Devorah Baum is an academic who's written several books, prominently including The Jewish Joke, about how to understand jokes, what constitutes quintessentially Jewish jokes, their place in culture, how they spread, etc. And a lot of other things which I can't summarise briefly. I bought the book from the souk[1] because I enjoyed her talk.
[1] I love that there's a souk.
So that seemed very promising. Possibly I under-weighted the fact that this *particular* talk was about the use of 'humour' by the alt right movement. There's always a balancing act in judging talks you'll want to listen to. Some talks are overwhelmingly influenced by the presenter, and are basically "an excuse for the presenter to talk about the sort of thing the presenter talks about." Other talks are specifically about the topic listed. I used to go to too many talks with interesting topics that didn't have anything particular to say about them, and I think now I've a fairly good balance. So I was definitely interested, but obviously it was also quite depressing.
It was roughly an academic presentation geared for a popular audience, which is usually about right for me, although unfortunately I am doing it a disservice because I can describe many interesting things she touched on, but I didn't have a good enough grasp to describe the overall point of the talk (which I -- to me immense surprise -- managed with Boyarin).
Incidentals
As I hoped, she did include a variety of representative jokes, many of which are quite good :) And I love hearing about jokes from specific communities, it often tells you a lot about what they think about things. Very few that were actually new to me, as it happens. I don't want to just recount them all here, but there have to be a few :)
She also talked about tv series and similar relevant to the topic, a couple of which I bookmarked, not having heard of. And played one or two short clips to illustrate particular points, including a clip of Seinfeld. Apparently I'd never actually *seen* any Seinfeld before, because I knew *about* it, but I hadn't realised how funny I'd find it. Maybe I should have listened to everyone else. But I have a bad record with not finding the same things funny that other people do, so I don't always follow recommendations quickly.
One joke I'd heard but found very interesting that I'd heard it in a mostly secular context. The way she told it, Moses (?) slipped and fell into the gap between this world and heaven. He was clinging on by his fingertips, and cries, "are you up there, Lord? Please Help!" and a booming voice replies, "Let go, and you will be caught and born up by my angels." And he absorbs that for a moment, and asks, "Is there anybody else up there?"
I'm not sure I have it quite right, can anyone help? I heard it in a secular or Christian context, sometimes about an atheist or agnostic, sometimes about a minister, often with God explicitly asking him if he has faith, and poking fun about the human's natural scepticism of having faith, but maybe not THAT much faith.
I hadn't realised how much the deep but multilayered attitude to God could be appropriate to a Jewish context.
There was one more joke that wasn't gruesome but was extremely, extremely bleak.
Na byq jbzna jnf n ubybpnhfg fheivibe, ohg riraghnyyl qvrq anghenyyl naq jrag gb urnira. Tbq nfxrq ure ubj ure yvsr jnf, naq fur fnvq tbbq guvatf nobhg zbfg bs vg ohg jnf haqrefgnaqnoyl rkgerzryl fnygl nobhg gur fubnu. Ohg vafgrnq bs oernxvat qbja, fur fnvq, yrg zr chg vg yvxr guvf, naq gbyq Tbq na rkgerzryl, rkgerzryl oyrnx wbxr nobhg gur fhowrpg.
Naq Tbq fnvq Gurl qvqa'g svaq gung irel shaal, naq fur erghearq, "Vg'f cebonoyl bayl shaal vs lbh jrer gurer."
Left vs Right and humour
I think there was a stereotype in at least some places, from both sides, that the Right were Serious and Knew What They Were Doing, and the Left were irreverent and wanted to subvert the Institutions We Should Be Respectful Of. I'm not quite sure how this has varied in times and places -- my stereotype of Marxists and Communists isn't of being a barrel of laughs, but in established democracies, I definitely get the idea of mocking things being a scrappy underdog left thing.
But for a while, there's been a painful tendency of the alt-right to pull this. Even back with something like south park, which start with "mock everything" in ways that often worked very well, but began repeatedly veering into "if we just give everything a good kicking, we don't care if sometimes the kicking is aimed at people who are already extremely vulnerable and if we tell people to hate them, might be put in actual physical danger". And now of course, it's one of the most favoured tactics of the alt-right, from street thugs from the BNP who play the "Oh yeah, ok, that was extremely racist, but it's ok, I was joking" to internet alt-nazis who (as Baum explicitly quoted them saying) embraced "joke about what you really mean, and then you can keep saying it but it's still deniable".
And I'm not clear. Like, was that something that actually changed? Or is it just random, which movements get associated with humour and which aren't.
Jokes and what you actually believe in
This is inspired by her talk but is mostly me. I wish I *had* got more of her viewpoint on it, unfortunately, but it only slowly fell into place in my head. This feels like it should be a lot more obvious than it is (even amongst people who aren't deliberately lying about it).
Like, even with the most simple jokes, there's a spectrum of telling jokes about things you believe to things you don't believe. Like, suppose you've gone for a long hike without much lunch, and you've found a pub for dinner, and someone asks if you're hungry. What might you say?
"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Exaggeration. You ARE hungry, but probably not actually THAT hungry.
