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Name Calling and Other Policies

Stanko & Tibor - Name Calling


Name Calling – Because It Works

A simple yet universally true observation of human behavior: Whenever you are walking anywhere, any place, and there are others afoot around you, you say to yourself “what’s with this moron who is walking too slowly and blocking my  progress?!! Idiot.” Conversely, the person who flies past you at a much greater pace, on his or her way to somewhere important like the toilet or the casino, is inevitably met with the thought “why is that jerk face in such a rush?? What a bipedal asshat he is.” You resort to name calling.

It’s such a natural human behaviour to apply a derogative label to someone you don’t agree with or think is somehow making your life worse. It also applies to people who don’t agree with your view on life, or politics, or any other facet of existence. You call them names because we cannot all just get along. But why do we do it, when we as a species really ought to be trying to chill out and not be so aggressive?

Name calling is so liberating and energizing! Don’t like someone’s religion? They are zealots. They are atheist? They are dirty heretics. Don’t like a country’s leader? Call him (it’s almost always a ‘him’ except for Eva Perón and my 9th grade math teacher) a filthy fascist! Or a dirty communist. Or an inbreed. Or a buck-toothed, cross-eyed yokel. (Note: yokels per se aren’t usually blessed with good access to dental care plans , so that’s not really a fair name calling strategy.)

Whether it be political, financial, sexual or religious orientation, humans have come up with some kind of nasty name to call the other person. And man, does it feel good!

Name Calling – Creativity for All

Name calling is not just convenient for letting off mental steam, and not just because it lets anyone feel superior to anyone else by demeaning the other person. Name calling isn’t just for the short-temepered, uneducated boobs among us. It’s a wonderful form of creative expression open to all (except probably the deaf & mute contingent). As proof, there’s a fantastic Shakespeare Insult Kit you can peruse online. It’s WAY more useful than working at your day job. I’ve heard. Dare I say, it’s a form of abusive art. Kind of like this comic. But I digress.

When have you ever not felt elated and all tingly about calling someone a nasty name? Never, that’s when. It’s such a great outlet. And less costly, most of the time, than shooting a gun. So it could be said that shooting off your mouth is less damaging than shooting off your gun. But I’d have to do some in-depth research involving a gallon of whiskey, some cheap ammunition and profanity-laced episode of Archer to be sure.

Some of the most creative, hurtful, demeaning descriptors I have ever heard were uttered by my father, usually while in traffic. In fact, I seem to recall most name calling and epithet hurling occurred where there were many humans in a crowded space. My goodness – if name calling is a result of high human density, that would explain why genuine New Yorkers are such jerks. I can barely imagine the name calling that goes on iat Costco on a Saturday… such a commercial use of words.

Words Matter. Mostly.

And words do matter, people. Concepts we verbalize or print have tremendous power. If you’re branded “a fat bag of gaseous impotent rage” (a.k.a. Prezeedent Donnie Trump), you’re not going to like it.  Call Vladimir Putin “a soulless, conniving killer who’d murder his own  grandmother if she looked at him crooked” then you’d merely be stating a fact, which is not so much name calling.

I would argue strenuously (as long as it wasn’t too strenuous and made me sweat) that humans cannot live without name calling. Many studies have shown that when you try to convince people of your point of view – with facts, no less, the opposite turns out to be the case. They dig in their metaphorical heels and refuse to believe you even more, no mater how much evidence you give them.

So why spend all that effort gathering fake news or real facts to get someone to agree with you? Way too much effort. Stick with name calling and be done with it.

Name Calling Is Genetic

I would argue based on scant research that name calling is genetically built in to humans. Look at the letters of the genetic code: A, U, G and C. And also sometimes T. If you rearrange them, you get “UGAC” – which derives from Bugac, which is a village in Bács-Kiskun county, in the Southern Great Plain region of southern Hungary. [Editor’s Note: He’s not lying, I fact-checked this and he didn’t make this up.] Anyone who knows anything about Bugacian Hungarians know they are the biggest name callers on the planet and must have been the originators of epithet hurling when they were cavemen. See? It’s in our genetic code!! [Editor’s Note: Now he’s lying big-time.]

I’ll bet you that even the sweetest Buddhist monk, the kindest most peace-loving Bahai, the laziest, most rational atheist couldn’t go half an hour without calling someone, somewhere a nasty name.

The Takeaway

So what is the take-away from this scientifically unfounded rant? Is it that the pleasures of a properly uttered series of insulting words is necessary for the human being to psychologically cope with the mass of genetic stupidity that is the human race (at least when there are no firearms present)? Could it be that there is a primordial need to feel better about ourselves by denigrating others with hurtful descriptors? Or have we reached an age in societal development that now forces us to resort to name calling so as to deal with the tsunami of horrible news that floods our airwaves and media? Or are we just all idiots?

Frankly, you’re all a bunch of half-wit morons for reading this swill.

Lovingly short of sleep and full of sinus issues,

Bugac Druker

I call people nasty names because...