I think they really resonate with what you are saying. Again, I don't completely agree with everything you say (and I do believe there are universal truths), but there is definitely a lot of useful stuff in what you are saying.
The moral scenario you gave isn't a good one because how can we know the future? How can we know if someone will or will not hurt again? It makes sense to enforce existing rules and abolish them if they are no longer effective.
I do think if rehabilitation is proven to work, it should be enforced.
Your attempt at avoiding answering my question defeats your further point, because I could just answer back: "Even though rehabilitation is proven to work, how can we know the future? How can we know if someone will not hurt again?"
What I'm asking you is simple, and not meant to trap you. Do you believe there are inherently wrongful acts or not?
Your attempt at avoiding answering my question defeats your further point, because I could just answer back: "Even though rehabilitation is proven to work, how can we know the future? How can we know if someone will not hurt again?"
What I'm asking you is simple, and not meant to trap you. Do you believe there are inherently wrongful acts or not?
This is a very complicated topic and I don't think anyone has all of the answers, but each of us should use our own best judgment about what constitutes crossing the line between a harmless joke and something that can cause true harm to another person. Know your audience. Be respectful, compassionate, even when joking. Don't be too prideful and know when to apologize. Be clear with your intentions. Human beings can be sly mfs and can hide very cruel and malicious viewpoints and intentions behind humor. It can be difficult to tell if they are genuinely joking, especially since human social rules and hierarchies can be so complicated. Poking a jab at a friend's quirks is not equivalent to making a racist joke and complaining how sensitive people are. Know the difference.
I swear.....a look at our current state of affairs makes me think we shared a common ancestor with an ape or something.
I didn't expect there to be almost a hundred replies in 24 hrs...amazing. I guess it's a conversation that needed to be had.
My personal experience with the topic, only because it was solicited:
I can engage in disparaging jokes as others do, it's a form of teasing which I like to do. I find that when it's done right in the right context, this type of humour can break down barriers and release tension and awkwardness around our differences. However, I've only ever engaged in it with people I know 100% that they will see it just as that - a joke. These are people I've known very well for a while. If I don't know the person very well, I won't initiate this type of humour. I will follow only if they initiate themselves, letting me know that they are ok with this type of disarming mechanism. Overall, if I offend someone, I will apologize and I will explain myself. It's part of being a grown up. If I am offended I will let them know. I might not want to be friends with this person after or vice versa, because our personalities don't mesh, and that is entirely okay. Someone who attacks me for not liking a joke they made about me or my values and demands that I should be okay with it so they may continue to behave in the same way towards me is a.. predator or a bully in my eyes. "You're too serious. You should have thicker skin". I do have thick skin, but it's not there for you to flog as you please. If they are engaging in off-color humour with their inner circle, I wouldn't intervene. It's not my place, that's how they function. If they are harassing someone else with those offensive jokes and obviously the other party is upset and unable to stand up for themselves or get them to stop, I will step in. It is a form of bullying.
Here is a very subjective observation: I noticed that disparaging humour or blue humour is widely used in North American societies, perhaps because it is a very diverse society and it tends to be a go-to mechanism to trivialize those difference and assimilate everyone. Having lived in three different continents, some communities do not engage in off-color humour as much, but rather observational humour: "It's funny, cause it's true". Some communities look down at humour all together; as in a person of status does not joke, so having a sense of humour is not necessarily an attractive trait.
I still want to dive into the psychology behind obscene or offensive jokes, or rather what is called blue humour. I also want to separate when well-established comedians use it, and when an individual uses it.
I actually think this is really fucking hilarious.
The alt right formed largely as kind of a joke in a way.
So what better antidote for that fucking cancer than to subvert it by becoming it and mocking it from the inside.
That's kind of how shit works all the time in life.
I still want to dive into the psychology behind obscene or offensive jokes, or rather what is called blue humour. I also want to separate when well-established comedians use it, and when an individual uses it.
One thing I hated about this when I was younger since I was supposedly so "uptight" ;p was that it made me feel obligated to laugh if I didn't find it funny. If I was offended, it was assumed you just didn't get it. Apparently, if you get a joke, you must laugh, even if you don't like or think it's in poor taste which sometimes it is. Sometimes, you just laugh because you don't want the other person to feel uncomfortable even if you don't like the joke. Which is what I do today. I avoid thinking the joke is about me and focus more on their intent.
So, I'll laugh even if I hate the joke or don't like it, partly because for a long time, people were too arrogant to realize that you shouldn't have to laugh at everyone's joke, but we don't make people feel as if they have a choice. We make them feel as if they don't have a sense of humor if they don't find something funny. What's worse was when people did it early on because they thought you were too serious, so it became their goal or career to teach you how not to be so serious. I hated that. After a while, it had me feeling like a Cheshire cat who had to laugh at every stupid little joke just to make someone think I'm so easy going and unaffected. It got tiring.
