The Ethics of Dark Humor | David Shoemaker

David Shoemaker explores the intricate relationship between humor and morality. What makes a faux insult funny? Can wisecracks be both humorous and hurtful?

The conversation delves into academic theories of humor, the significance of context and intentions, and the controversial topics of offensive jokes and the boundaries of humorous expression.

0:00 Introduction to Humor with David Shoemaker
00:10 The Faux Insult: Exploring Humor in Relationships
01:06 Hypotheticals and Humor Dynamics
03:24 Morality and Humor: A Complex Relationship
04:29 Wisecracks vs. Jokes: A Deeper Dive
08:04 Comic vs. Moral Domains: Finding the Balance
12:06 Theories of Humor: Incongruity, Superiority, and More
21:38 The Carrie Prank: When Cruelty Overpowers Humor
30:13 Exploring Humor in Relationships
31:01 The Controversy of Rape Jokes
32:49 Solidarity Through Humor
36:00 Consequences of Misinterpreted Jokes
38:23 The Morality of Jokes
40:31 Free Speech and Humor
57:22 Punching Up vs. Punching Down
01:02:03 Concluding Thoughts and Wisecracks

Presenters: Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff
Editor and Producer: Ella Coleman

Contact us: Mark.Oppenheimer[at]gmail and Jwerbe[at]gmail

[travistimmerman]

Wow! That guest host is absolutely incredible. Each question he asked was more stunningly brilliant than the one before it. Bring that genius on more, whoever he is.

[thestoiccorneryt]

Great video, Brain! Who knew exploring dark humour could be such an ENLIGHTENING experience? 😂🕯

[jacobderin]

I used to do standup comedy in college, and I struggled with this topic frequently because my style tended to be more abrasive. The result was a fairly vicious campaign of social pressure to make me stop. I was openly confronted more than once about it, and I found out later that people were saying quite vicious things behind my back.

I approached it with a sort of Kantian perspective and I asked myself how I’d treat another person in that situation. I concluded that it was necessary to defend my own right of free speech and artistic expression because: 1) id do the same for someone else and 2) artistic expression and its integrity are core to respecting humanity in general. I think that censoring that kind of expression is acting like the other person isn’t a rational lawgiver, and is failing to recognize a part of humanity as an end in itself. So I believed myself to have a moral obligation to keep telling the jokes I had written because it meant defending the principle itself, which was more important than whether or not everyone hated me as one particular person.

[cgpcgp]

A white teacher got in trouble for you using N word. I saw viral tv interview of teacher explaining why he used it. It was hysterically funny unintentionally. Never saw anything like it. A lot of black people in the comments felt the same and gave teacher a pass. Cartoon tv show did an episode using almost word for word from the tv interview. I think it was funny because of teacher was clueless and sincere. And because it’s true. I’m black btw.

[jacobderin]

I think I’d want to challenge the connection between joke value as humor and joke value as moral. Why must these two things be related? It seems perfectly coherent to me to say that the joke played on Carrie was funny to the perpetrators, but was also immoral.

I would have liked to see more pushback on this idea of “humor” as a free-floating platonic ideal which somehow exists outside of any particular context. We’re meant to imagine a species of psychopaths who find suffering funny and conclude that they’re “wrong” about what’s funny. But in virtue of what are they wrong? What is this abstract humor ideal and where does it come from? It seems to me that it makes much more sense to say humor is subjective. A joke is “funny to” and never “funny” full stop. The Carrie prank was funny to the perpetrators, not funny to the victim, and probably not funny to us the reader. This seems to explain all of the relevant reactions.

We should start in the first instance with defining what humor is. It seems to me that humor is simply that which inspires a humorous reaction. If there were no people there’d be no humor. In that case, it is in fact a purely subjective phenomenon.

[cgpcgp]

1, 3, 7, 10 is funny if you laugh at the person who made the error. Or yourself for making mistake.

[cgpcgp]

How bad can a joke get? A racist joke by a comedian may not make a difference. Racist jokes at a work place? Racist jokes at Christmas dinner when 1 of the guests is member of the race being joked about? Racist jokes by a politician?