Luận án về sự hài hước lật đổ của Chris A. Kramer - Marquette University

Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Subversive Humor Chris A. Kramer Marquette University Recommended Citation Kramer, Chris A.edu/dissertations_mu/424 SUBVERSIVE HUMOR By Chris A. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin May 2015 ABSTRACT SUBVERSIVE HUMOR Chris A. Marquette University, 2015 Oppression is easily recognized.

That is, at least, when oppression results from overt, consciously professed racism, for example, in which violence, explicit exclusion from economic opportunities, denial of adequate legal access, and open discrimination perpetuate the subjugation of a group of people. There are relatively clear legal remedies to such oppression. But this is not the case with covert oppression where the psychological harms and resulting legal and economic exclusion are every bit as real, but caused by concealed mechanisms subtly and systematically employed. In many cases, those with power and privilege use cultural stereotypes in order to sustain an unjust status quo.

This is so even if the biases are implicit, automatic, and contrary to the consciously professed beliefs of the stereotyper. Furthermore, since many of these biases are not consciously reasoned into one’s system of beliefs, and since they are notoriously difficult to bring to consciousness and dislodge via direct, logical confrontation, some other creative means of resistance is needed. I argue that an indirect and imaginative route through subversive humor offers a means to raise consciousness about covert oppression and the mechanisms underlying it, reveal the errors of those with power who complacently sustain systematic oppression, and even open those people up to changing their minds. Subversive humor confronts serious matters, but in a playful manner that fosters creative and critical thinking, and cultivates a desire and skill for recognizing incongruities between our professed ideals and a reality that does not meet those standards.

Successful subversive wits create fictional scenarios that highlight such moral incongruities, but, like philosophical thought experiments, they reveal a moral truth that also holds in the real world. Such humor offers opportunities for “border crossing” where the audience is encouraged to see from the perspectives of marginalized people who, because they inhabit ambiguous spaces in between the dominant and subordinate spheres, are in an epistemically privileged position with respect to matters of oppression. Subversive humorists open their audiences to the lived experiences of others, uncover the absurdities of otherwise covert oppression, and appeal to our desire to be truthful and just. I am greatly indebted to my dissertation committee for all of their time, insight, and wit.

Each member offered critical advice without which this dissertation could not have succeeded. Specifically, I want to thank Professor Anthony Peressini for his suggestion to read Tamar Gendler’s influential work, and Professor Theresa Tobin for introducing me to the ‘world’- expanding thought of Maria Lugones. Thank you to Professor Nancy Snow who helped immensely with my philosophical writing starting with my very first paper written in the Marquette Philosophy department, for her own work in moral psychology, and for her constantly reminding me that brevity is the soul of wit. Special thanks to Professor Michael Monahan for his work on matters concerning racism and oppression, and for his Political Philosophy class that provided the fertile ground to cultivate a connection between my interests in humor with issues of freedom and oppression.

I am grateful for the Independent Study with Dr. Monahan that helped to erect the “scaffolding” for this dissertation, and for his innumerable comments on so many iterations of this work. I am extraordinarily thankful to Lynne Kramer who refrained from seeking the legal counsel of Hupy and/or Abraham to divorce me through the seemingly interminable process that is a PhD program. Her patience, continued love, and her laughter, are surely supererogatory.

Relatedly, I would like to thank my son Milo who has helped by offering me an example or two for this dissertation, and for his inclination to ask philosophical questions-- over and over. To my daughter Lola, thank you for being so cute as to be positively chewable. Thank you to Valerie and Doug Rescho for all of your play with Milo and Lola. To my mom, Susie, thank you for having me.

Also, thank you for your contagious gregariousness and for instilling in me a desire to learn, to be open, and confident without pretentiousness. To my sister Gretchen and her husband Sparky, I could not have finished this degree without all of your constant and diligent care for our father over the past few years. To my dad, Alan, thank you for ii so many of our deep and meaningful conversations over the years, and thank you for the quotidian ones too. Thank you for your indirect approach to teaching, your analytical mind, your poetic mind, and especially your sense of humor.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. HUMOR AND THE HARMS OF OPPRESSION. Essentializing Self and Other in Overt Oppression. Oppression “in the Context of the Quotidian”.

Problems with an Individualist Approach to Oppression. Socially Constructed Ignorance. Oppressive Laughter “in the Context of the Quotidian”. STEREOTYPES, SPIRIT OF SERIOUSNESS, AND ONTOLOGICAL EXPANSIVENESS.

“Stereotypes are a real time-saver”. Implicit (Unendorsed) Cultural Stereotyping. The Harms of Implicit, Cultural, Essentializing Stereotypes. Responsibility and Blameworthiness for Implicit, Unendorsed, Cultural Stereotyping.

INCONGRUITY, SERIOUSNESS, AND PLAYFULNESS IN HUMOR. Incongruity and Humor. Incongruity and Seriousness. Incongruity and Playfulness.

The Ambiguities of Seriousness and Playfulness. Serious Play in Subversive Humor. HUMOR, HUBRIS, AND HEURISTIC ERROR DETECTION. If Philosophy is to serve a positive purpose it is to dissipate certainty.

