Insult
Encyclopedia
An insult is an expression, statement (or sometimes behavior) which is considered degrading and offensive. Insults (sometimes called "cracks" "remarks" or one-liners) may be intentional or accidental. An example of the latter is a well-intended simple explanation, which in fact is superfluous, but is given due to underestimating the intelligence or knowledge of the other.
considered insults a primary form of social interaction, central to the imaginary order - 'a situation that is symbolised in the "Yah-boo, so are you" of the transitivist quarrel, the original form of aggressive communication'.
Erving Goffman
points out that every 'crack or remark set up the possibility of a counter-riposte, topper, or squelch, that is, a comeback' He cites the example of possible interchanges at a dance in a school gym:
Junior school often sees boys 'use sexual swear words and symbolic sexual gestures to unsettle and overtly intimidate girls'.
was a formalized sequence of literary insults: 'invective or flyting, the literary equivalent of the spell-binding curse, uses similar incantatory devices for opposite reasons, as in Dunbar
's Flyting with Kennedy '.
'A little-known survival of the ancient "flytings," or contests-in-insults of the Anglo-Scottish bards, is the type of xenophobic humor once known as "water wit" in which passengers in small boats crossing the Thames...would insult each other grossly, in all the untouchable safety of being able to get away fast'.
Samuel Johnson
once triumphed in such an exchange: 'a fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, "Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods"'.
, noting that 'almost any action can operate as an Insult Signal if it is performed out of its appropriate context - at the wrong time or in the wrong place' - classes such signals in ten 'basic categories: 1. Disinterest Signals...2. Boredom Signals...3. Impatience Signals...4. Superiority Signals...5. Deformed-compliment Signals...6. Mock-discomfort Signals...7. Rejection Signals....8. Mockery Signals...9. Symbolic Insults...10. Dirt Signals'.
Elizabethans took great interest in such analyses, distinguishing out, for example, the 'fleering frump...when we give a mock with a scornful countenance as in some smiling sort looking aside or by drawing the lip awry, or shrinking up the nose'. Shakespeare himself set up an insult-hierarchy of seven-fold 'degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct'.
statutes, is often a product of the subjective sense of the insulted party. However, insults to one person who might not mind such derogatory speech may indirectly insult others. Many states and local municipalities enforce prohibitions against rude, offensive or insulting speech, leaving citizens, law enforcement officers and courts to decide what is and what is not an insult. The concept of fighting words
as a form of prohibited speech has developed in the jurisprudence
of U.S. constitutional law
concerning terms of disparagement. However, the fighting words
exclusion is construed in an extraordinarily narrow manner, and only the type of insulting speech which is deemed "meaningless" can be suppressed. Speech containing significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific significance cannot be suppressed
(a test
known to attorneys and law students by the mnemonic device "slaps"), even if it is wantonly and maliciously insulting, demeaning, or even inciting of racial, ethnic, religious or sexual hatred.
or damage the psyche
. In humor, insults may be exchanged in much the same way as fighters exchange blows in training, to develop a resistance to the pain of mild injuries, or to spar with no real intention of causing any serious injury.
.
Situations also exist in which a person erroneously believes he or she has been insulted. For example, terms such as "Asian", "incorrect", "drunk", or "full-cheeked" are often interpreted as derogatory, when in fact they may be neutral descriptive terms or factual statements, which, at worst, would be simply inaccurate or incorrect rather than insulting. This phenomenon often occurs in individuals who suffer self-victimization or hypersensitivity.
What qualifies as an insult is also determined both by the indiviual social situation and by changing social mores
. Thus on the one hand the insulting 'obscene invitations of a man to a strange girl can be the spicy endearments of a husband to his wife'; on the other hand, the male gaze may be insulting in and of itself to a feminist, whereas a post-feminist might note more discriminatingly how 'his eyes took me in...[but] at least he didn't look at me offensively; and believe me, if you're a woman who works in a bar, you can tell the difference between an evaluation and an eye fuck'.
Exchange
LacanLacan
Lacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
considered insults a primary form of social interaction, central to the imaginary order - 'a situation that is symbolised in the "Yah-boo, so are you" of the transitivist quarrel, the original form of aggressive communication'.
Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer.The 73rd president of American Sociological Association, Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1959 book The Presentation of Self...
points out that every 'crack or remark set up the possibility of a counter-riposte, topper, or squelch, that is, a comeback' He cites the example of possible interchanges at a dance in a school gym:
- 'A one-liner: Boy: "Care to dance?" Girl: "No, I came here to play basketball" Boy: "Crumbles"
- A comeback: Boy: "Care to dance?" Girl: "No, I came here to play basketball" Boy: "Sorry, I should have guessed by the way you're dressed"'.
Sexual
'Verbal insults often take a phallic form. Almost all the really vicious swearwords we can use to hurl abuse at someone are sexual words...Visual insults follow the same trend'.Junior school often sees boys 'use sexual swear words and symbolic sexual gestures to unsettle and overtly intimidate girls'.
Formal
The flytingFlyting
Flyting or fliting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties.-Description:Flyting is a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word flītan meaning quarrel...
was a formalized sequence of literary insults: 'invective or flyting, the literary equivalent of the spell-binding curse, uses similar incantatory devices for opposite reasons, as in Dunbar
William Dunbar
William Dunbar was a Scottish poet. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie , where, too, it is hinted that he was a member of the noble house of Dunbar....