"Oh yes, I suppose I might be a mite peckish." Understatement. You are hungry, more so than specified.
"Oh, hungry? No, not after a 15 mile hike! Why would that happen?" Sarcasm. You are hungry, contrary to what you said.
Those are all twists on the true meaning, because if you just said it, it would just be a normal sentence, not a joke. But I did miss one out I couldn't decide where to put it, which is where you say what you mean, but it's funny because everyone knows you're not supposed to SAY that.
So what the fuck does "don't be offended, I was only joking?" mean?
Well, honestly, it seems like the sort of understanding of morality I used to know five year olds with (except that the five year olds were usually compassionate and really didn't intend to hurt people, unlike many of the arseheads who justify reactionary calls to violence with random non-excuses). The "I don't really know what 'an accident' means, but I know that people say 'it was an accident' when they want to say 'I didn't mean any harm and/or I don't want people to be upset with me'" defence.
That is, there are many situations where you might say, "I was only joking". Like, if you were joking about something that you *don't* mean, but were misunderstood, you might apologise for inadvertently worrying someone, and for be treating a serious topic lightly, but there's still a big difference between someone who says something obnoxious *as a critical parody* and someone who *actually wants people to believe that*.
I know that so many people are arseholes about this that that gets completely lost, but it actually always exists. People tell jokes about bad things that happen to *them*, or their culture, and (ideally) avoid telling them around people who will be distressed by them, but there deserves to be spaces where you DO tell those jokes.
So, unlike our five year old, people set out with viewpoints devoted to ruining other people's lives, but, like our five year old, they learn that SOMETIMES "it was only a joke" makes people stop being angry with you, so they just say that, all the time, regardless of whether it makes sense, as long as they can keep getting away with it.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT WAS A JOKE, WHAT **MATTERS** IS WHETHER YOU ACTUALLY CALLED FOR MASS MURDER OR NOT.
Now, maybe you called for mass murder in an understated, joking, "well, *I* don't want those people to be murdered, I just want them to be ostracised and lose there jobs, but if someone else were to murder them, I wouldn't be very sad" way. Or maybe you called for mass murder in a "that's exactly what you want but you pretended it was edgy so you can deny it" way. But BOTH OF THOSE ARE WRONG. I mean, maybe one is EVEN MORE wrong, but PLEASE DON'T ADVOCATE MASS MURDER **AT ALL** **EVER**.
I feel like, the fucking alt-nazis won a propaganda victory before they started, because everyone keeps arguing about whether something was a joke or not, and I'm like, yes it was a joke, a poor joke, but people joke about things they actually mean all the time, the idea that "joke" means "didn't mean it" DOESN'T HAVE ANY BASIS AND DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, why do we keep letting them get away with this???????
[1] I love that there's a souk.
So that seemed very promising. Possibly I under-weighted the fact that this *particular* talk was about the use of 'humour' by the alt right movement. There's always a balancing act in judging talks you'll want to listen to. Some talks are overwhelmingly influenced by the presenter, and are basically "an excuse for the presenter to talk about the sort of thing the presenter talks about." Other talks are specifically about the topic listed. I used to go to too many talks with interesting topics that didn't have anything particular to say about them, and I think now I've a fairly good balance. So I was definitely interested, but obviously it was also quite depressing.
It was roughly an academic presentation geared for a popular audience, which is usually about right for me, although unfortunately I am doing it a disservice because I can describe many interesting things she touched on, but I didn't have a good enough grasp to describe the overall point of the talk (which I -- to me immense surprise -- managed with Boyarin).
Incidentals
As I hoped, she did include a variety of representative jokes, many of which are quite good :) And I love hearing about jokes from specific communities, it often tells you a lot about what they think about things. Very few that were actually new to me, as it happens. I don't want to just recount them all here, but there have to be a few :)
She also talked about tv series and similar relevant to the topic, a couple of which I bookmarked, not having heard of. And played one or two short clips to illustrate particular points, including a clip of Seinfeld. Apparently I'd never actually *seen* any Seinfeld before, because I knew *about* it, but I hadn't realised how funny I'd find it. Maybe I should have listened to everyone else. But I have a bad record with not finding the same things funny that other people do, so I don't always follow recommendations quickly.
One joke I'd heard but found very interesting that I'd heard it in a mostly secular context. The way she told it, Moses (?) slipped and fell into the gap between this world and heaven. He was clinging on by his fingertips, and cries, "are you up there, Lord? Please Help!" and a booming voice replies, "Let go, and you will be caught and born up by my angels." And he absorbs that for a moment, and asks, "Is there anybody else up there?"
I'm not sure I have it quite right, can anyone help? I heard it in a secular or Christian context, sometimes about an atheist or agnostic, sometimes about a minister, often with God explicitly asking him if he has faith, and poking fun about the human's natural scepticism of having faith, but maybe not THAT much faith.
I hadn't realised how much the deep but multilayered attitude to God could be appropriate to a Jewish context.
There was one more joke that wasn't gruesome but was extremely, extremely bleak.
