Sticks and Stones

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. This schoolyard rhyme projects an invulnerability to verbal insults that sounds good but rings false. Indeed the need for such a verse belies its own claims. For most of us feeling insulted is a distressing-and distressingly common-experience Sticks and Stones philosopher Jerome Neu probes the nature purpose and effects of insults exploring how and why they humiliate embarrass infuriate and wound us so deeply. What kind of injury is an insult? Is it determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal about the character of both parties as well as the character of society and its conventions? What role does insult play in social and legal life? When is telling the truth an insult? Neu draws upon a wealth of examples and anecdotes-as well as a range of views from Aristotle and Oliver Wendell Holmes to Oscar Wilde John Wayne Katharine Hepburn and many others-to provide surprising answers to these questions. He shows that what we find insulting can reveal much about our ideas of character honor gender the nature of speech acts and social and legal conventions. He considers how insults both intentional and unintentional make themselves felt-in play Freudian slips insult humor rituals blasphemy libel slander and hate speech. And he investigates the insult''s extraordinary power why it can so quickly destabilize our sense of self and threaten our moral identity the very center of our self-respect and self-esteem.Entertaining humorous and deeply insightful Sticks and Stones unpacks the fascinating dynamics of a phenomenon more often painfully experienced than clearly understood.