Claire Horisk's "Dangerous Jokes"

Claire Horisk is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri, specializing in philosophy of language. Her current research focuses on how language shapes society. Her published work also includes articles about the nature of truth, theories of meaning, contextualism, and animal communication.

Horisk applied the "Page 99 Test" to her new book, Dangerous Jokes: How Racism and Sexism Weaponize Humor, and reported the following:

Page 99 is in the midst of a discussion of one of the more controversial claims in Dangerous Jokes. You know how people sometimes feel guilty if they listen to derogatory jokes, or slurs, or hate speech? Page 99 is part of Chapter 8, where I argue that guilt about listening to that kind of thing can be appropriate---because at least sometimes, when we listen to someone belittling others, we are doing something wrong. I also argue that the thought that sometimes accompanies that guilt, that you should have said something, is often well-founded. But it’s not true that the only thing you did wrong was not saying anything. Saying something is a way of atoning for listening; even if you said something to challenge the speaker, when you listened in the first place you did something wrong. Speaking up is just a way of making amends.

The book is accessible to a general reader. One reviewer---my mother!---said it is ‘approachable.’ Page 99 is heavier going than much of the book, and it won’t make sense in isolation---you would either need to have already read some stuff earlier in the book, or to have some background in philosophy of language, in order to understand it. So, if you read only page 99, you might put the book down. Start at the start, and you will find that the book is both interesting and readable. For example, people often think that it’s OK to tell a joke about your own social group, but not about someone else’s social group. But in Dangerous Jokes, you will discover that telling a joke about one’s own social group is more harmful than telling a joke about someone else’s social group.

For May 2024, Chapter 11 “The racist uncle, and other awkward situations,” is available as a free download on the Oxford University Press website. That chapter, rather than page 99, would give a reader a better sense of whether this is a book that would interest them.

Learn more about Dangerous Jokes at the Oxford University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue