My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





Total Pageviews

7,347,057

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

WHAT'S SO FUNNY?

I want to spend a little time explaining why I seem to kid around a lot, because I have a feeling it is not clear to a number of my readers, who are accustomed to serious subjects being talked about in high toned and serious ways. Let me begin by quoting a paragraph from that 2014 series of posts on the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

 

“That payoff matrix contains the totality of the information relevant to a game theoretic analysis.  Nothing else.  But what about those jail terms?  Those are part of the outcome matrix, not the payoff matrix.  The payoff matrix gives the utility of each outcome to each player, and with an ordinal ranking, the only utility information we have is that a player ranks one of the outcomes first, second, third, or fourth [or is indifferent between two or more of them, of course, but let us try to keep this simple.]  But ten years versus going scot free, and all that?  That is just part of the little story that is told to perk up the spirits of readers who are made nervous by mathematics.  We all know that when you are introducing kindergarteners to geometry, it may help to color the triangles red and blue and put little happy faces on the circles and turn the squares into SpongeBob SquarePants.  But eventually, the kids must learn that none of that has anything to do with the proofs of the theorems.  The Pythagorean Theorem is just as valid for white triangles as for red ones.”

 

This paragraph is actually a deadly serious and vicious attack on a number of high-profile, distinguished, accomplished, well known commentators on nuclear deterrence theory and international affairs and other subjects of equal importance. In this paragraph I am mocking them, making fun of them, trying as hard as I can to ridicule them, suggesting by my facetious remarks about SpongeBob SquarePants that these important people, who start wars and risk nuclear encounters and do other terrible things while justifying what they are doing by appeal to high toned quasi mathematical theories, are actually silly children who have no idea what they are talking about.

 

I did exactly the same thing in my famous review of Allan Bloom’s book The Closing of the American Mind, by writing the review absolutely with a straight face as though Bloom himself was the fictional creation of Saul Bellow, who had supplied a preface to Bloom’s book.

 

In order for this sort of deadly satire to work, it must be grounded on a serious critique of the work of the individual being satirized. It is only because I can in fact provide such a critique derived from a real grasp of the mathematics of Game Theory that the satire of those folks babbling on about the Prisoner’s Dilemma has any chance of succeeding. I cannot emphasize this point enough.  It accomplishes nothing to attack people whose views you do not like by trying to ridicule them unless the ridicule is grounded in and can be defended by a serious straight up critique of what they are saying.

 

To compare Herman Kahn and Henry Kissinger to children who find it easier to learn the elements of geometry when happy faces are painted on the circles is, in my judgment, a deeper and more wounding critique than taking them seriously as nuclear deterrence and foreign policy experts and arguing against them as one would at a university debate. Ridicule does not always work, of course. But it has its moments.  My greatest triumph came when I learned that people had started calling the University of Chicago, after my review appeared, to ask whether Allan Bloom really existed.  After all, the most devastating thing you can say about someone whose views you disagree with is that he or she does not exist.

 

So pause for a moment and think twice the next time you see me making a joke.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ironically, this post reveals that you should perhaps take yourself a little less seriously.

Achim Kriechel (A.K.) said...

Bloom's story reminds me of Jakob Maria Mierscheid, a member of the German parliament without interruption since 1979. In Berlin, there is even a street named after him and the president of the parliament congratulates him on his birthday during a session every year. He also has his own post office box in the parliament and is registered in the personnel department. He also introduced the Mierscheid Act to the parliament for a vote, and always publishes biting comments in newspapers.

I have heard rumors that Mierscheid was scheduled to meet Donald Trump at the airport, because the Trump family is from a small village very close to his constituency. Fortunately, Trump decided not to come to Germany.

Anonymous said...

Big win for freedom today in the Supreme Court. That is all

David Palmeter said...

Freedom to infect other people. Good thing for the country that George Washington thought otherwise and required small pox vaccinations for the troops at their winter resort, Valley Forge.

Another Anonymous said...

David,


I don't disagree with you. I believe OSHA had the expertise and authority to issue the mandate to employers, since OSHA's legislative mandate is to provide for worker safety. But could George Washington have ordered Paul Revere to get vaccinated? That's the difference. As Commander in Chief, President Biden can order the military to get vaccinated and wear masks, but according to the Supreme Court, not private employers.

Anonymous said...

Big surprise the authoritarian tendencies of lefties here...not.

And yes, of course there is a major difference between ordering vaccines for troops and coercing almost all employees in the nation.

Another Anonymous said...

Post-script:

President Truman was similarly rebuked by the Supreme Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, known as The Steel Co. Seizure Case (1952). Youngstown Steel was involved in a labor dispute with the Steel Workers union. When the union threatened to strike, the company closed its doors. Truman was concerned that the lack of steel would adversely affect the Korean War effort, and issued an Executive Order requiring that the steel mills remain open. The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Justice Black (generally considered a liberal) rebuked Truman that he had exceeded his Executive authority under the Constitution.

David Palmeter said...

AA

What do you think of the idea of a negligence suit against those who refuse vaccines without a medical excuse? I suspect the burden of proof would be too difficult to overcome in most cases, but I wonder: Nonvaccinated A comes in close contact with B, both come down with covid, A a day or two before B, who has been exposed to no one but A for a week or so before their meeting.

Anonymous said...

David, you really are a little tyrant grasping for straws aren't you? Get over it.

The 'proximal cause' in such cases of one's covid infection is certainly anything but some other individual's choice to not get the vaccine. Assumption of risk if you want to leave your house when you know there is an ongoing 'pandemic'.

LFC said...

(1) The regulation in question to private employers w/ more than a hundred employees mandated either a vaccine or weekly testing and mask wearing.

