Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults PDF
Preview Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults
STICKS AND STONES This page intentionally left blank S S TICKS AND TONES The Philosophy of Insults jerome Neu 1 2008 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Neu, Jerome. Sticks and stones : the philosophy of insults / Jerome Neu. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-531431-1 1. Invective. I. Title. BF463.I58N48 2007 179—dc22 2007006256 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. —Children’s chant Words, like sticks and stones, can assault; they can injure; they can exclude. —Blurb for Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment A gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally. —Oscar Wilde I am enclosing two tickets to the fi rst night of my new play, bring a friend … if you have one. —George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill Cannot possibly attend fi rst night, will attend second . . . if there is one. —Winston Churchill, in reply Let’s give a welcome to macaca here. —Senator George Allen You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe! —Shakespeare, Henry IV,Part 2 II.1.56–57 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ever think, “I’ve never felt so insulted in my life”? And then, somewhat later, think it anew? Lovers will do that to you. At least some of them will. That is how I got into the subject. Such lovers are masters of your heart, and so masters of humiliation. They forget you and their com- mitments to you. They neglect you in favor of people they assure you don’t really matter. They disappoint expectations you didn’t even know you had. Of course, strangers can insult one too, but perhaps not repeatedly. One is less ready to forgive and more ready to back away. To insult is to assert or assume dominance, either intentionally claiming superiority or unintentionally revealing lack of regard. To be insulted is to suffer a shock, a disruption of one’s sense of self and one’s place in the world. To accept an insult is to submit, in certain worlds to be dishonored. How is one to retrieve self-respect? The schoolyard wisdom about “sticks and stones” does not take one very far: insults do not take the form only of words, in truth even words have effects, and in the end the popular as well as the standard legal distinctions between speech and conduct are at least as problematic as they are helpful. How are we to defend ourselves, if a chant won’t do it? While being insulted is painful, invulnerability to insult has its costs. Excessive servility, so that it is not possible for others to show one less respect than one feels for oneself, and excessive arrogance, so that the actions and attitudes of others are dismissed with the same contempt as viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS those others themselves are dismissed, are not attractive models for liv- ing. Neither, however, is an excessive sensitivity, so that one is always and readily insulted. It means that others must constantly walk on eggshells to protect one’s delicate sensibilities or pander to one’s self-importance. On the other hand, an excessive self-suffi ciency, so that the concerns of others cease to be of concern to one, makes one equally insufferable. Where is the Aristotelian mean that will tell us just how sensitive and vulnerable to insult it makes sense to be? The conventions of etiquette, morality, and the law, as well as the counsels of religion, provide us with norms and guidelines that are of some help, but they too are subject to critique and raise issues of their own. For example: What is it exactly to look at someone “the wrong way”? How, given that our legal system both values freedom of speech and is concerned to prevent harm, offense, and emotional distress caused by speech, are we to delimit protected groups and unprotected speech? Who may insult whom and how? And what is it to “respect” another religion? Must one follow its dictates? Must one follow all of those dic- tates (whether having to do with depictions of Muhammad or the eating of pork)? To fi nd guidance on how to live in the world with the many others who impinge on our boundaries, to think about how much we should put up with those who would put us down, it is necessary to explore the nature and place of insult in our lives. What kind of injury is an insult? Is its infl iction determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal of the character of each and of the character of society and its conventions? What is its role in social and legal life (from play to jokes to ritual to war and from blasphemy to defamation to hate speech)? In what follows, I emphasize philosophical, anthropological, psychoana- lytic, and legal approaches to these questions. I much appreciate the encouragement and suggestions of Peter Ohlin, my editor at Oxford University Press. A version of the fi nal chap- ter of this book was previously published in Sharon Lamb and Jeffrie Murphy, eds., Before Forgiving: Cautionary Views of Forgiveness in Psychotherapy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Able research assistance was provided by Thomas Del Monte and Gary Maushardt. I have also benefi ted from the participants in a seminar, “On Insults” (not a “how-to” course), that I have taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz over recent years. Carter Wilson, as always, has been par- PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix ticularly generous with helpful comments and feedback. Finally, while their names are too numerous to mention, I am grateful to all those who have shared their thoughts on insults and also to those who have, however unintentionally, given me occasion to think about the place of slights, slurs, slander, and yet deeper wounds in the lives we, sometimes uneasily and uncomfortably, lead together.
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