Essay: Where Have All the Insults Gone?

Trentino: I did not come here to be insulted. Firefly: That's what you think. —Duck Soup

In an age when the uptight are continually exhorted to let it all hang out and be in touch with their feelings, it is curious that no one calls anyone else a Byzantine logothete any more. That is what Teddy Roosevelt called Woodrow Wilson; and, while a Byzantine logothete is not the worst thing you can say about someone—it means a glorified accountant—it does suggest a certain largesse of contempt that is missing from modern life. A government official is fired from a...

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