CULTURE

The Death Of The Insult

As our culture changes, our language changes, for better or worse.

Image comp by the author.

I don’t know what the world is coming to, but I don’t think we’re doing much to help the next generation on their way. As Lt Col Frank Slade once snarled, I fear we’re not exactly preparing the minnows for manhood.

We seem to be getting rather soft even as the world feels a little spikier every year. It’s hard to know how we will survive as a species if this keeps up. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s almost as if it’s no longer culturally permissible to ridicule, mock, shame, disparage, deride or denigrate your fellow man any more.

In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think maybe we were being called on to no longer belittle, diminish, deprecate, cast aspersions on, decry, criticize, attack, speak ill of, sully, defame, slander, libel, besmirch, run down, abuse, insult, slight, revile, malign, or vilify another human being — not even our sworn enemies.

This, of course, just seems — well, wrong.

How else will they know how stupid, ignorant, dense, brainless, mindless, foolish, witless, slow, simpleminded, vacuous, vapid, halfwitted, idiotic, moronic, imbecilic, obtuse, doltish, gullible, naive, thick, dim, dumb, dopey, dozy, crazy, cretinous, birdbrained…