A lot of disparaging comments express real things. Coward, racist, flip floper, unprincipled. These exists and are also disparaging.
I think that if you start with assumption of two sides and your question forces the person to be in one, then you already stopped being nuanced. Because the other side are those whose views are as far from mine as possible by definition.
I think insults definitely have utility. They're persuasive tools that cut through cruft...but they're also opinions. It's not a "fact" that someone is being cowardly, for example...that's just an observational opinion. From a certain point of view, someone can seem like a coward and from another point of view they can seem heroic. These are perceptual things...so they're not facts.
How is that not a possible fact? And also, if you exclude observational opinions, then it is impossible to full fill your "describe the other side" demand. Because when you ask someone to describe someone else, you are literally asking for a bunch of observational opinions.
Disparaging and insult is not really the same. To go to clear extreme, I can be disparaging of Goring or Himmler without going out of my way of being insulting. Just by telling the truth about what they did, believed and who they were.
I think that if you start with assumption of two sides and your question forces the person to be in one, then you already stopped being nuanced. Because the other side are those whose views are as far from mine as possible by definition.