Quote Originally Posted by The Stranger View Post
im sorry Sasaki, but i think that only moves the problem from who decides what an insult is to what is beautiful/art/true.
No not really. It just means that the truth is relevant to whether something is an insult. The issue could have been something other than art. For example, the issue could have been immature behavior. Something that is commonly perceived as an insult is giving advice or a bit of a lecture to someone who you think is being immature. Whether they are actually immature is very important with regards to whether it is an insult. Although possibly a teenager telling an old person that they are being immature is an insult no matter whether it is true.

also the tactfully you but between () is interesting, because that hints at convention and culture. As you will hear frag say many times, dutch people are considere to be blunt, to the point of rudeness, but why is telling the truth bluntly any worse than telling it tactfully? Asides from the obvious pragmatism, which is only a result of us aparantly not being able to cope with blunt truths, I dont see a principal point that can be made.
I just say tactfully there because sometimes people say something like that in a nasty way. You can be blunt without being insulting. If you say something bluntly but obviously no disrespect is intended people won't usually be offended.

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basically it depends and you have to decide on a case by case basis. It's actually almost never hard to tell whether something is an insult unless you have a bad theory about intent being required, or the person being offended being sufficient, or something like that.