's Flyting with Kennedy '.
'A little-known survival of the ancient "flytings," or contests-in-insults of the Anglo-Scottish bards, is the type of xenophobic humor once known as "water wit" in which passengers in small boats crossing the Thames...would insult each other grossly, in all the untouchable safety of being able to get away fast'.
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
once triumphed in such an exchange: 'a fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, "Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods"'.
Anatomies
Various typologies of insults have been proposed over the years. Desmond MorrisDesmond Morris
Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...
, noting that 'almost any action can operate as an Insult Signal if it is performed out of its appropriate context - at the wrong time or in the wrong place' - classes such signals in ten 'basic categories: 1. Disinterest Signals...2. Boredom Signals...3. Impatience Signals...4. Superiority Signals...5. Deformed-compliment Signals...6. Mock-discomfort Signals...7. Rejection Signals....8. Mockery Signals...9. Symbolic Insults...10. Dirt Signals'.
Elizabethans took great interest in such analyses, distinguishing out, for example, the 'fleering frump...when we give a mock with a scornful countenance as in some smiling sort looking aside or by drawing the lip awry, or shrinking up the nose'. Shakespeare himself set up an insult-hierarchy of seven-fold 'degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct'.
Legal
Whether or not speech or behavior is insulting in practice, and sometimes by the terms of local assaultAssault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
statutes, is often a product of the subjective sense of the insulted party. However, insults to one person who might not mind such derogatory speech may indirectly insult others. Many states and local municipalities enforce prohibitions against rude, offensive or insulting speech, leaving citizens, law enforcement officers and courts to decide what is and what is not an insult. The concept of fighting words
Fighting words
Fighting words are written or spoken words, generally expressed to incite hatred or violence from their target. Specific definitions, freedoms, and limitations of fighting words vary by jurisdiction...
as a form of prohibited speech has developed in the jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
of U.S. constitutional law
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire, was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court articulated the fighting words doctrine, a limitation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.-Facts of the case:...
concerning terms of disparagement. However, the fighting words
Fighting words
Fighting words are written or spoken words, generally expressed to incite hatred or violence from their target. Specific definitions, freedoms, and limitations of fighting words vary by jurisdiction...
exclusion is construed in an extraordinarily narrow manner, and only the type of insulting speech which is deemed "meaningless" can be suppressed. Speech containing significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific significance cannot be suppressed
Miller v. California
Miller v. California, was an important United States Supreme Court case involving what constitutes unprotected obscenity for First Amendment purposes...
(a test
Miller test
The Miller test , is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.-History and details:The Miller test was developed in the...
known to attorneys and law students by the mnemonic device "slaps"), even if it is wantonly and maliciously insulting, demeaning, or even inciting of racial, ethnic, religious or sexual hatred.
Medical
The role of insults in the social sense may be better understood by an appreciation of how the term is used in a medical setting. Though a popular idiom refers to "adding insult to injury", in a medical context, they are one and the same: physicians examine injuries resulting from an insult to flesh and bones, caused by various traumatic events. In speech and in social settings, insults are words which tend to injureInjury
-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...
or damage the psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
. In humor, insults may be exchanged in much the same way as fighters exchange blows in training, to develop a resistance to the pain of mild injuries, or to spar with no real intention of causing any serious injury.
Perceptions of insults
Sociologists suggest that insults are often an indicator of flawed reasoning about the character or motivation of others. Though insults are common, and often used in jest, a fundamental axiom of sociology recognizes that derogatory forms of speech make erroneous attributions about the motivation of a person. Scholars classify the erroneous assumptions as the fundamental attribution errorFundamental attribution error
In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors...
.
Situations also exist in which a person erroneously believes he or she has been insulted. For example, terms such as "Asian", "incorrect", "drunk", or "full-cheeked" are often interpreted as derogatory, when in fact they may be neutral descriptive terms or factual statements, which, at worst, would be simply inaccurate or incorrect rather than insulting. This phenomenon often occurs in individuals who suffer self-victimization or hypersensitivity.
What qualifies as an insult is also determined both by the indiviual social situation and by changing social mores
Mores
Mores, in sociology, are any given society's particular norms, virtues, or values. The word mores is a plurale tantum term borrowed from Latin, which has been used in the English language since the 1890s....
. Thus on the one hand the insulting 'obscene invitations of a man to a strange girl can be the spicy endearments of a husband to his wife'; on the other hand, the male gaze may be insulting in and of itself to a feminist, whereas a post-feminist might note more discriminatingly how 'his eyes took me in...[but] at least he didn't look at me offensively; and believe me, if you're a woman who works in a bar, you can tell the difference between an evaluation and an eye fuck'.
Literature
- Thomas Conley: Toward a rhetoric of insult. University of Chicago Press, 2010, ISBN 0-226-11478-3.
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VD2-51PBJ21-1&_user=489256&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2011&_rdoc=2&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_origin=browse&_zone=rslt_list_item&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235970%232011%23999669996%233020754%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5970&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=11&_acct=C000022721&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=489256&md5=f94b3fbfef3504c7d540c69149e5bf56&searchtype=aCroom, Adam M. "Slurs." Language Sciences, Volume 33, Number 3, May 2011, pp. 343-358. Published by Elsevier].