Re: Joke, joke, Warning a joke

From: Elizabeth A Wardle (ewardle@iastate.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 26 2002 - 09:25:49 PST


While I agree that humor is useful at times, not all humor is useful. But, as Mike points out, he can't censor list humor--that's a treacherous road. So what about a little self reflection before posting a joke? A colleague and I recently wrote a book chapter for a business communication textbook on how to engage in successful collaborations at work. Here was one of our (very simplistic) suggestions for avoiding affective conflict in groups:

"Avoid telling jokes that depend for their humor on ridiculing another person or a group to which you do not belong."

And another:

"Avoid assuming an accent or expressing stereotypical attitudes or behaviors that mock members of groups to which you do not belong."

While you may find something funny, if it depends for its humor on ridiculing someone or some group you aren't a part of, should you tell it? Men telling jokes about men is funny. Men I don't know telling jokes about women is not funny. I have no idea what sort of goodwill those men have or how they treat women in their daily lives. People who belong to a particular ethnic group, sex, religion, etc get lots of laughs out of jokes about their own ethnic group, sex, religion, etc (as the blond website attests). But people who don't belong to that group take a huge risk when they ridicule it. (I see implications for our discussion of Wenger). Maybe that risk is worth taking if you are a stand up comedian. But at work--or on an academic listserv--that risk doesn't seem worth it. Whatever sense of community has been established can be immediately destroyed, as some (especially marginal) community member thinks, "Do I want to risk myself interacting with someone who thinks/acts like this?" [But maybe offending peripheral participants is not a concern to full participants;  maybe, in fact,  this kind of humor somehow functions as a gatekeeping device--shooing away women from the old boy's club or people of color from particular workplaces or clubs....]

If we need a self-serving reason to be reflective before telling potentially offensive jokes , how about the issue of personal ethos? Whatever ethos or credibility the joke teller or sender once had is now shot with whatever segment of the audience is offended. Aristotle pointed out to us some 2500 years ago (in _Rhetoric_) that any speaker who wants to be persuasive must seem credible to his/her audience: "his own character should look right and...he should be thought to entertain the right feelings towards his hearers....[T]he three things which inspire confidence in the orator's own character--the three things that induce us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it [are] good sense, good moral character, and goodwill." Earlier Aristotle was even more blunt: A person's "character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion [s]he possesses." In other words, for purely selfish reasons, whether you think a joke is funny or not, if you are talking to an audience you may someday want to convince of something, telling a joke that may be offensive may not be worth the risk.

That's my response as a rhetorician and professional communicator.

And then, my much less intellectual response to all this is:

Does saying it is a joke make it funny?
Does saying that the joke is not offensive actually keep it from being offensive?
And if you know enough to tack on a disclaimer.....

On another, related, note:

I'm really enjoying the Wenger discussion. And I think this discussion of jokes, who's offended, who's not, and how jokes can serve to silence peripheral participants or destroy a sense of community is, in fact, still very much on the topic. But I'll leave it to the full participants to explore that link more fully.

Back to (safer) lurking.

Elizabeth



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