You laugh because you get tired being labeled as uptight or too serious or whatever people want to label you because they lack some kind of sensitivity, or they just can't ever be serious, or don't know when a joke can be taken too far. So, you laugh to keep the peace. I don't take humor that seriously anymore, but I hated laughing at people's jokes over the years, particularly ones that were offensive, because much of it was meant to make me feel I wasn't cool enough or relaxed enough, or happy enough for them, and just needed to laugh at it to show that I could "lighten up or loosen up." This taught me to resent my own personality.
I don't even let people know if anything bothers me anymore. We are such a clueless society, and like to see things from just our own perspective, and treat the other person as not getting it because they're not accepting how we see things fully. Since my job is to make others feel comfortable with me, I rarely let on anymore if something is offensive, which can have the negative effect of making it seem as if the comment is OK. I do it because I'm not interested in the confrontation.
I still want to dive into the psychology behind obscene or offensive jokes, or rather what is called blue humour. I also want to separate when well-established comedians use it, and when an individual uses it.
I don't even let people know if anything bothers me anymore. We are such a clueless society, and like see things from just our own perspective, and treat the other person as not getting it because they're not accepting how we see things fully. Since my job is to make others feel comfortable with me, I rarely let on anymore if something is offensive, which can have the negative effect of making it seem as if the comment is OK. I do it because I'm not interested in the confrontation.
Fascinating and profound Hos. While your analysis runs outside my competence to really reply from a similar depth of knowledge of the field, my gut tells me that this is very much what structures the changes to the components of our cultures - and of course as a side effect, it determines how different parts of our communities evaluate the acceptability of the way humour is used.
As I said quite a long time ago now, I'm really intrigued by the idea that your own work is contributing to the possibility of a real equivalent of Asimov's psychohistory - the possibility of analysing, and even predicting the way human societies evolve quantitatively using mathematical modelling based on defined and formalised social laws akin to those in hard science.
Thanks, John, that's very flattering. I spoilerised this because it's somewhat off-topic in a hit thread, and we"re having a bit of a parallel exchange here.
That's what I'm aiming for, ideally, but I don't think the philosophical ground has been worked out yet (e.g. with regard to indeterminism, &c.), but having said that the big data movement might be able to brute-force the issues empirically. There are already attempts to do just what you mention under the labels of 'cliometrics' and 'cliodynamics', but it's very immature in my view, despite producing promising results.
Personally while something like that might be what I'm aiming for, I'm not attached to the outcome. I can only try. Sometimes I look around the PGR room and remember that it's likely 90% of this work will never be cited, though the passionate and talented students working on it are likely all trying to push their 'big idea'. This ideas mill we've created in the West is a great engine of progress, but it's highly attritional, chewing up and spitting out talented people at an increasingly alarming rate. The mindset to have seems to be that, if I want to be part of this machine, then I can only try but just don't expect traction.
Part of this conversation is about perceiving the reasons why this happens, while the other part is about judging oughts and shoulds according to whatever values we hold, and it's a bit tricky trying to parse those two.
So if we understand that in certain cases this behaviour is a usually unconscious attempt to realign social hierarchies, then on what grounds can we say that it's 'wrong'? It's humans being human. I think a lot of the people here saying that it's 'wrong' might react differently if the person doing it was sufficiently attractive and magnetic, and did it with sufficient finesse, that they would simply allow the realignment to take place without even noticing. In other words, it's not a moral issue so much as an issue with people having higher standards for dominant behaviours.
(not my final perspective, or one I'm attached to, by the way, just an idea I'm chucking out)
I don't think that is quite right. Human beings are finely wired to pick up on slight changes in social status, and 'being upset' is one of those mechanisms to alert you to when this happens. I'm sorry to keep harping on this same frame, but evolutionarily it's a mechanism that's trying to make us aware of the danger of being kicked out of the tribe or harming our reproductive success, both of which mean death.
We might be able to internalise some stoic principles and thereby divorce our conscious minds from these instincts, but there is the risk that in ignoring them we are inviting the kind of social harm that they're trying to prevent.
It's disappointing to read that, acd, and especially in the context of your argument. What you've done here is took a swipe at everybody who put any thought into this and devalued their responses. 'TLDR' does that, and it's a kind of dismissiveness that has somehow become acceptable but nonetheless serves exactly the same kind of social function as this kind of humour we're discussing - it's a flex, albeit one with a lot of plausible deniability.
