On Insults

Inside and outside of the church, insults are often condemned outright or discouraged because of the animosity they might stir up even if they are not slanderous insults.  The reason is almost always emotionalistic discomfort or a slippery slope concern for what might happen after the insult is made.  Sometimes any insult at all is considered to be an ad hominem fallacy.  Criticizing people can be done without insulting them, but is there something irrational or evil about insults in themselves?  First, it needs to be understood that not all insults are the same.  Some are objectively irrelevant or meant to misrepresent ideas or people and some are objectively accurate in a given case.  The latter kind does not entail any sort of automatic philosophical ineptitude on the part of the one making the insult.

Insulting someone is not an ad hominem fallacy unless someone is slanderously attacking another person (which applies even if they do not verbalize their misconceptions or false accusations, as fallacies are not words, but errors in grasping what does and does not logically follow from something) or rejecting an idea because a person one dislikes put it forth.  Calling an irrational person irrational or a hypocrite a hypocrite is not an ad hominem unless the one who thinks of them in this way is using fallacies of their own in the process.  Focusing on irrational people more than true and false concepts is still misguided, but an ad hominem fallacy is not being used unless someone literally is slanderous or against ideas because of the people they are associated with, as opposed to being against people because of the ideas they themselves profess or live out.

Then there are insults that are not even accurate the majority of the time they are used.  Calling a woman a "whore" for doing something other than actually engaging in prostitution is an example of an idiotic insult that cannot be deserved because the concept behind the normal usage of the word is not relevant.  Calling a man "lazy" for being content as a stay-at-home father is another example, as well as calling someone with mental illnesses "crazy" (irrational) for something that does not reflect their philosophical beliefs or that is not within their realm of control or calling someone a "Nazi" just to make them sound politically appalling.  These insults and others like them are irrational because they are rooted in a misunderstanding of what it means to be a whore (to have sex with clients for money), lazy (to be unwilling to do what one needs to out of total apathy towards even important things), crazy (to make assumptions or believe in logically impossible, unprovable, or unexamined ideas), or a Nazi (to literally believe in Aryan racial supremacy and nationalism at the same time).

Nevertheless, belittling an irrationalist by publicly or privately calling them stupid, inconsistent, or philosophically incompetent, even without caring if they are deeply hurt by hearing this, is not irrational at all.  There is nothing erroneous about the charges and the only way someone could object is by appealing to utterly irrelevant things like conscience or social norms encouraging superficial kindness.  Unless it happens to be morally obligatory to avoid trying to wound someone with honest words in order to break their delusions, there could be nothing problematic about this.  Of course, many people do not want honesty, only to feel comfortable or validated in whatever preferred beliefs and lifestyles they currently hold to.  Their dislike of purposeful but accurate insults does not make it irrational or immoral to call them what they are or even enjoy making them uncomfortable by doing so.

Calling someone negative word with a common meaning that actually fits their worldview or actions--whether the intent is to truthfully confront or identify them or to go further and bring an unrepentant person emotional pain--is bound to make one unpopular in some circles, but there is nothing truly objectionable about it.  There can be nothing wrong with honesty because otherwise it is true that one should not understand or communicate the truth, which is, of course, contradictory.  The real issue with insults that does not reduce down to someone's subjective dislike is that many of them are not used in a consistent or accurate way.  Hurting someone's feelings intentionally or unintentionally is not at all the problem as far as what can be logically proven goes.  It is the irrationality of trying to misrepresent people and ideas that is the only inherently erroneous part of how many use insults.