Insult (humanities)

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Insult generally refers to an act that goes against the honor of another subject (person) in the sense of an intended degradation. Different humanities define insult differently; legal theory treats it as an honor offense . In Germany, " insult " is considered a criminal offense, in Switzerland it is treated as " abuse ".

sociology

In sociology , insult as symbolic violence is researched primarily in the context of violence research.

"An insult is a linguistic or physical act through which a subject is symbolically harmed."

- Steffen K. Herrmann : Violence - An interdisciplinary manual

Insults, obscene gestures and physical assault are typical forms of expression. In order to capture the individual aspects of the offense, it can be broken down into four components, into which many forms of violence can be broken down.

  1. Acting subject
  2. Act of violence by the acting subject
  3. Suffering subject
  4. Injury to the suffering subject

The main difference between the insult and other acts of violence is that the act of violence and the injury are essentially symbolic in nature. One point of criticism of sociological research into insult is that precisely because of this symbolic character, insult does not come into the focus of violence research or is merely derived as a secondary phenomenon from physical violence.

Concept history

In the medium of language , abuse is considered an archetype of insult. The term injurie shows that the insult can take place in the medium of physical injury in addition to language .

In early modern law, a distinction is made between real injuria and verbal injuria. Goes back to the Latin iniuria . In Roman law, the term Iniuria was still generally used for injustice. Today Injurie stands in German for a violation of honor.

The inclusion of physical violence in the area of ​​insult is intended to emphasize the fact that in addition to the purely physical act of hurting another person, an attack on the person's integrity always takes place at the same time. Pushing a person's face into the dirt or bringing a person to their knees are examples of such acts aimed at symbolically hurting the other.

Social consequences of the insult

Just as the marriage of a priest as a symbolic act can bring about the social status of marriage , other symbolic acts can also change the social status of a person in society . This characteristic is called the logic of displacement. This shift in location can also be seen in everyday linguistic descriptions of insults: degradation, humiliation or devaluation.

In general, the consequences of an insult can be divided into two main categories. Once the exclusion from the social participation of a group, the disintegration; and on the other hand, the positioning on the axis of superiority and inferiority, in which the value of the subject is the focus.

Power of insult

Three categories are discussed which are suitable for classifying the strength or power of an insult. The authority of the position from which one speaks, the authority of the audience and the social classifications.

The authority of the offender no longer allows him to speak as an individual , but places behind him the authority in whose name he speaks. Depending on the social position of this authority, the power of the insult can increase.

The audience attending the insult makes the insult public . Only through being public can an insult lead to social reality in which the person concerned suffers social consequences through the actions of the public.

However, what gives an insult its power in individual cases can ultimately only be determined in an analysis of the individual case. There are limits to the theoretical categorization of the conditions that give an insult strength, power or weight. None of these three categories can guarantee the success of an insult. The opposite can be the case. An insult in a two-way situation without an audience, for example, can outweigh a public insult.

Dialogicity

Once the addressee of the insult has been reached, the addressee is almost always given the opportunity to respond to the words addressed to him. In this dialogue between questions and answers, there can be an inferior or a balance of forces takes place. The balance of forces takes place when the response to an insult is of equal force. If the answer is more powerful than that of the original insult, an escalative dynamic can arise. Using the example of the Ehrduell, one can see that symbolic violence in the form of an insult can come to a head in dialogue up to a fight for life and limb.

Another way of dealing with an insult is resignification by the suffering subject. It does not counteract the insult with another force, but changes the self-attribution of the insult into a positive one. An example is the term “ queer ”, which in the Anglo-American area has changed from a condescending term for homosexuals to a proud self- term .

The dialogicity of the insult also leads to the use of insulting strategies to avoid a retort. Forms are disbelief of the counterpart or rhetorical means such as allusion or irony, which shift the insult to a connotative level and make it contestable. Another form is the acoustic topping through volume , which can lead to overwhelming due to the physical reaction of the person concerned.

Vulnerability through insult

Vulnerability to insult arises from the role of honor and reputation in the life of the suffering subject.

The vocabulary that is used to describe the symbolic violation of an insult has changed in the past. For a long time the term "defamation" was used throughout. Today it is widely regarded as an anachronism . In its place came the term "hurt". The reason for this is the structural change from a traditional society to a modern society. The social good "reputation" aimed at by the insult is opposed to the social good "honor" to which the defamation refers. The change is a result of the change in the normative background conception towards a higher valuation of the social good “reputation”.

literature

sociology

  • Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An Interdisciplinary Handbook . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 110-115 .

philosophy

  • Steffen K. Herrmann, Sybille Krämer , Hannes Kuch (eds.): Hurtful words - the grammar of linguistic disregard . Transcript, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-565-9 (collection of articles).
  • Sybille Krämer , Elke Koch (ed.): Violence in language - rhetoric of hurtful speech . Fink, Paderborn / Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7705-4933-7 (conference publication, 2006, Berlin).
  • Hannes Kuch, Steffen K. Herrmann (eds.): Philosophies of linguistic violence - 21 basic positions from Plato to Butler . 1st edition. Weilerswist, Velbrück Wiss. 2010, ISBN 978-3-938808-98-6 .

Literary studies

  • Jutta Eming, Claudia Jarzebowski (Ed.): Bloody Words - International and Interdisciplinary Colloquium on the Relationship between Language and Violence in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times . V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89971-400-5 (conference publication, 2006, Berlin).

History

law Sciences

  • Catharine Alice MacKinnon : Just words . From the American by Susanne Baer. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994 (English: Only words .).

Web links

Wiktionary: insult  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikiquote: Insult  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary handbook . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 110 .
  2. ^ A b Jan Philipp Reemtsma : Trust and violence - attempt on a special constellation of modernity . 1st edition. Hamburger Ed., Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-936096-89-7 .
  3. ^ A b c Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary manual . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 111-112 .
  4. ^ A b Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary manual . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 112 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary handbook . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 113 .
  6. ↑ Pierre Bourdieu : What does it mean to speak? - On the economy of linguistic exchange . 2nd Edition. Braumüller, Vienna 2005, ISBN 978-3-7003-1518-6 , pp. 99 ff .
  7. ↑ Harold Garfinkel : Conditions for the success of demotion ceremonies . In: D. Klimke, A. Legnaro (Hrsg.): Kriminologische Grundlagentexte . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-658-06504-1_9 (English: Studies in Ethnomethodology . 1967.).
  8. ^ A b c Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary manual . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 113-114 .
  9. ^ A b Christian Gudehus, Michaela Christ: Violence - An interdisciplinary manual . 1st edition. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-05296-4 , pp. 114-115 .
  10. ↑ Axel Honneth : Struggle for Recognition - On the moral grammar of social conflicts . 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 978-3-518-58128-5 , pp. 199 .