(2) It does not apply to "almost all employees in the nation." 84 million does not equal "almost all employees in the nation." A substantial number of people work for employers with less than a hundred employees.

aaall said...

There was a smallpox outbreak Mass, and the SC found for the state law (Jacobson v. Mass.) in 1905. While that was about a state law, it is (so far) constitutional for OSHA to deal nationally with workplace safety. Contra Gorsuch's stupid question, this is the first pandemic since OSHA was created so it's hardly a stretch to consider a highly contagious airborne virus that can cause serious debility as a workplace hazard under the the conditions that many folks have to work. Considering this a major question is simply ideological bad faith.

BTW, note that four of the conservative Justices considered the rule on health care workers to be administrative overreach.

Anon., since covid (and other viruses) can present asymptotically and not everyone can be vaccinated, a failure to get vaccinated can create a causal chain that eventually impacts innocent parties. You have a pathological theory of risk assumption.

Just another day under what has become our suicide pact.

Anonymous said...

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/unprecedented-deaths-in-indiana-for

Another Anonyous said...

David,

I agree with you, given the right facts a negligence lawsuit would be viable. Assumption of risk would not be a defense. The problem would be proving factual causation. In your hypothetical, B has not been in contact with anyone but A for several days. Two problems – proving that A was the only person s/he was in contact with before and after their contact. But there could be scenarios that fit the bill, e.g., B an elderly man does not leave his apartment and the only person he sees is the grocery or pizza delivery person, and contracts covid within a few days after the last delivery. Assumption of risk would not be a defense. (It would, unfortunately, be a defense against a medical worker who sues a patient.) The grocery/delivery person would not be collectible, but the employer would be for not having required all the employees to be vaccinated. B would not know that the grocery/pizza delivery person was not vaccinated, but would infer that he was from the facts.

Cases like this did arise during the AIDS epidemic. Individuals who continued to have unprotected sex after they learned that they were infected.

Anonymous said...

https://twitter.com/RickyLe80284150/status/1481758508328501248

Postulatamous said...

Anonymous @6:38PM

https://www.newswise.com/factcheck/vaccines-have-not-killed-twice-as-many-kids-as-those-that-were-killed-by-covid/?article_id=763115

David Y. said...

I have no idea how this comment thread turned toward discussing vaccination, but it doesn't seem relevant to the OP. How about everybody save their thunder for when our host invites such a discussion, and stick to the point of the thread here?

Eric said...

David Y,

Prof Wolff frequently refers to the impact that the pandemic has been having on the passing scene. The Supreme Court issued a major ruling on government mandates of vaccinations on 13 Jan, so a discussion about vaccination is relevant. I think even more relevant now since we have lately been discussing the authority of the state, the institution which claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Tony Couture said...

Comedy matters more than has been recognized by previous generations of philosophers and scholars. We should use more comedy in the process of popular philosophizing as Professor Wolff argues even if philosophers have a professional bias against letting comedy get out of hand and wild. They have problems with the irony and indirect communication that gives comedy a dimension of irrationality and surprise. Some counter-cultural philosophers can function as the means for turning philosophy back to these tragically neglected paths of comedy, irony and recognition of our contingencies. Comedy exercises our awareness of contingencies more than our recognition of what is morally obligatory, so we must work at understanding its moral impacts more.

The ancient Greek legacy rooted practice of parrhesia or "fearless speech" (as embodied in the daring democratic comedian in a stand-up situation) should be held fast as our ideal and spread through the globalized online culture of the Internet to the rest of the world. Ridicule type jokes cause the most anxiety today because they often make fun of social groups who are further disadvantaged by such negative attitude, and by their outsider perspective they embody too much individualism.

So I distinguish the philosopher who artfully layers comedy into his or her arguing practices (such as R.P. Wolff in Moneybags Must Be So Lucky) from the much more dangerous Joker type of supervillain (Batman comic) who represents a cult instead of reason. The Joker represents moral nihilism and respects no side constraints or morality in comedy, but crosses the line into criminality. Resist authority so much that we laugh at it and change our perception of its power is the overgeneralized anarchist philosophy of the Joker that liberates us from conventional moral order so as to find our way through greater art and creativity. The philosophy of the Joker is designed to save us from a life of stunting moral absolutism and irrational fear of fun in comedy, but it could also mislead us into more absurd culture wars, less moral decency and worse group relations. The Joker is an idol or false god of extreme comedy distracting us from the limits of real comedy, but we must worry about the meaning of the Joker because he may in fact be right that we live in a chance-driven universe without moral order or justice.

Bob Saget (1956-2022) was a thoughtful Jewish American comedian who tried harder than most comedians to understand the deeper morality of the art of stand up comedy, while doing both family comedy and blue comedy. He has left many podcasts on YouTube exploring the ethics of comedy with his peers, having fun busting each other's chops and chirping nonsense in his series Bob Saget's Here for You. Any philosopher needing comic relief in the pandemic would do well to watch Bob Saget's recent podcasts with comedians Gilbert Gottfried (Feb 8 2021), Bill Burr (Nov 8, 2021), or Margaret Cho (posted online after Saget's death on January 9, 2022). Bob Saget also did much philosophy of comedy in a podcast with Howie Mandel, 12 October 2021 (Howie Mandel Does Stuff, on YouTube). When he died on the road during his last comedy tour, Saget was working on his new special, "I don't do negative" which was designed as therapy for us all during the pandemic. Joe Rogan Experience #1507, dated July 14, 2020, is also an excellent exploration of the philosophy of comedy. The best single book about comedy that I know is Comic Relief (2009) by John Morreall. I am working on a manuscript called Comedy Matters: Laughing-Games in a Viral Joke-World.