Mocking As Respect
How can you tell which are the dominant ethnicities, professions, or genders? One easy test: in our society, dominant groups are ones that people are allowed to insult and lampoon. For example, you can get in a lot more trouble for making negative general statements about blacks or women than about whites or men. Maybe this fact can comfort dad today, as he gets his annual card mocking his role as father:
There’s a good chance if you receive — or give — a Father’s Day card this weekend, Dad will be portrayed as a farting, beer-obsessed, tool-challenged buffoon who would rather hog the TV remote, go fishing or play golf than be with the kids. Such cards are top sellers among the 87 million Father’s Day cards that will be given this year. …
About 25 percent of Hallmark’s Father’s Day cards are in the humor category, compared with 15 percent of Mother’s Day cards. Men also appreciate punch-in-the-arm, even immature, humor more than women do, companies say. …. You try to give mom a fart joke for Mother’s Day, it probably won’t fly very well, but with dad you can. …
Whyatt, the cartoonist, … said. “I’m sure there’s a way to make the new image of fathers funny as well, but it would be a shame to lose making dad the butt of the joke. Even though we’re all changing, hopefully we’ll still be able to take a joke.” (more)
Dads, the fact that you let them mock you, and show you can take a joke, is a good counter-signaling signal that you are loved and respected. Enjoy.
Note that while folks are eager to cut many public signals of which groups dominate, there is little push to cut this sort of signal.
Added 4p: I should note that in simple models counter-signaling there are three types, and the same signal is sent by the high and low type, which is a different signal from the mid type. So yes there are also low status groups today, like animals, which one is allowed to lampoon.
Some general conclusions. To understand mockery, we've got to understand not only status but also hatred. There can be a loved low status being: a pet. Or there can be a hated, high-status being: Hitler when Germany was winning WW 2.
What's particularly interesting is that we find it intellectually difficult to distinguish high status enemies from low status people for the same reason that mockery is useful as a signal directed against enemies: mockery is a vehicle for lowering the status of "enemies" (because of the association between being mocked and being low status).
What is "hatred"? You hate members of a deeply opposed coalition. Those powerful within these coalitions are high status but are subject to mockery by lower status individuals in the rival coalition. (Those lower-status folks are protected by their stronger coalition partners when they mock powerful rivals.)
Aside from the confusion between transvestites and transgender (transvestites view themselves as a different gender from whom they're trying to dress like, so "passable" makes sense), here's an interesting comment about who is acceptable to mock: http://fusion.net/modern_li...
The Cards Against Humanity people claim it's about punching up vs. punching down, but in reality, there are low status groups and high status groups that it's okay for them to lampoon. It's middle status groups that it's not okay to lampoon, and removing cards against trans groups is a sign of *increasing* status for that group, them moving from low to middle status.