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Tricky Q! One that I would ignore if I did not have a great deal of respect for the Asker.

As for personal insults and compliments--well, that's too personal. Even given the anonymity of Y!A. Especially given the brazen anonymity of Y!A. To share them with you publicly would be an insult to your sensitivity; to share them with you privately would be a compliment to your sensitivity. As priests, psychiatrists, and parents know, confidentiality is a compliment and public disclosure is an insult.

So to generalize--and generalize only--my worst personal insults were experienced as a child or adolescent, and I am still too bitter about them and their effect upon me to expose you to my hostility, probably even unforgivable hatred. Did I retaliate in kind? Oh, most certainly I would have if I could have. But years and so many sensitive others later I hope one can become an adult who attempts to protect other children and adolescents from similar suffering.

My best compliment by far was when the woman I love loved me in return and agreed to become my wife. For love is the greatest compliment, and mutual submission the highest praise. Beyond that, compliments are merely words and to repeat them would be to expose hearers to a false sense of pride and egotism that I could not muster. In other words, I can't remember any such compliments that didn't seem to me to be exaggerations.

Now, let's proceed to a much more important dimension of your question: public insults to a people and public compliments to our humanity.

The greatest insult I can think of is when political leaders (or would-be leaders) lie and lie and lie and spin and spin and spin and expect us (like the masses who responded to Hitler and his minions) to accept what they say because they repeat it over and over again, regardless of its truth--even when it is obviously and unashamedly untrue and irrational. You are all fools, they seem to say, and we can treat you like fools and still manipulate you to follow us docilely. Public media--reporters, commentators, editors, reviewers--who simply pass along the lies and the spins not only insult their readers; they accept the grossest insult of all to their own intelligence, honesty, and sense of responsibility. It would not be difficult to name any number of contemporary politicians guilty of such insults. It would not be easy to name very many among the media who have refused to accept such insults but have even emphasized them.

Truth tellers, especially those who trust us to hear and understand unpleasant truths, compliment us mightily. Like, yes, Edward R. Murrow and Bill Moyers and Keith Olbermann and, oh yes, even Molly Ivins.

But the greatest compliment of all is that of artists who trust someone out there somewhere to receive and respond genuinely to the work they have thrown themselves into: poets and composers, musicians and actors, choreographers and dancers, painters and sculptors, orators and essayists, storytellers and singers.

When Gustav Mahler gave strangers his Resurrection Symphony, when Sylvia Plath wrote "Black Rook in Rainy Weather," when Leontyne Price sang night after night and Mikhail Baryshnikov leapt time after time, when Martin Luther King spoke and Dame Judith Anderson read her lines, they complimented those whom they did not know--strangers in the night--but whom they trusted with their efforts. Bravo!

Our applause cannot compliment their artistry as sincerely and as vigorously as their work compliments our humanity.

2006-11-14 19:21:58 · answer #1 · answered by bfrank 5 · 0 0

Worst insult replaced into from somebody in my family individuals. no longer saying what or from whom. i did no longer retaliate because of the fact coping with them could have been previous the scope of rational discourse, futile. And might have wasted my time and carried out no longer something. the best compliment I easily have won has come from distinctive pals of mine to the track of "i'm commemorated to have this variety of being concerned, compassionate, sensible, open-minded buddy"

2016-10-21 10:33:21 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

worst insult...my brother called me a whore, I didn't retaliate, I was just sad

Best compliment...When my boyfriend says he loves me :)) and yes I "retaliate" lol

2006-11-13 13:08:14 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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