From time to time someone speaks up against racist or sexist jokes or "ironic sexism/racism". Blogposts, forum posts, videos, speeches are made, then nothing happens, the "jokes" stay. Why?
Because joking with sexism/racism allows one to tell things he wants to be told without any consequences: he is "just joking", so no one can call him a primitive sexist/racist. Since the words themselves cannot be banned due to free speech, there seems to be no way to stop insulting behavior as long as it's packed into a joke.
I think I found a solution to this problem: jokes have one purpose, to provide fun. Not to express an opinion, not to start a discussion, not to present ideas. Jokes are only to make the audience laugh. A not funny joke is a bad joke and someone telling bad jokes is an annoying person who takes away the fun from a group. Everyone has an annoying relative who starts telling boring or dumb stories whenever he drinks too much, therefore he isn't invited to most gatherings. You don't want to be that guy, do you? Now, "fun" has no objective definition, there is no "fun-meter". A joke is good if the audience finds it funny. If significant part of the audience is bored, annoyed or upset, the joke was bad.
The beauty of this logic is that those who hate sexist/racist jokes don't have to get involved into complicated philosophical discussions about irony and free speech. All they have to say is "sorry dude, this joke was awful, could you stop telling such crap?" No need to explain why. You are entitled to not have fun on the joke. If he insist on keep telling them, you can call him a killjoy, an annoying asshole who ruins the fun for you and he can't really tell anything against it. I mean if the audience finds his joke bad, than the joke was bad, period. You can even retaliate by starting to tell random boring stuff like reading up a cookbook and when he tells it's boring you can reply "it's fun for me hahaha".
This logic is also protected from the "free speech" argument. You do not question his right to tell such things. You just call them not funny. Free speech is there to protect opinions, but he does not claim to have a racist/sexist opinion, he is just "having fun". When he asks "why can't I say these" you can tell "you can, but it's not funny and we were trying to have fun here": make him be the killjoy!
Because joking with sexism/racism allows one to tell things he wants to be told without any consequences: he is "just joking", so no one can call him a primitive sexist/racist. Since the words themselves cannot be banned due to free speech, there seems to be no way to stop insulting behavior as long as it's packed into a joke.
I think I found a solution to this problem: jokes have one purpose, to provide fun. Not to express an opinion, not to start a discussion, not to present ideas. Jokes are only to make the audience laugh. A not funny joke is a bad joke and someone telling bad jokes is an annoying person who takes away the fun from a group. Everyone has an annoying relative who starts telling boring or dumb stories whenever he drinks too much, therefore he isn't invited to most gatherings. You don't want to be that guy, do you? Now, "fun" has no objective definition, there is no "fun-meter". A joke is good if the audience finds it funny. If significant part of the audience is bored, annoyed or upset, the joke was bad.
The beauty of this logic is that those who hate sexist/racist jokes don't have to get involved into complicated philosophical discussions about irony and free speech. All they have to say is "sorry dude, this joke was awful, could you stop telling such crap?" No need to explain why. You are entitled to not have fun on the joke. If he insist on keep telling them, you can call him a killjoy, an annoying asshole who ruins the fun for you and he can't really tell anything against it. I mean if the audience finds his joke bad, than the joke was bad, period. You can even retaliate by starting to tell random boring stuff like reading up a cookbook and when he tells it's boring you can reply "it's fun for me hahaha".
This logic is also protected from the "free speech" argument. You do not question his right to tell such things. You just call them not funny. Free speech is there to protect opinions, but he does not claim to have a racist/sexist opinion, he is just "having fun". When he asks "why can't I say these" you can tell "you can, but it's not funny and we were trying to have fun here": make him be the killjoy!
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