, or suggest that something they spent lots of time on was wasted, or reflect badly on themselves. There's that famous quote about how people don't want to hear things when their paycheck depends on them not hearing it. They don't like hearing those things even when they are true and directly related to them. I'm talking about those cases.
3a: Some truths you have to earn the right to tell. They're being a bad spouse? Nothing useful is going to come from a random stranger pointing that out, even if they're right. That kind of truth takes a close friend, telling them in the right situation, with the right amount of firmness and the right amount of gentleness. You have to build the bridge of the relationship before you can take that kind of freight over it.
3b: You're telling the truth, but they're a snowflake, and they're melting. That is totally not on you, but once you find that out about them, you have to realize that there is nothing you can usefully do. (At least, I don't know of any way where you can get them to actually listen, rather than just blowing it off because it offends them.)
But if the end goal is to enlighten the people around you, and let them enlighten you, then it matters how you package your truth. Sadly it's seems to be human nature that if you tell someone that their perspective of the universe is wrong and don't give them any leeway, there's a high chance of them just dismissing it because it would hurt them.
Now if you are more diplomatic with your self devised absolute thruths, you might find that the people on the receiving end are more willing to accept them.
This concept seems to be fully absent from politics these days.
I'm working with a separate definition of responsibility that's asking whose fault something is as a matter of principle. I disagree philosophically that the messenger of a truth is the primary cause of the emotions of the receiver as a reaction to that truth. In my experience, if we sit down and inspect those emotions and trace their root cause, an overwhelming proportion of it is the bad news itself, not the delivery of it. The delivery is just the easiest thing to latch onto in the moment.
I get what the article is saying. Given the reality of how people are, when you state the truth it has x effect on others, and the author is arguing that you are responsible for that effect. But I'd argue that when a truth upsets someone, even if you hadn't told it to them, eventually it would've upset them anyway, because the underlying reality that upsets them is still there. You aren't ultimately the cause of their upset.