In a conversation between two people, what function(s) do insults have?
Do these functions change when the conversation expands to a group of three or more people?
Insults usually emerge when one’s “will to power” has been stiffled and the agent lacks the self-discipline to hide his/her failure of lording it over the object in question.
As for what functions insults serve, basically a catharsis and another form of “will to power”, also entertainment for those who watch the spectacle.
Can we then qualify insults as a manifestation of the frustration response?
What is this will to power business?
Read Nietzsche.
I would definately say yes.
Insults can carry many motives.
The most classic one is to put down someone else so that the person who makes the insults wouldn’t feel so bad about him/herself. My personal experience would support this claim since I’ve met many people like that. Of course that is not to say that is the only reason.
Insults can be an act of frustration and anger. Not being able to win an arguement, to counter the opponents wit often leads to undermining the person making the arguement. That is however a logical fallancy since arguement’s worth is not measured by its conjurer. It’s like saying that 1+1 does not equal 2 if a stupid person said that. Unfortunately it is usually so that people think that the person has to have some credibility to back up the claims, therefore undermining that credibility can lead to victory.
It can be an attempt to claim power over someone else. Bullying is a good example but insults can often be used in various groups to ascertain superiority (like contests between friends of different factions).
Insults are often disguised as jokes thus making it more socially acceptable. Kinda like how Finns joke about all the Swedes being gay. This joke stems from the fact that Finland was for a long time part of the kingdom of Sweden and because Swedes are more tolerable against homosexuals. We don’t really think that all Swedes are gay but there is always a kind of an arch rivalry between our two countries.
This question is rated PG:
“What is this will to power business?”
…suppose, finally, we succeeded in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one basic form of the will–namely, of the will to power, as my proposition has it… then one would have gained the right to determine all efficient force univocally as–will to power. The world viewed from inside… it would be “will to power” and nothing else.
– Nietzsche
It is a pathological description of existence. Maybe even better described as ontological. It envelops both the greek atomistic theories (the materialism starting with Aristotle I believe) and the idealisms invented from Plato to Descartes. The reason why Nietzsche’s WTP is so popular is because it is interchangeable and accomodates any and all teleological models of reality. It is not a “moral” dictation, nor is it epistemological; there are no problems with it, it isn’t contradictive or paradoxical. Both the material world, and the “spiritual” world, if it exists, follows this one basic principle in its activity as an existing thing; it seeks to expand and preserve its existence. Even what might be considered destructive forces are forms of the WTP. If the universe is infinite, then true entropy cannot exist; there would be no such thing as destruction in principle…it would be only a process of reorganization and change. An individual instance of power can be considered “destructive” only if it is contrasted to a whole necessary organization that is superior to the individual point. But this is not the case; all individuals and particulars are a manifestation of the general rule of the WTP, which supercedes teleology. There is no such thing as “conflict” in the universe. Only in perspective does it arrive. It is the bite of conscience.