Na byq jbzna jnf n ubybpnhfg fheivibe, ohg riraghnyyl qvrq anghenyyl naq jrag gb urnira. Tbq nfxrq ure ubj ure yvsr jnf, naq fur fnvq tbbq guvatf nobhg zbfg bs vg ohg jnf haqrefgnaqnoyl rkgerzryl fnygl nobhg gur fubnu. Ohg vafgrnq bs oernxvat qbja, fur fnvq, yrg zr chg vg yvxr guvf, naq gbyq Tbq na rkgerzryl, rkgerzryl oyrnx wbxr nobhg gur fhowrpg.
Naq Tbq fnvq Gurl qvqa'g svaq gung irel shaal, naq fur erghearq, "Vg'f cebonoyl bayl shaal vs lbh jrer gurer."
Left vs Right and humour
I think there was a stereotype in at least some places, from both sides, that the Right were Serious and Knew What They Were Doing, and the Left were irreverent and wanted to subvert the Institutions We Should Be Respectful Of. I'm not quite sure how this has varied in times and places -- my stereotype of Marxists and Communists isn't of being a barrel of laughs, but in established democracies, I definitely get the idea of mocking things being a scrappy underdog left thing.
But for a while, there's been a painful tendency of the alt-right to pull this. Even back with something like south park, which start with "mock everything" in ways that often worked very well, but began repeatedly veering into "if we just give everything a good kicking, we don't care if sometimes the kicking is aimed at people who are already extremely vulnerable and if we tell people to hate them, might be put in actual physical danger". And now of course, it's one of the most favoured tactics of the alt-right, from street thugs from the BNP who play the "Oh yeah, ok, that was extremely racist, but it's ok, I was joking" to internet alt-nazis who (as Baum explicitly quoted them saying) embraced "joke about what you really mean, and then you can keep saying it but it's still deniable".
And I'm not clear. Like, was that something that actually changed? Or is it just random, which movements get associated with humour and which aren't.
Jokes and what you actually believe in
This is inspired by her talk but is mostly me. I wish I *had* got more of her viewpoint on it, unfortunately, but it only slowly fell into place in my head. This feels like it should be a lot more obvious than it is (even amongst people who aren't deliberately lying about it).
Like, even with the most simple jokes, there's a spectrum of telling jokes about things you believe to things you don't believe. Like, suppose you've gone for a long hike without much lunch, and you've found a pub for dinner, and someone asks if you're hungry. What might you say?
"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Exaggeration. You ARE hungry, but probably not actually THAT hungry.
"Oh yes, I suppose I might be a mite peckish." Understatement. You are hungry, more so than specified.
"Oh, hungry? No, not after a 15 mile hike! Why would that happen?" Sarcasm. You are hungry, contrary to what you said.
Those are all twists on the true meaning, because if you just said it, it would just be a normal sentence, not a joke. But I did miss one out I couldn't decide where to put it, which is where you say what you mean, but it's funny because everyone knows you're not supposed to SAY that.
So what the fuck does "don't be offended, I was only joking?" mean?
Well, honestly, it seems like the sort of understanding of morality I used to know five year olds with (except that the five year olds were usually compassionate and really didn't intend to hurt people, unlike many of the arseheads who justify reactionary calls to violence with random non-excuses). The "I don't really know what 'an accident' means, but I know that people say 'it was an accident' when they want to say 'I didn't mean any harm and/or I don't want people to be upset with me'" defence.
That is, there are many situations where you might say, "I was only joking". Like, if you were joking about something that you *don't* mean, but were misunderstood, you might apologise for inadvertently worrying someone, and for be treating a serious topic lightly, but there's still a big difference between someone who says something obnoxious *as a critical parody* and someone who *actually wants people to believe that*.
I know that so many people are arseholes about this that that gets completely lost, but it actually always exists. People tell jokes about bad things that happen to *them*, or their culture, and (ideally) avoid telling them around people who will be distressed by them, but there deserves to be spaces where you DO tell those jokes.
So, unlike our five year old, people set out with viewpoints devoted to ruining other people's lives, but, like our five year old, they learn that SOMETIMES "it was only a joke" makes people stop being angry with you, so they just say that, all the time, regardless of whether it makes sense, as long as they can keep getting away with it.
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER IT WAS A JOKE, WHAT **MATTERS** IS WHETHER YOU ACTUALLY CALLED FOR MASS MURDER OR NOT.
Now, maybe you called for mass murder in an understated, joking, "well, *I* don't want those people to be murdered, I just want them to be ostracised and lose there jobs, but if someone else were to murder them, I wouldn't be very sad" way. Or maybe you called for mass murder in a "that's exactly what you want but you pretended it was edgy so you can deny it" way. But BOTH OF THOSE ARE WRONG. I mean, maybe one is EVEN MORE wrong, but PLEASE DON'T ADVOCATE MASS MURDER **AT ALL** **EVER**.
I feel like, the fucking alt-nazis won a propaganda victory before they started, because everyone keeps arguing about whether something was a joke or not, and I'm like, yes it was a joke, a poor joke, but people joke about things they actually mean all the time, the idea that "joke" means "didn't mean it" DOESN'T HAVE ANY BASIS AND DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, why do we keep letting them get away with this???????