The Death of the Insult There was a time when being called an idiot was not a public-health emergency. You were called an idiot. You called the other person an idiot. Perhaps you argued, perhaps you fought, perhaps you laughed, had a beer and forgot about it. That may sound primitive. It was also a social technology. In traditional honor culture, an insult was a challenge: if someone attacked your status, you were expected to answer. Men in particular developed cultures of teasing, mockery and competitive abuse in which the ability to give and take an insult could itself demonstrate confidence. Then came dignity culture, with a liberating idea: you don’t have to care what everyone thinks of you. An insult does not necessarily diminish you. Someone else’s contempt does not become your inferiority simply because they express it. Now something else is emerging. Sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning describe victimhood culture, in which interpersonal offences increasingly become public grievances. The offended party seeks recognition, an audience and sometimes institutional intervention. The old question was: “Are you going to say that to my face?” The dignity question was: “Why should I care what you think?” The new question increasingly seems to be: “Who can I report this to?” This may illuminate an uncomfortable gender difference. Men have historically been more permitted to insult and confront one another directly, while women have often had greater incentives to avoid direct confrontation and use social pressure, criticism and complaint. Neither pattern is exclusively male or female, but cultural habits matter. The danger is a society so determined to protect people from offence that it forgets to teach them how to withstand it. There is a difference between being harmed and being insulted, between injustice and discomfort, and between demanding justice and demanding that nobody make you uncomfortable. We may have travelled from honor, to dignity, to grievance. And perhaps the most subversive sentence left is also the simplest: “Yes, he insulted you. So what?”
Ondřej Marek
[Thread] [1/6] Je pense que l’on peut désormais affirmer que la France traverse la plus grandes catastrophe agricole nationale depuis 1945. Sans aide publique, 30 000 à 35 000 exploitations pourraient se retrouver en situation de faillite, soit près de 10 % des exploitations agricoles françaises. C’est monstrueux. Les conditions climatiques exceptionnelles que nous connaissons aujourd’hui se rapprochent de ce qui deviendra beaucoup plus fréquent, voire ordinaire, dans les prochaines décennies. 2026 sera dans la moyenne de 2050. Nous connaîtrons encore des années plus chaudes et plus extrêmes que 2026. Le constat devient donc difficile à éviter : notre modèle agricole n’est pas suffisamment préparé au changement climatique qui arrive. C’est aussi le résultat d’un échec politique collectif : les gouvernements successifs n’ont pas suffisamment pris la mesure de l’ampleur des bouleversements que le changement climatique impose déjà, et imposera demain, à notre agriculture. Il ne s’agit plus seulement de réparer les dégâts après chaque sécheresse, canicule ou mauvaise récolte. Il faut désormais engager une transformation structurelle de notre agriculture. Voici les pertes de rendement les plus fiables que j'ai pu trouver par rapport à la moyenne de 5 dernières années (uniquement pour les cultures de printemps et d'été). #Agriculture #ChangementClimatique #France
