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:
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.
The point is that in order to a model to be an useful explanation of whatever it tries to model, it must make falsifiable prediction.
The problem with the signalling model, as you use it, is that it is unfalsifiable: you can fit any observation X into it, by coming up with a more or less sophisticated narrative of how X is a signal for some desirable property Y. Even when X doesn't really look like a plausible signal for any desirable property, you can always invoke "counter-signalling".
That makes the model, or precisely the way you use it, largely epistemically worthless.
Jokes made by inferiors about superiors have to be made carefully if at all. If they' are in on it. If they are not, that is very different. Jokes between peers are different, and so are jokes by superiors about inferiors.
I'd suggest that being Jewish isn't itself high status, but it may be associated with other things that are.
I suggested the same earlier in the discussion. But have you heard of any other ethnicity (or religion) where the status of the group diverges markedly from the status of the individuals comprising the group?
The reason it's improbable is that we mostly form our ideas about groups based on experiences with individuals.
I think underestimating the status of being Jewish (in the U.S.) is PC driven. To say Jews are successful (in part) because of their high social status seems to deprecate Jews' talents and imply an unfair advantage, anti-Semitism being low status.
South Park and Family Guy trade heavily on Jew jokes. One of the co-creators of South Park is Jewish. I thought Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, was half-Jewish, but Wikipedia suggests he is 100% gentile. Still, I bet his writer's room is heavily Jewish, or we wouldn't see so many Jew jokes.
On the other hand, Jewish comedians never seem too worried about mocking Christians or other non-Jewish groups.
I'd suggest that being Jewish isn't itself high status, but it may be associated with other things that are. If you put on your resume that you are Jewish, the employer does a Bayseian update on the chance that you have one of those other high status traits. In a setting where someone can learn more directly whether you have such traits, being Jewish would not have such an effect--a resume is actually a pretty odd situation.
Furthermore, just because something improves your chances of getting a job, that doesn't necessarily make it high status. For instance, being obedient increases your chances of getting many jobs.
And from that link, the study concentrated on the American South. Because of religious influence, conservatives in the South like Jews and Christians. Liberals don't like Christians as much but are neutral on Jews. Add those together and Jews do the best
One issue with Dad vs Mom cards is that typically mothers derive a lot more self-actualization from their role as moms. Not only do fewer have careers outside the home, but women in general define themselves based more on their relationships. (Surveys indicate that during their hypothetical funeral women would rather have eulogies talking about their relationship, and men their achievements).
It's like making fun of your boss is probably okay if you're making fun of him for not being able to work his smartphone (ha ha ha), but not okay to call him a grossly incompetent manager (*crickets*).
Per Eddie Izzard, it depends on how many people you kill. More seriously, modern versions of people "running amok" with mass killings in part seem like attempts to achieve a twisted kind of status in death.
I think this is correct in the case of father's day cards, being toward someone with whom you're close. As a generalization though I think that if this were true then the comment section here wouldn't be so divided. I don't think counter-signalling can be so ambiguous.
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.
The point is that in order to a model to be an useful explanation of whatever it tries to model, it must make falsifiable prediction.
The problem with the signalling model, as you use it, is that it is unfalsifiable: you can fit any observation X into it, by coming up with a more or less sophisticated narrative of how X is a signal for some desirable property Y. Even when X doesn't really look like a plausible signal for any desirable property, you can always invoke "counter-signalling".
That makes the model, or precisely the way you use it, largely epistemically worthless.
Good point. The key question is whether jokes increase or decrease as status changes.
Jokes made by inferiors about superiors have to be made carefully if at all. If they' are in on it. If they are not, that is very different. Jokes between peers are different, and so are jokes by superiors about inferiors.
A joke can be one of 5 or 6 different things.
Whence the confusion.
I'd suggest that being Jewish isn't itself high status, but it may be associated with other things that are.
I suggested the same earlier in the discussion. But have you heard of any other ethnicity (or religion) where the status of the group diverges markedly from the status of the individuals comprising the group?
The reason it's improbable is that we mostly form our ideas about groups based on experiences with individuals.
I think underestimating the status of being Jewish (in the U.S.) is PC driven. To say Jews are successful (in part) because of their high social status seems to deprecate Jews' talents and imply an unfair advantage, anti-Semitism being low status.
South Park and Family Guy trade heavily on Jew jokes. One of the co-creators of South Park is Jewish. I thought Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, was half-Jewish, but Wikipedia suggests he is 100% gentile. Still, I bet his writer's room is heavily Jewish, or we wouldn't see so many Jew jokes.
On the other hand, Jewish comedians never seem too worried about mocking Christians or other non-Jewish groups.
I'd suggest that being Jewish isn't itself high status, but it may be associated with other things that are. If you put on your resume that you are Jewish, the employer does a Bayseian update on the chance that you have one of those other high status traits. In a setting where someone can learn more directly whether you have such traits, being Jewish would not have such an effect--a resume is actually a pretty odd situation.
Furthermore, just because something improves your chances of getting a job, that doesn't necessarily make it high status. For instance, being obedient increases your chances of getting many jobs.
And from that link, the study concentrated on the American South. Because of religious influence, conservatives in the South like Jews and Christians. Liberals don't like Christians as much but are neutral on Jews. Add those together and Jews do the best
One issue with Dad vs Mom cards is that typically mothers derive a lot more self-actualization from their role as moms. Not only do fewer have careers outside the home, but women in general define themselves based more on their relationships. (Surveys indicate that during their hypothetical funeral women would rather have eulogies talking about their relationship, and men their achievements).
It's like making fun of your boss is probably okay if you're making fun of him for not being able to work his smartphone (ha ha ha), but not okay to call him a grossly incompetent manager (*crickets*).
That settles it: I was wrong that in the U.S. being a Jew isn't high status.
The reason mocking Jews isn't PC is that Jews have both a particularly strong fear of stigmatization and the high status to enforce the ban.
Take a wild guess: what's the only religious affiliation to improve your chances of getting a job offer if you put it on your resume?
Per Eddie Izzard, it depends on how many people you kill. More seriously, modern versions of people "running amok" with mass killings in part seem like attempts to achieve a twisted kind of status in death.
They don't pay much attention to them individually. (One reason for hiring an overseer is to avoid degrading associations and preoccupations.)
Slaveowners don't ignore their slaves (they ignore their slaves' *wishes*, but that's not the same thing). Yet slaves are low status.
It's ambiguous to our conscious minds, yet our subconscious minds are able to distinguish.
That's the point!
I think this is correct in the case of father's day cards, being toward someone with whom you're close. As a generalization though I think that if this were true then the comment section here wouldn't be so divided. I don't think counter-signalling can be so ambiguous.