Alien Racist Jokes

            On Wednesday October 26th I was still tired from having spent Tuesday writing my English essay and then rushing to turn it in. In the lecture hall, before class started, I tried to do the reading of the essay on “Jokes” by Ted Cohen, but I decided to just doze for a few minutes instead.

            At the beginning of class, Devlin answered questions about our essay, that was due the next day at midnight. He told us that talking about artwork other than that which has been mentioned in class is not only okay, but also it is required. Outside philosophical arguments are not okay on this particular paper, but historical data as part of examples is okay. We have leeway in what we use to talk about influence.

            We had a review question that asked us what category of humour puns fall under. I answered “incongruity”, but the correct answer, he said, was “superiority” because when one gets a pun one feels superior to the joke.

            He showed up part of an interview of Louis C.K by Charlie Rose. Louis said that the only that would make a joke wrong to do would be if it was boring. He added that if a subject is too awful to joke about that means that it needs to be joked about. C. K. is maybe a contextualist.

            Devlin took a poll, asking us if there are some things you shouldn’t joke about. Thirty-five percent of us somewhat agree.

I offered that most jokes would be okay if not worded in a hateful way.

            Someone else offered that jokes that punch down are wrong.

            Is someone that does not get an immoral joke, moral in relation to the immorality the joke promotes?

            Ted Cohen says that some jokes are morally off limits, but leave room for satire and provocation.

A.     Getting a joke is a feeling of intimacy. When you laugh at a joke you are not

caused to do so by reflex. Getting a joke has a cognitive element because it takes thought.

B.     For some jokes one may have to violate one’s core values to achieve that

intimacy. Jewish people have a shared background. There are some in-jokes that are conditional on that background. Some jokes require being part of a community to get them. Dispositions that get accountant jokes are not bound to identify with accountants. If I had a Nazi disposition I would not be me. A Jewish person could not adopt the disposition to get a Nazi joke. You would have to hate Jewish people to get an anti-Jewish joke.

C.     Getting a joke is disrespectful.

When we talk here about “getting” a joke, we mean laughing at it. If

you understand how the joke could be seen as funny but do not laugh, you are not getting it.

At the end of class I argued that one could change any joke to make it so it is not

offensive by changing the story. A joke that would be hateful towards a given group in our experience could be told and be funny if a fictional group were invented, like for example, the Ferengi on Star Trek. Since they are alien, we can tell jokes that make fun of a money grubbing people without targeting any groups in our real experience. But I guess some jokes that relate specifically to a type of tragedy that has only been experienced by one group could not be re-routed into a fictional outlet. For instance, if you invented a group that had experienced a holocaust but spoke specifically in a humorous way about their skins having been turned into lampshades, there would be no way around Jews being offended anyway.

Higher primates can get some non-verbal jokes.

Two ways that the mind gets a joke:

1.      Draws on background knowledge and incongruity.

2.      Draws on emotional response. The joke appeals to the emotions.

One may feel a disposition to laugh at just that sense of superiority one feels in an

intimate moment.

            Cohen is not saying that a racist joke is immoral. He wants comedy to be open. But some jokes should neither be told nor laughed at.