NOTE: These are just a few thematically proximal things I've been thinking about today. I call them "operations" precisely because I still work through the thought processes, here. My mind is not made up about any of this. I welcome input.
Rape Jokes
Of course, I would spend my last waking hour last night
defending Daniel Tosh on the internet. It was the only reasonable conclusion to
a day I began waking at sunrise in the grass outside my apartment building—a
day that was never going to make a lot of sense. Tosh, I read, had recently
prompted a
morass of outrage during some stand-up at the Laugh Factory wherein
he tells the audience that rape jokes are always funny. A woman in the audience
pointed out the obvious: they are, in fact, not. As a comedian on stage with
his sense of humor stepped-on before the whole audience, there are
probably very few ways he could have responded to her. As it turns out, “Wouldn’t
it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now?” was not one of
them. OK, even in the context of comedy, where envelopes are supposed to be
pushed and people are supposed to be offended pretty often, this is still the
fuckest uppest thing to say.
So, I mislead you earlier when I said that I spent that last
hour defending Daniel Tosh. I don’t care if you hate him, love him, or
masturbate screaming his name. The story itself isn’t all that interesting to
me. What interests me a great deal is the character response,
beginning with this oneshared by a friend on Facebook.
I replied: I'm not sure how solid this argument is. The idea
that rape jokes are not like regular jokes because they "turn a traumatic
experience into something people laugh at," makes them sound EXACTLY like
a regular joke. I mean, over the years, I've heard jokes about slavery, murder,
third world dictatorships, and pretty much everything else. Sometimes I
laughed, sometimes I gagged, sometimes I rolled my eyes and muttered
"white-privileged, cisgender asshole" at the tv. But I never wished
for an entire topic to be taken off the table. Humor would suck if it was
allowed to make a few mistakes.
Just to clarify, my counter-argument
had two parts. The first was that the argument provided for why rape jokes were
never OK was not a strong one because it depends on the claim rape jokes are inherently different from other jokes, but it fails to
demonstrate so effectively. There has to be some trait about the topic of rape that separates it from all of the other awful shit we joke about for anyone to expect us to treat it differently. Identifying that trait is essential making and understanding the argument.
The second part was broadly about humor
itself and whether any topic, no matter how offensive, should ever be beyond
consideration. Even when it is harmful for society as a whole, I have reasons
why I want art to be insulated from this level of criticism. I’m not sure if
that’s a conversation I’m ready to have right now, but whatever. Let’s try.
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Contrarian Ex-Vegetarian
I eat meat again. It had been six years. When I am asked
why, I say, “I think it’s important to periodically reexamine your life
choices.” No one seems to mind that this is not an answer, least of all me.
So, why was I ever a vegetarian in the first place? Well, it
goes back to a trip I took with
Heather in the spring of 2006. I took her
to New York, then to visit my family in Texas; altogether, we were gone about a
5 days, I think. It was during that trip that I really noticed how difficult it could
be for Heather, a vegetarian already, to find decent food in unfamiliar environments
(keep in mind that this is before anyone had Google Maps on our phones). Often
she could only eat the sides at restaurants. A few times she would order menu
items appeared to be meatless only to discover some questionable, unlisted ingredient or sauce
and have to scrap the whole thing.
That was just New York. Texas was worse.
My life privilege thus exposed, I became a vegetarian
as an act of protest—protest of the unfair treatment of vegetarians—or, as
Chelsea would later term it, a “contrarian vegetarian.” Over time, a basic ethics
evolved. To my carnivore friends, the ones who thought I was crazy, who asserted
our right to eat animals by sovereignty of nature, I could say essentially
this: if we can now thrive in life without destroying other living things, do we not
have a moral obligation to try?
This put me in a bit of an ethical pickle now, doesn’t it?
How do I reconcile the disparity between what I still feel is a very good ethical stance and the actions I take now without feeling particularly bad? Well… I haven’t so much as
reconciled it as I have put it away. When I think of my previous ethic, I recall that it came from a perspective
that every action in life should be consistently, philosophically grounded. I don’t exactly
believe that anymore or, at least, I don’t think “philosophy,” itself, is merely what I
once believed.
Of course, some common ethical concerns could sneak through this very big loophole. This, then, is how I could justify spending money on beer instead of
giving it to the needy. Strange perversities sneak through as well: there are large
parts of my body I would now like to grill and eat.
Am I kidding?
-----
The Ethics of Ethics
I wonder at the end of
the day if I have been ethical enough. Have I acted with appropriate
responsibility for myself and society? Have I done enough for my fellow man to
consider myself one of the good ones—not just enough to compare myself to
others, but to live up to an anonymous, higher standard?
Have I been feminist enough
today? Was it antifeminist to criticize a feminist stance, to defend
misogynistic themes in comedy because of some weaknesses in the arguments against? Or
did I do right by feminism by demanding a higher level of rigor from an
argument that could have otherwise skated by on presupposed agreement?
This is how I feel right now writing
this: haughty, guilty and exposed. I don’t like rape jokes one bit; it would be
easier for me to believe that they should never exist. It is possible that a stronger
argument would make me believe it, but right now, I just don’t. That sucks.
So, what do I tell myself at the
end of the day? I tell myself that the only truly ethical stance is to keep
wondering, to never feel that you’ve done enough. And in the meantime, try not
to do harm, and can still recognize yourself from your enemies. I think, for now, that should be enough.
TUNES TONIGHT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DYWwqYl0yA&feature=related
