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Humor can be painful because there's a grain of truth in every joke. For example, think about some of the jokes that are considered crass and offensive in Amer

Humor can be painful because there's a grain of truth in every joke. For example, think about some of the jokes that are considered crass and offensive in American culture: bits about black people being poor; women being treated as housewives. While the stereotypes are false, they relate to deep-rooted societal problems. Income inequality is still associated with racial inequality. Women are still underpaid and underrepresented in some industries. Political correctness is not noble. It's a form of cowardice, a band-aid that prevents us from using humor as a vehicle for thinking about uncomfortable problems. The harder an issue is to joke about, the more it requires jokes.

ewoodrich 13y ago
One could also argue that your examples of crass humor normalize these stereotypes, and therefore perpetuate them. If I were to constantly make jokes about how black people were all burglars and rapists, and women should spend all day in the kitchen, at some point I might blur the line between irony and implicitly endorsing the generalization. I don't claim that I haven't made the types of jokes you describe, but at the same time, I don't consider it "cowardly" that some find such jokes categorically offensive
- rimantas 13y ago
  I also do not consider anyone finding some jokes offencive as cowardly person, just a stupid one.
  - ewoodrich 13y ago
    So just to be clear, literally no joke can be offensive? I guess I'm stupid then, because I have fairly high tolerance of irony, but I would never such a sweeping claim.
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    That sounds like a challenge to me. Let's start with your Mom...
- coldtea 13y ago
  >One could also argue that your examples of crass humor normalize these stereotypes, and therefore perpetuate them. There is an external world were jokes are based on. The external world CAN change and jokes can change with it. Thinking that jokes "perpetuate" what's happening in the external world is like thinking that movies, songs or video games do. I don't see all the racist pre-Civil war jokes preventing the end of slavery. Or blackface preventing the civil rights movement.
cafard 13y ago
I agree that there is something anarchic, sometimes cruel, inside humor. However, though pain is a useful ingredient, it ought to be one's own--the difference is comparable to the difference in cooking between butter and margarine. Richard Prior telling his own jokes was great; a white guy doing Richard Prior's material is just uncomfortably weird.
coldtea 13y ago
>While the stereotypes are false They are not really false. Black people ARE poor in statistically significant amounts, women ARE treated as housewives, etc.
pstuart 13y ago
> Political correctness is not noble. It's a form of cowardice What the fuck? Shall I make a joke about your stupidity to soften the blow of the fact that you don't get it? Political correctness originated in the form of referring to people in the manner that the subjects wish to be referred to. Shall we refer to people by the color of their skin or their origin? Shall we refer to people by their physical abnormalities? Et cetera.

ewoodrich 13y ago

One could also argue that your examples of crass humor normalize these stereotypes, and therefore perpetuate them. If I were to constantly make jokes about how black people were all burglars and rapists, and women should spend all day in the kitchen, at some point I might blur the line between irony and implicitly endorsing the generalization. I don't claim that I haven't made the types of jokes you describe, but at the same time, I don't consider it "cowardly" that some find such jokes categorically offensive

rimantas 13y ago
I also do not consider anyone finding some jokes offencive as cowardly person, just a stupid one.
- ewoodrich 13y ago
  So just to be clear, literally no joke can be offensive? I guess I'm stupid then, because I have fairly high tolerance of irony, but I would never such a sweeping claim.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  That sounds like a challenge to me. Let's start with your Mom...
coldtea 13y ago
>One could also argue that your examples of crass humor normalize these stereotypes, and therefore perpetuate them. There is an external world were jokes are based on. The external world CAN change and jokes can change with it. Thinking that jokes "perpetuate" what's happening in the external world is like thinking that movies, songs or video games do. I don't see all the racist pre-Civil war jokes preventing the end of slavery. Or blackface preventing the civil rights movement.

cafard 13y ago

I agree that there is something anarchic, sometimes cruel, inside humor. However, though pain is a useful ingredient, it ought to be one's own--the difference is comparable to the difference in cooking between butter and margarine. Richard Prior telling his own jokes was great; a white guy doing Richard Prior's material is just uncomfortably weird.

coldtea 13y ago

>While the stereotypes are false They are not really false. Black people ARE poor in statistically significant amounts, women ARE treated as housewives, etc.

pstuart 13y ago

> Political correctness is not noble. It's a form of cowardice What the fuck? Shall I make a joke about your stupidity to soften the blow of the fact that you don't get it? Political correctness originated in the form of referring to people in the manner that the subjects wish to be referred to. Shall we refer to people by the color of their skin or their origin? Shall we refer to people by their physical abnormalities? Et cetera.