Communicating Offense: the Sordid Life of Language Use
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COMMUNICATING OFFENSE: THE SORDID LIFE OF LANGUAGE USE By LUVELL E. ANDERSON JR. A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy written under the direction of Howard McGary and approved by _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Communicating Offense: The Sordid Life of Language Use by LUVELL ANDERSON Dissertation Director: Howard McGary We encounter offense through various media: an intended facetious remark, a protester’s photographic image of an aborted fetus, an epithet, a stereotypical joke of a minority racial group. People say things that cause offense all of the time. And causing offense can have serious consequences, both personal and professional; the offending party is subject to termination, suspension, or social isolation and public opprobrium. Since the stakes are so high we should have a better understanding of the mechanisms of offense involved in these media and how they work. In this dissertation I focus on two mechanisms for communicating offense— i.e. racial and ethnic slurs and racial humor. First, I lay out a few distinctions concerning the particular kind of offense being targeted, objective versus subjective offense, and when state involvement might be appropriate for penalizing offensive behavior. Next, I discuss racial slurs and the conditions of their offensiveness. I offer a non-content based view of slurs’ offense, which contradicts the consensus view held by most philosophers of language and linguists working on this issue. Also, I look more closely at a purportedly non-offensive use of slurring language, so- called linguistic appropriation, and determine that appropriated uses are permissible in certain settings only under certain conditions. And finally, I propose ii a tri-partite analysis of racial jokes that provides conditions for when they are merely racial, racially insensitive, or racist. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... iv Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Communicating Offense ................................................................................... 8 1.1 Why Offense? ........................................................................................................................... 8 1.2 What is Offense? .................................................................................................................... 16 1.3 Prohibiting Offense ............................................................................................................... 23 1.4 Penalizing Offense ................................................................................................................. 25 Chapter 2 Slurring Words ................................................................................................ 35 2.1 Preliminaries ......................................................................................................................... 37 2.2 Content ................................................................................................................................... 38 2.3 Slurs Under Embeddings ...................................................................................................... 43 2.4 Presupposition ...................................................................................................................... 47 2.5 Tone ........................................................................................................................................ 50 2.6 Conventional Implicature Items .......................................................................................... 52 2.7 Inert Content.......................................................................................................................... 58 2.8 Slurs as Prohibited Words .................................................................................................... 62 2.9 Appropriation ........................................................................................................................ 69 Chapter 3 Appropriation: Some Linguistic and Social Considerations .......................... 75 3.1 Oppressive Speech ................................................................................................................ 76 3.2 Speech and Morality .............................................................................................................. 79 3.3 Defining Appropriation......................................................................................................... 82 3.4 Prohibitionism ....................................................................................................................... 84 3.5 Appropriation: For and Against ........................................................................................... 91 3.5.1 The Bill Cosby View ............................................................................................................ 92 3.5.2 The Q-Tip View ................................................................................................................... 96 3.5.3 The Militant View ............................................................................................................. 100 iv 3.6 Socially Conscious Appropriation ...................................................................................... 102 Chapter 4 Why So Serious? An Inquiry on Racist Jokes ................................................... 107 4.1 Ethics and Jokes ................................................................................................................... 107 4.2 Racial and Racist Jokes ....................................................................................................... 111 4.2.1 Explaining Racist Jokes .................................................................................................... 111 4.3 Another Way ........................................................................................................................ 120 4.3.1 A Tri-Partite Distinction .................................................................................................. 120 4.4 The View in Action .............................................................................................................. 128 4.5 Jokes and Morality ............................................................................................................... 133 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 141 CV……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 149 v Acknowledgements “The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the gem of a new work.” The sentiment expressed in Berthold Auerbach’s words would appear to extend to graduate students, who finish the sole work that has occupied their time for what seem like countless moments. At least it feels that way for me. Besides the “little dissatisfaction” though there is great satisfaction. Several people are to thank for this feeling of satisfaction. First, I am indebted to my committee for their guidance and advice throughout this journey: My chair and good friend Howard McGary has been a constant source of wisdom during my time at Rutgers. Howard took me in and mentored me from day one, even before I officially started as a graduate student, and for that I am forever grateful. I thank Ernie Lepore for showing me how to write like a professional instead of a graduate student. And also, for suggesting that we read some stuff together, which turned into two publications (and counting). Ishani Maitra, who tirelessly provided feedback on everything I wrote, and in the process made me a sharper thinker. Peter Kivy, who encouraged me and provided crucial support during the dark days of the job market. And finally, Anthony Appiah, who was gracious enough to share some of his precious time with me over the years talking about this and that. I have also benefited from the vibrant philosophical community at Rutgers, in both the philosophy and cognitive science departments. The semantics group was definitely something I benefited greatly from and owe thanks to all who participated in it: Josh Armstrong, Will Starr, Sam Cumming, Karen Lewis, Gabe Greenberg, vi Daniel Altshuler, Michael Johnson, Sarah Murray, Jason Turner, Una Stojnic, Carlotta Pavese, Lisa Miracchi, Ricardo Mena, and Zach Miller. Special thanks also to “my crew:” Josh Orozco, Matt Benton, Blake Roeber, and Rodrigo Borges for listening to my ideas and just for being awesome. I have to thank certain individuals who have also helped me out in important ways: Rae Langton, Sally Haslanger, Berit Brogaard, Eric Wiland, Adam Sennet, Christy Mag Uidhir, Jason Stanley, Larry Temkin, Alvin Goldman, Gaurav Vazirani, Chike Jeffers, Quayshawn Spencer, Michael Hunter,