Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC), Dr Paul Herzuarh, has urged Ghanaians to criticise the views and actions of public officials rather than attack them personally, saying the line between legitimate criticism and insults is crossed when comments are intended to demean or dehumanise an individual.
He said citizens should be able to express dissatisfaction with the President, ministers and parliamentary candidates without resorting to language that demeans or dehumanises them.
Speaking during a Joy Prime dialogue on the topic ‘The Politics of Insults: Where Do We Draw the Line?’, Dr Herzuarh said the key difference between legitimate criticism and an insult was whether a person was challenging an idea or attacking the individual behind it.
“If you make any statement that denigrates the interlocutor or the one that you’re addressing, if it brings the person down, dehumanises the person, that is an outright insult. So, this is the line,” he said.
He explained that criticism should focus on the substance of a person’s argument, opinion, or actions rather than using personal attacks to discredit them.
According to him, people who disagree with a public official or another individual should be free to challenge their views, provided they do so in a respectful manner.
“If you’re making any statement or you’re trying to criticise, you are criticising the idea or the opinion and not the person. That is the line,” he said.
Dr Herzuarh said disagreements were a normal part of public debate, particularly in a democratic society where citizens must be able to question decisions and hold political leaders accountable.
He said that people could strongly disagree with another person’s position without resorting to abusive language.
To illustrate the distinction, he said individuals could challenge an argument by explaining why they disagreed with it and what they considered wrong with the reasoning behind it.
“But if you come at my person and you begin to sidestep the whole issue and then you insult me by using certain words that will degrade or denigrate my person, that is an insult,” he said.
He said that the focus of public discussions should remain on the issues being debated rather than the personal characteristics of those expressing their views.
“We need to tackle the idea or the thing that is at stake and not the person who is making that statement,” he added.
The UniMAC lecturer urged Ghanaians to take the distinction seriously and focus their arguments on the issues at hand.