Comment on Rationality Lessons Learned from Irrational Adventures in Romance

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:02:35 GMT

On the other hand, I don't think the author was collecting cross cultural material, so I don't know what insults/shame looks like in cultures where religious prejudice is a larger factor.

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but insult content varies quite a bit across cultures. Dutch profanity is largely medical, for example; kankerlijer ("cancer-sufferer") is very strong. I've heard speculation that this is due to the largely urban landscape that Dutch evolved in, where being a vector of infection (never mind that most causes of cancer aren't infectious) meant being a clear danger to the community.

So religious insults seem plausible in any culture that takes religion especially seriously. Spanish profanity has retained a lot of religious content; I don't know much about its evolution, but it could plausibly be related to Spanish-speaking culture's historically strong Catholicism.

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