Detection of Heuristic Error Through Humor. Collaborative Heuristic Error Detection Through Subversive Humor. An Overview of the Potential of Subversive Humor. Detection of Committed Stereotypical Beliefs in Active Mental Spaces.

Motivating Appropriate Emotions. Collaboratively Flouting Conventions. Finding Meaning Collaboratively. Subversive Humor as Imaginative Thought Experiment.

THE ART OF SUBVERSIVE HUMOR. It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was not reasoned into. Louis CK on White Privilege. Detection of Committed Stereotypical Beliefs.

Playing with our Mirth Addiction. Collaborative Flouting of Conventions and Finding Meaning. Playing with Thought. Richard Pryor against the Spirit of Seriousness.

Chris Rock on Subtle Linguistic Stereotypes. “World”-Travelling Through Subversive Humor. Dave Chappelle on Ontological Expansiveness and Epistemic Privilege. 204 1 INTRODUCTION On the face of it there is nothing amusing about oppression; what has humor to do with systemic subjugation? In this dissertation I make the case that a subset of humor that I will refer to as “subversive humor”, can be used as a means to combat oppression.

This requires an analysis of the sort of oppression I have in mind and a specific view of humor. In the first chapter I am concerned with the ambiguity that exists between what I will refer to as overt and covert oppression. The term “oppression” is both ambiguous and vague, as there is more than one way in which an individual can be oppressed and there are degrees of oppression. Oppression can refer to systematic constraints on people belonging to social groups that are maintained by violent force found in slavery or colonization, e., or by the everyday practices of well-meaning people (Young 41), or both.

The former constitute overt oppression while the latter are covert. It can be quite difficult to completely separate these kinds of oppression, but the key differences I am interested in have to do with the manner in which repressive mechanisms become manifest. Violence, or the constant, and clearly intentional threat of it, plays a causally efficacious role in overt oppression. This is not the case with covert oppression.

This type of psychological oppression persists even without the use of explicit physical violence or legal constraint against those without power or privilege.1 The goal of the first chapter is not to offer a complete analysis of oppression as such, but to start with a general descriptive account of the interrelation between violent and overt instances 1 The term “privilege” is also ambiguous and vague. Briefly, privilege, like oppression, comes in degrees. In the context of this work, I view privilege as both an inheritance from either overt or covert oppression, and as an ongoing element that sustains oppression. It is a lot like money; it helps to have some in order to make some.

The more you have the easier it is to get much more. I follow Shannon Sullivan (2006) and Peggy McIntosh here: “Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they’ve done or failed to do. Access to privilege doesn’t determine one’s outcomes, but it is definitely an asset that makes it more likely that whatever talent, ability, and aspirations a person with privilege has will result in something positive for them” (McIntosh 1988). The term “privilege” is ambiguous and vague, and thus, so too is “underprivileged.” In addition, “underprivileged” makes little sense without an “overprivileged”, but as Tim Wise sagaciously notes (2008, 63), we do not even have a word for the latter, as my Spell-check confirms.

When I use “privileged” and “underprivileged” I am referring to oppressor and oppressed respectively, well aware that such terms are vague. 2 of oppression and the less visible, even at times nonconscious, forms of psychological oppression.2 The explicit kinds of harm are in some ways easier to resist, certainly to recognize, as there is little question as to who is responsible for the oppression, who benefits from it, and who suffers from it, while non-violent psychological oppression can be much more subtle, and of paramount importance here, there is often an incongruity between the repressive actions/words of oppressors and the professed egalitarian beliefs of those same people.3 I will use the existential- phenomenological concepts of “spirit of seriousness” and “ontological expansiveness” as explanatory motifs throughout this dissertation, focusing principally on the psychological harms of oppression because in many ways they can be as damaging as blatant oppression. Moreover, due to remaining hidden within everyday practices and stereotypes, these harms can continue unchallenged, especially if the violent facet of oppression has dissipated or was never even a factor.4 But, there are similar mechanisms at play in both visible and psychological manifestations of oppression, and the background from which these underlying forces emerge is the focus of the first two chapters. In Chapter 2, I will continue the analysis of covert oppression by incorporating an investigation into stereotypes (cultural implicit stereotypes in particular) and their roles in creating and sustaining psychological oppression.

While the concepts of implicit bias and stereotyping are well-known among psychologists, cognitive scientists, and social scientists generally, it is only recently that they have been explored in-depth philosophically. I think 2 That is, while violent oppression usually also leads to psychological harms, it is not the case that psychological harms presume overt physical violence. Generally speaking, the sort of oppression I will be concentrating upon is what Jean Harvey refers to as “civilized” oppression (Harvey 1999, 2010), or the “psychological harms” addressed by Ann Cudd (2006, 55-81), or oppression in what George Yancy calls the “context of the quotidian” (Yancy 2008, 847). I will concentrate primarily on anti-black racism as paradigm cases; I will occasionally point to other instances of oppression such as sexism or heterosexism when applicable.

3 Granted, this distinction is somewhat oversimplified for introductory purposes. 4 Thus, it calls for a different mode of resistance than the traditional means of protest against the barefaced oppression found in slavery, for example.