 think) is quite different than a broadcaster actually himself using offensive language to refer to young black women with no qualms. When used that way the language is celebrated, or at least implicitly approved of. 
Perhaps part of the problem is that a lot of the readers of the Carnival aren’t my regular readers, and aren’t familiar with the particular character in that strip – who I often use in a similar fashion. And perhaps part of the problem is that I simply didn’t make my true intent clear enough. And perhaps it doesn’t matter – perhaps the idiom is so offensive that it shouldn’t be used for ANY purpose. I don’t know, but I would appreciate any further thoughts that you have now that I have (hopefully) made my actual intent clearer.
I have no problem with any heated disagreement on this topic! I think it’s actually a rare area where a little heat can sometimes generate a lot of light by putting arguments under pressure; in part because it’s a point where arguments don’t just need to be considered, but put under the pressure of different views.
In fact, I occasionally worry about your (a) myself. I think there are good general reasons for distinguishing culpability and complicity; but since they can overlap (and probably do much of the time) I think that in particular cases it will often tend to be difficult to draw the line properly (especially when people are drawing it for their own actions). There will always be the nagging question, “But was it really so very innocent and accidental?” And if there isn’t, that in itself is probably a warning sign of (probably culpable) complacency. But that does mean the question will often remain.
I think my original comment probably should have done a better job of distinguishing thatgeneral question a little more clearly from the question of how to approach the balance between systemic fault and individual fault, because I myself don’t think that it makes sense to talk about systematic faults as if they were no one’s faults; systematic faults are just faults in which everyone in the system is complicitous, and many culpably so. But even where there’s individual culpability, I think it’s a good idea to draw a distinction between(for lack of better terms) culpable lapses and culpable dispositions. I’m inclined to think that in systems that create widespread complicity in oppression or discrimination, everyone has culpable lapses because no one is capable of always fending off the pressure of the system (i.e., of all the bad habits and poorly designed institutions that push out a regularly discriminatory or oppressive result). And so, for instance, those of us who are not blind or deaf will generally, however well-meaning we are or vigilant we try to be, lapse here and there into a practice or type of discourse that supports the network of things that make life difficult for the blind and deaf; white feminists occasionally fail to remember that they can’t just consider whites; liberationists lapse into practices that are detrimental to one group of the poor; etc. This is where I was suggesting that a bit of charity is called for. Part of this is that I don’t think it’s realistic to expect flawless vigilance from anyone; human beings tire, undergo periods of weakened judgment during stress, are easily influenced, fail when in a hurry to consider all the affected points of view. And none of us are immune to this. So I think one can afford to be fairly generous on such matters as long as mistakes are recognized and corrected and progress made. But I would distinguish this sort of failure to be as careful in avoiding participation in the problem as one should have been from deliberate participation in the problem.
I agree with your (c).
Hello chaospet, thanks for dropping by, and for your comments.
b) blog visitors might be quick drop-in visitors. They might (like myself) not read the whole article (I didn’t read AW’s piece properly) so not read enough for any intended irony to make sense.
c) blog visitors could be anybody; folks who share your sense of the absurd, or who share the sentiments expressed in the cartoon, or a whole bunch of stuff in between.
I guess the post here is testament to the difficulties of making your message clear (and, in particular, clearly inoffensive, if that is what one is aiming for) in this medium.
In general, the kind of humour you describe – a silly character saying silly offensive things to poke fun at people who say them – is a form I find difficult… By that I mean that, whilst there are instances of this I’ve laughed at, I feel ambivalent about doing so.
I’ve been in contexts (Borat the movie, for instance) where it has seemed quite obvious that, whilst the intention was to poke fun at (say) racism, the racist utterances being used in ridiculing mimic were clearly being laughed at *in the wrong way* – if that makes sense (?). I mean not as parody and ridicule, but as a funny racist joke.
I think if someone reads the passage to the right, it’s obvious the comic is a parody of the position the author is defending. I got your meaning, and wasn’t offended…for what its worth!
Chaospet – why did you include my post if it’s so patently stupid? You’re reading this “frat-boy” thing in to it which I never even hint at. And, like I said before, it supports ‘chicks-before-dicks’ as much as ‘bros-before-hos’. But really it needn’t support either. If you want to act on it that way, that’s your loss.
I don’t have an agenda. I’m not some sexist frat-boy trying to justify his misogyny. Sometimes argument will take you to surprising conclusions. Some might even say that’s what philosophy is for.
Also, I wasn’t familiar with Chaospet’s blog before the carnival, but I understood the joke. I didn’t think he was trying to point out the absurdity of my views, but I understood that it was just a light-hearted silly cartoon. Sure, we’ve all encountered dick-heads who try to pass off their sexism as jocular, but I saw no reason to think that about Chaospet.
Again, I don’t have an agenda. It’s just an argument. If it works, so be it. Like I said, that’s just what happens in philosophy. If you don’t like it, join a church — where conclusions are decided on prior to argument.
Thanks very much for the explanation. I realize I probably did write as though I thought you were in some way speaking the words, and I’m not sure I really thought that; it was clearly a joke and not something to be taken seriously, in some sense. In any case, I think I should apologize for the implication that you did.
Does it make a difference that people aware of the conventions would know that you’ve explicitly disassociated yourself from the charaters views? I think this is really very complicated, since of course the character is not totally off. The comment is relevant, and it gets the difference in evaluation right.
It occurs to me that one bottom line is something we looked at when considering how Obama’s team was trying to squelch rumors by negating them (e.g., ‘He is not a ….’), and that one of our readers, noumena mentioned recently: repeating things to deny them or make fun of them can in fact reinforce them. There’s a lot of empirical evidence for that. It is, I regret to say, quite possible that those who read that jokey line will be more tolerate of the next stereotype.
The point of the Imus example was really that it is pretty clear how offensive the term ‘hos’ is. When terms like that are used at least some of us are going to feel we’re on the other side of a dividing line, however positioned it is in a joke.
It’s probably not normally worth going on at length about a joke about someone using frat boy humor, but our profession has a huge gender problem. For a lot of the time, many women in philosophy do feel we’re on the other side of a dividing line. So in fact the frat boy line seems more relevant to the interests of this blog, in so far as we’re concerned about who feels alienated.
AW: Just for the record, I wasn’t thinking about the argument at all. What struck me was all your descriptions of relationships just ending, along with your ideas about the delusions of romantic relationships. At some point, you may feel your engagements with people need to be more reflective. Or not.
Stoat, I also had trouble with Borat. The “kill the jew” episode really was more than I could take, though Borat’s character was based on a funny idea. Or at least it seemed funny for a while. After some time, I even got uncomfortable about the duping of people that was going on.
Aaron: I didn’t mean to imply that your arguments were stupid. I certainly wouldn’t have included your piece if I had thought so. Quite though contrary, I thought the arguments were interesting and worth reading. I also happen to strongly disagree with them, and noticed that they could be used to support a sort of frat-boy mentality (and as you note it supports the inverse position just as well). I shouldn’t have said such a mentality was embodied in your piece, poor choice of words on my part. Rather, I