[lit-ideas] Re: Insults Which Are Humourous (Maybe)
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 8 May 2010 11:35:53 -0700
JL,
Your considerations don't exhaust the possibilities, consider:
I found it humorous to associate the German man marrying the cat. By voicing
that humor (found humorous by me) I assumed it would be mildly insulting and
slightly less humorous (but still somewhat humorous) to Mike.
Mike seemed to find it more insulting than humorous. There could be several
reasons for that. The most probable one is that people not from the South like
to poke fun at the South for its backwardness. The first "few hundred times"
they heard jokes like that they seem humorous, but now they are just "old, old,
old -- and tiresome -- barely worth responding to."
"I'm guessing it is supposed to be a humorous insult," might mean "I've heard
humorous insults against the South so often I can no longer be sure what they
are."
I found, and still find, such associations (Tennessee with backwardness)
amusing largely because my wife's family was from Tennessee. Her maiden name
is McWherter (a relative was once governor of Tennessee). Also I had a
Tennessean working for me at McDonnell Douglas for several years who strove
hard to shed his association with backwardness and to present himself as a
intellectual. I don't recall that he found my Tennessee-jokes humorous either,
but, once again (and something you didn't cover) I did. Which is to disagree
with Austin: illucutionary uptake is not essential for me to be amused. In
fact if I were not amused I would not have presented it to Mike as humor.
One of the two of us found humor in it; so if our testimony is important in the
determination of whether a joke is humorous, my testimony must count as much as
Mike's, or if not quite as much as the illucutionary uptake, at least
something.
Had this been the first humor ever presented to him about Tennessee, he might
have been found it amusing.
I find Austin's association of betting with joking humorous. Here we have, I
suspect, an illucutionary uptake involving humor without the intention of humor
on Austin's part.
Mike can "refuse to be insulted" implies a serious insult. But if jokes about
the South are heaped upon it with tiresome frequency, refusal is not necessary
to avoid being insulted. Hearing something the thousandth time lacks the
poignancy of hearing it for the first time.
Note that Mike switch the object of my humor from Tennessee to The South. That
is something I would not have done. Which made me think of how Germany is
related to the rest of Europe. If the demographic trends we read about
continue, and the US gets larger and more important while Europe gets smaller
and less important, the time may come when Germany is treated in Europe
similarly to the way Tennessee is treated in the US. There are some
similarities. Germany produce Hitler; while Tennessee produced our most
war-like President, Andrew Jackson, who, incidentally, was also guilty of
genocide. Germans have in the past been noted for being especially warlike.
That is also true of Tennesseans (although there are anomalies like Mike).
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2010 10:39 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Insults Which Are Humourous (Maybe)
J. M. Geary:
"'m guessing this is supposed to be a humorous insult."
Mmm. Interesting. For philosopher J. L. Austin (a colleague of H. P.
Grice at Oxford), no such thing:
Condider:
-- "He insulted me, I guess. He meant to be humourous, I guess.
versus:
"If he insulted me, he did it humourously, I guess."
---- I don´t know if he insulted me; I guess so.
--- I don´t know if his was a humorous insult, I guess.
As Austin notes, "a joke is a joke is a joke" -- "illocutionary uptake"
is essential. "One wouldn´t say that he has bet 4,000 dollars on
something unless someone else took his bet."
"Similarly, one cannot say, "He was being humorous, but I failed to
recognise the humour."
Or,
"It is wrong to talk offense unless someone has personally been
offended. "I take offense" is performative."
Or
Grice was more careful,
"The recognition of the intention to insult you may be enough to get
insulted. You don´t need to know what the insult amounts to."
"You can refuse to be insulted."
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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