"From: Simon Britnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Simon Britnell) I seem to have missed some part of the "Jokes as a battlefield" thread, but from what I've seen of it, the issues are: 1) What is "offensive" 2) What can/should be done about it Here's my $0.02: What's offensive? This question is complex beyond the capacity of managable rules to define. It depends on the joke teller, audience, timing and conversational context. It's also complicated by the fact that there *are* people in the world who will claim just about anything is a joke to prevent retribution. The "It was just a bit of fun" defence is annoyingly common for acts which common sense should dictate are just not acceptable (jocks bog-washing geeks in schools comes to mind). My sense of humour oscillates between dryly insulting and plain bad taste covering the gamut of religion, sex, politics death, pain, disease, starvation, "typical males", "typical females" and others. About the most "sexist" examples of my sense of humour would be bellowing across the room to a female friend "show us yer tits!". The humour in it was complex (those of you who don't think it's funny weren't there) and included an element of lampooning beer swilling louts who would shout that sort of thing to ladies they didn't know in public. Any change in audience, teller, environment or context would have taken if from a funny joke to a terrible social gaffe. What can/should be done about it? Tricky question. Let's start with the fact that the larger and more powerful a system becomes, the more it begins to resemble a weapon of mass destruction, incapable of inconveniencing one person without inconvieniencing a whole lot of others. Legal systems fall into this category. If you accept the assertion above that no definition of funny will be both accurate and managable then you're potentially putting a hammer into the hands of not only those who would use it wisely, but also the hands of petulant cankankerous children. More important is the question "what is the actual result you want your intervention to acheive?" I have friends who are offended by my sense of humour and I make every effort to curb it in front of them. This takes effort and requires the wearing of a social mask. I just don't do things to relax with these people because keeping them comfortable in my presence requires a certain degree of vigilance. Combine this with the complexity of remembering "what part of my sense of humour offends who" if I have a bunch of offendees together in the same place and things become down-right formal for me. I still like these people, but there are certain events I quite simply do not invite them to and do not attend if they will be there. What I'm trying to say is: "You can't have everything and nobody is a saint". For those of us (I think most of us here) who grew up as "outsiders", noticing a gap in our social integration is a painful experience, but it's going to happen sooner or later in just about every social group. If the humour of one of your social groups offends you, you really have four options: 1) Stop associating with them 2) Let them know carefully and reasonably and request that they don't do that around you and cope with the fact that you *will* of necessity be excluded from some social events. 3) Deal with it within yourself and maintain the social status quo 4) Roar and scream and make a fuss, demanding that they change Which of these is appropriate depends upon the individual situation. Of these, 4 is basically an obnoxious version of 1. They *will* hate you for it. 2 & 3 are pretty tolerable. Somebody commented about feeling unsafe with the "humour" in the environment they were in. That's not just a gender thing. There are plenty of social places I don't feel safe either (some types of pubs & clubs) my response is to just not go there. Being and feeling safe everywhere is a wonderful dream rather than a realistic requirement. Humour in the office is another tricky issue which pits my sense of individual fairness against my sense of utilitarianism. Take two cases, one in which the prevailing "office" culture has a certain sense of humour which offends one person and another in which one person has a sense of humour which offends the office culture. In both cases, my gut feel is that the one person should go. Why? because I want to be in a worker friendly work place (ie. I want to be able to enjoy my job) and cultural irritants make that impossible. In any case, the one person, irrespective of their talents is adversely impacting the productivity of everyone else. This raises all manner of issues around discrimination based on (for example) creed. What if the prevailing office culture is devoutly catholic and I'm devoutly atheist? Should an employer be allowed to reject me on the principle that I'm going to fsck up productivity? Part of me says it's only reasonable and part of me says it just ain't fair. One person commented on a joke about nagging wives (and slobby husbands) being offensive. It's a well known fact that *in general* men and women are set up differently psychologically and emotionally ( I don't really care about the theoretical cause ). I've seen this summed up as "He won't talk. She won't shut up." so I know that (for example) my wife has a different world view from me and I accept that. That does not mean I understand it. I know being shot hurts but I don't understand the pain because I've never been shot. That knowledge doesn't prevent the frustration involved in being subjected to nagging. Humour is sometimes a vent for frustration. I find the character of the man in that joke more the subject of humour anyway as it fits my "trailer trash" stereotype of the kind of guy who (a) wants to come home and sit around drinking and (b) treats his wife like a waitress then (c) wonders why she tells him he's the useless slob he is. Here's another sexist joke: God is busy making Eve as a partner for Adam and he's talking to her while he's putting her together to see how she likes her new body: "How about these legs?" "Yes, those are good. I'll have those." "Like hair on your chest?" "No, thankyou." "Want hands?" "Yes, they look useful." "How about ribs?" "No thanks", she says pointing to Adam, "I'll just have one of his". This is inarguably sexist. The question is "Is it offensive?". It's funny to me because it highlights a psychological difference between men and women that I see with my wife. She'd rather have a little of my slice of cake than have one of her own. I'd rather just have my own slice of cake. Sometimes this is annoying and frustrating. Sometimes I just cut a bigger slice of cake (at which time she decides she doesn't want any :) ). I think it's a very constructive joke because it shows me (in a good natured way) that I'm not alone with this frustration and that it's not something I should be telling her she's wrong over, it's just something I should deal with. _______________________________________________ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
