I might be missing something, but it seems to me like the easier thing to do in a culture where you might have to back insults up with violence is to... not ins

I might be missing something, but it seems to me like the easier thing to do in a culture where you might have to back insults up with violence is to... not insult people. I mean, I agree that dueling is not something that we'd want politicians to do, generally, but one of the intended effects of it is to reduce just that sort of casual disrespect that harms group unity (and yes, I'm aware that "group unity" among a ruling class is a dangerous thing to the proletariat - see, for example, insider trading laws not applying to them). If you have a problem with someone, you keep it to yourself or deal with the matter privately between the two of you. To publicly insult someone meant something far more serious when there was a social expectation to put your life on the line for the insult. Again, not a fan of dueling, just steelmanning it. Giving more power (in terms of freedom to express oneself in a political context) to the more martial members of the ruling class would likely be a very dangerous thing, but I just wanted to point out that that specific example is something that dueling is meant to eliminate. Certain societies enforce politeness (with big, big air quotes over "enforce" for some) with social opprobrium and centuries of precedent. Others enforce it with threat of force (as others have pointed out, honor/warrior cultures tend to default to this). Having it not be enforced at all is interesting, and I wonder if over time rifts between factions will only deepen due to mutual disrespect. I wonder what effects that will have on public trust in the institution (already not at great levels, I'm aware).