Using (Visual) Humor to Demarcate Social and Symbolic Boundaries

Abstract

Adam Valen Levinson

While humor has a long résumé as a “window into the unconscious,” the boundaries it strikes against are understud- ied. Are people offended in particular, predictable ways? This online survey (N=1,178) that gathers demographic, biographic, and psychological data in combination with responses to 22 wordless cartoons, reveals distinct social pat- terns in offend ability. With reference to anthropological, psychological, philosophical and neuroscientific traditions, “offend ability” is conceptualized in cultural sociological terms, by which “offense” is read as the “striking against” of a symbolic boundary (separating profane from the too-sacred-to-play-with). As such, offense is proposed as a su- premely meaningful metric in defining groups in terms of what they believe most deeply. With attention both to marginal groups and to liminal identities, analysis crystalizes an intriguing trend, namely: the significance of micro (individual) level factors (e.g. age, gender, psychological characteristics) and macro (social) factors (e.g. ethnicity, nationality) in predicting sensitivity to offense, in comparison to the seeming irrelevance of the mesa (interactional). This builds on major sociological work that cites the increasing solitariness of modern life; here, “sacred” boundaries are seen to be individually determined, in combination less with lived experience than with membership in abstract, often innate groups. Regression models explore meaningful variables in greater detail [1, 2]. Of particular note: sexual preferences were the greatest predictor of sensitivity to offense, with women attracted to women reporting the highest sensitivity. Across the board, those who were uncomfortable before disclosing particular information (e.g. sexual, political pref- erences) were disproportionately members of groups who were more sensitive to offense (e.g. “queer”, right-leaning): identity discomfort manifests as symbolic discomfort.

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