Well, I read an article once discussing the social good of cursing each other. The essence was this:
Yes, it's an attempt to do harm. You're mad at someone, perhaps they wronged you, and you want something bad to happen to them. So ask a demon to spoil their grain, or to tear their clothes. (In other words, pray that entropy will happen - you can't go wrong!) If you didn't have demons you could ask for help and you were motivated to do them harm, you'd have to take matters into your own hands. By slandering them or harassing them or attacking them. Much better for society that we genuinely believe we can get our revenge by not doing anything at all.
This is a very profound point. We have to actually live with each other, and even for small groups, frictions arise. As the groups get larger and larger, friction intensifies. There has to be some way to blow off steam.
Kind of like how instead of cities fighting each other, we have their sports teams fight each other in a ritualized, ersatz combat.
Yes, it's an attempt to do harm. You're mad at someone, perhaps they wronged you, and you want something bad to happen to them. So ask a demon to spoil their grain, or to tear their clothes. (In other words, pray that entropy will happen - you can't go wrong!) If you didn't have demons you could ask for help and you were motivated to do them harm, you'd have to take matters into your own hands. By slandering them or harassing them or attacking them. Much better for society that we genuinely believe we can get our revenge by not doing anything at all.
Struggling to find the article now though...