“I don’t know where the line is. … In most religions you’re taught that you’re not going to be judged by your actions; you’re going to be judged by your intent. … So if your intent is to gay-bash, yes, you are a gay-basher. Even when you don’t do it. If your intent is to not, then it’s not.
Now, it can still be offensive, but once you explain that to the person that made the mistake, you can pretty much be sure they will go back on that and try to rectify hurting you. Does this make sense?”
– Chris Rock on Fresh Air, 12/8/14
On Tuesday, November 3rd, Jennifer Ware (CUNY Graduate Center) comes to Brooklyn Public Philosophers to answer Chris Rock’s question. (The answer is no.) She’ll talk about stereotypes, slurs, and the psychological and social mechanisms through which jokes can hurt.
Here’s a bit more about the talk in Ware’s own words:
Unjust Kidding: The Insufficiency of Good Intentions
Careful analysis of humor is important because of the amnesty often granted to humorous speech acts. When someone tells a joke, they seemingly separate themselves from that which they express, and consequently we typically do not hold individuals to the same standards when they are apparently telling a joke. George Carlin, a comic famous for his off-color humor, made the following observation,
“Stand-up is a socially acceptable form of aggression. You get to name the targets, you get to fire the bullets… and the wonderful part is, after you’ve finished, you then say, ‘Hey, can’t you take a joke? This is humor, sir! What’s the matter with you?”
Individuals intending to express a vicious position without having to take full responsibility for their words may use this greater forgiveness divisively, and therefore we should be careful about granting such amnesty.
In this presentation, I will review some of the more common formal and colloquial accounts that aim to explain why and when jokes are offensive. I will go on to develop a position informed by empirical evidence that challenges the view that facts about the speaker largely, if not entirely, determine the moral character of a joke. Instead, I suggest the effects of jokes play a significant role in determining their moral characters.
Tell your friends/students/strangers! Bring someone who knows lots of jokes! See you there, I hope!
“Sometimes people who are together are, if not hostile to one another, at least estranged in mood and feeling till perchance a story, a performance, a picture, or even a building, but most often of all music, unites them all as by an electric flash, and in place of their former isolation or even enmity they are all conscious of union and mutual love. Each is glad that another feels what he feels; glad of the communion established, not only between him and all present, but also with all now living who will yet share the same impression; and more than that, he feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which, reaching beyond the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have been moved by the same feelings, and with all men of the future who will yet be touched by them.“ – Tolstoy, “What is Art?”
What is it for a piece of music to express emotions like sadness or caring or joy? What role do emotions play in how we receive a piece of music? And what are emotions, exactly?
Coming up on Wednesday, October 17th at 7:30 PM, Saam Trivedi (Brooklyn College, author of the newly released Imagination, Music, and the Emotions: A Philosophical Study), joins us to share his work on these very questions. Here’s some more about the talk, in Dr. Trivedi’s own words.
“Emotions and Music”
I will begin with some brief remarks about the emotions. Next, I will discuss three philosophical theories about musical expressiveness. Finally, I will discuss one philosophical view about musical arousal.
As usual, we meet in the Dweck Center of the Grand Army Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Please note the time change: future BKPP talks will start at 7:30.
Tell your friends/co-workers/strangers! Bring a musician! Bring the last person you went to a concert with! See you there, I hope!
Nietzsche Circle Presents: An Evening with Music and Philosophy
Speakers:
- Michael Teinmann
- Yunus Tuncel
Pianist:
- Aysegul Durakoglu
RSVP required!
Refreshments will be served. If you like to attend, Please RSVP by sending email to Luke Trusso at trussol@nietzschecircle.com
This study explores the increasingly troubled relationship between humankind and the Earth, with the help of a simple example and a complicated interlocutor. The example is a pond, which, it turns out, is not so simple as it seems. The interlocutor is Jean-Paul Sartre, novelist, playwright, biographer, philosopher, and, despite his several disavowals, doyen of twentieth-century existentialism. Standing with the great humanist at the edge of the pond, the author examines contemporary experience in the light of several familiar conceptual pairs: nature and culture, fact and value, reality and imagination, human and nonhuman, society and ecology, Earth and world. The theoretical challenge is to reveal the critical complementarity and experiential unity of this family of ideas. The practical task is to discern the heuristic implications of this lived unity-in-diversity in these times of social and ecological crisis. Interdisciplinary in its aspirations, the study draws upon recent developments in biology and ecology, complexity science and systems theory, ecological and Marxist economics, and environmental history. Comprehensive in its engagement of Sartre’s oeuvre, the study builds upon his best-known existentialist writings, and also his critique of colonialism, voluminous ethical writings, early studies of the imaginary, and mature dialectical philosophy. In addition to overviews of Sartre’s distinctive inflections of phenomenology and dialectics and his unique theories of praxis and imagination, the study also articulates for the first time Sartre’s incipient philosophical ecology. In keeping with Sartre’s lifelong commitment to freedom and liberation, the study concludes with a programmatic look at the relative merits of pragmatist, prefigurative, and revolutionary activism within the burgeoning global struggle for social and ecological justice. We learn much by thinking with Sartre at the water’s edge: surprising lessons about our changing humanity and how we have come to where we are; timely lessons about the shifting relation between us and the broader community of life to which we belong; difficult lessons about our brutal degradation of the planetary system upon which life depends; and auspicious lessons, too, about a participatory path forward as we work to preserve a habitable planet and build a livable world for all earthlings.
Matthew C. Ally was supposed to be an ecologist. During the same semester in which he took a required course in “Temperate Forest Ecosystems,” he took an elective philosophy course called “Tyranny and Freedom.” The rest is history. He is professor of philosophy at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York and coordinator of the BMCC Sustainability Studies Project. He has published articles on Sartre’s philosophy, progressive and radical pedagogy, philosophical ecology, environmentalism, and sustainability.
It has been said that there are not different “types” or categories of music, only good music and bad music. How can we know the difference between good and bad music however? Well, on some accounts, there are indeed different types (‘low’ vs ‘high’ art), some of which are by definition bad, others good. Yet, on other accounts, music is music – there are no essential differences in kind, and it is simply each listener’s favorable or unfavorable reaction to any given song or piece of music that decides its quality. In very broad strokes, these two contrasting orientations represent attitudes common in modernist and postmodernist theories, respectively. In the former, Western classical music was privileged (unjustly, in some respects) above all other kinds. However, the latter orientation, which is currently in fashion, seems to reduce all musical meaning and appraisal to little more than our own mental projections. In this presentation, a third, alternative way to identify musical “types” is proposed, one that seeks to illuminate meaningful musical distinctions in the natures and functions of three musical kinds (folk, mass, and art music), with some surprising results. A brief piano performance will precede the talk.
Monday, December 11, 2017 at 6pm. This event is part of the Philosophy Series at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $10, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319)
Jason Cutmore is a concert pianist, teacher, and the founder and director of the Canadian music festival, Alberta Pianofest. He has performed solo piano and collaborative recitals across much of North America, Europe, and India, and has published articles in peer review journals and trade magazines. Mr Cutmore lives in New York City, and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.