One has only to read William Cowper Brann's writings in "The Iconoclast", his newspaper, to appreciate his strong feelings about what was wrong in the church (Baptist @ Waco, Texas), politics (debate on gold and silver standards, as well as the petty politicians of the day), prohibition, humbugs and hypocrites. Irreverent, hell no! Would that we had a few journalist that could joust the windmills of current opinion today.
In Brann's own words; "I have been frequently called an iconoclast, and bad as the title is popularly supposed to be, I trust it is not altogether undeserved. I have striven to break foolish idols and shatter false ideals, to hurl unclean gods from their pedestals in the public pantheon. A work of destruction is not, I admit, of a high order. Anybody may destroy; it requires genius to build up. The wonder of the ancient world sank to ruin irremediable beneath the torch of a morbid dude who rather be "damned to everlasting fame" than altogether forgotten. A hungry wolf may destroy a human life which Almighty God has brought to perfection thro' long years of labor. But destruction is sometimes necessary. The seas must be cleared of pirates before commerce can flourish; the antiquated and useless building must come down before the school house or business block can occupy the site. In the great cities are men who do nothing but destroy old buildings - professional wreckers of those works of man that have outlived their usefulness. They build nothing; but are they, therefore, to be condemned? So in the social world, a man may be a professional wrecker, without the constructive ability to build a political platform on a pie crate and still be useful, indispensable. The wrecker of bad buildings does not contract to put good ones in their places; nor is the iconoclast under any obligation to find a heavenly grace for every false god that falls beneath his hammer, a saint for every sinner he holds up to scorn, a new truth for every old falsehood he fells to earth. He may, if he thinks proper, leave that labor to others and go on, with brand and bomb, bludgeon and bill-hook, wrecking destroying - playing John the Baptist to a greater to come after."
From Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms; "Iconoclast (etymologically, an image breaker, originally one of a party of insurgents in the Eastern Church in the 8th and 9th centuries who opposed the use of icons) ... is now applied in an extended sense to a person who violently attacks an established belief, a venerated custom, a highly respected tradition, or the like, as an obstacle to reform or progress or as a mere fetish."
Brann was also a humorist but he liked to put the shiv between the blades whenever possible. Naughty, no. Unless you like his discussions on simpering males.