In fact, it's really fascinating to me to see all the social positioning and value/competence signalling going on in this thread itself. Even just the balance of likes shows how sensitive people are in signalling how socially aware they are of what's more or less cringey. Personally what's emerged for me from this is just how different everybody's positions have been, and how they are revealed to operate under quite strikingly different principles. I think everybody has made fascinating contributions from their particular perspectives, which is what makes this such a great thread - it's genuinely divisive; something we haven't had for a while.
Imagine that someone murders a child, and in the course of their escape, has an accident that causes them brain damage, the result of which is that they become completely incapable of any violent act. Society is safe, they will never hurt anyone again. Should they still be judged and sentenced to years in prison?
Just to clarify. I don't think humor is bad or off color humor is necessarily bad. I think it's a matter of the mood, vibe, and the people involved. I don't dictate to anyone about what they should find funny. I laugh at myself at lot. I don't mind if others laugh at me if they're laughing with me, and it's not mal-intention. I don't want people to feel uncomfortable so I'll just play along. I will make jokes myself, but my jokes are pretty tame, and usually at my expense. My humor is rarely about other people. I'd feel horrified making fun of others, but that's just me. Not claiming to be a saint. It's just that that I'm not built for insult humor, and that's fine. If that's your cup of tea, then that's fine. I just don't want to feel that just because you may like a particular sense of humor, that I must like it too.
Thanks, John, that's very flattering. I spoilerised this because it's somewhat off-topic in a hit thread, and we"re having a bit of a parallel exchange here.
That's what I'm aiming for, ideally, but I don't think the philosophical ground has been worked out yet (e.g. with regard to indeterminism, &c.), but having said that the big data movement might be able to brute-force the issues empirically. There are already attempts to do just what you mention under the labels of 'cliometrics' and 'cliodynamics', but it's very immature in my view, despite producing promising results.
Personally while something like that might be what I'm aiming for, I'm not attached to the outcome. I can only try. Sometimes I look around the PGR room and remember that it's likely 90% of this work will never be cited, though the passionate and talented students working on it are likely all trying to push their 'big idea'. This ideas mill we've created in the West is a great engine of progress, but it's highly attritional, chewing up and spitting out talented people at an increasingly alarming rate. The mindset to have seems to be that, if I want to be part of this machine, then I can only try but just don't expect traction.
Part of this conversation is about perceiving the reasons why this happens, while the other part is about judging oughts and shoulds according to whatever values we hold, and it's a bit tricky trying to parse those two.
So if we understand that in certain cases this behaviour is a usually unconscious attempt to realign social hierarchies, then on what grounds can we say that it's 'wrong'? It's humans being human. I think a lot of the people here saying that it's 'wrong' might react differently if the person doing it was sufficiently attractive and magnetic, and did it with sufficient finesse, that they would simply allow the realignment to take place without even noticing. In other words, it's not a moral issue so much as an issue with people having higher standards for dominant behaviours.
(not my final perspective, or one I'm attached to, by the way, just an idea I'm chucking out)
I don't think that is quite right. Human beings are finely wired to pick up on slight changes in social status, and 'being upset' is one of those mechanisms to alert you to when this happens. I'm sorry to keep harping on this same frame, but evolutionarily it's a mechanism that's trying to make us aware of the danger of being kicked out of the tribe or harming our reproductive success, both of which mean death.
We might be able to internalise some stoic principles and thereby divorce our conscious minds from these instincts, but there is the risk that in ignoring them we are inviting the kind of social harm that they're trying to prevent.
It's disappointing to read that, acd, and especially in the context of your argument. What you've done here is took a swipe at everybody who put any thought into this and devalued their responses. 'TLDR' does that, and it's a kind of dismissiveness that has somehow become acceptable but nonetheless serves exactly the same kind of social function as this kind of humour we're discussing - it's a flex, albeit one with a lot of plausible deniability.
In fact, it's really fascinating to me to see all the social positioning and value/competence signalling going on in this thread itself. Even just the balance of likes shows how sensitive people are in signalling how socially aware they are of what's more or less cringey. Personally what's emerged for me from this is just how different everybody's positions have been, and how they are revealed to operate under quite strikingly different principles. I think everybody has made fascinating contributions from their particular perspectives, which is what makes this such a great thread - it's genuinely divisive; something we haven't had for a while.
You can intellectualize it as much as you want. I see it simply as telling someone they are too sensitive and can't take a joke is what is pretty weak because it takes no responsibility. There's a time and place and audience for being off color. That's the point. When someone actually offends or hurts someone else the problem is just as much theirs. It's not a fault of the harmed party for feeling harmed.
