Jewish humor and the political ethics of de-stigmatization

In this dissertation I defend Rawlsian political liberalism against a challenge posed by Frantz Fanon; I justify my defense through interpretations of post-WWII Jewish American humor. Fanon claimed that stigmatization traps stigmatized people in distorted and devalued self-understanding. He viewed liberalism as complicit in stigmatization and inherently committed to its perpetuation. No liberal theory, he claimed, could offer sincere or plausible expectations of de-stigmatization. I argue, to the contrary, that political liberalism does offer such expectations. This is because it assumes a certain process of what Rawls called "slippage." Through slippage, people who once saw themselves and were seen by others according to a stigmatizing conception can come to see themselves and be seen by others according to a political conception of the person as a citizen. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum's version of the capabilities approach, I specify that this process can be presumed to have a de-stigmatizing effect when the political conception of the person as a citizen prominently features human vulnerability and animality. Furthermore, I claim that humor can play a special role in facilitating this process. I zoom-in on Jewish jokes, stand-up comedy routines by Lenny Bruce, and Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint in order to show what de-stigmatization actually looks like up close. These humorous materials play with stigmatization in a way that loosens its hold on self-understanding, thereby freeing a path to slippage. And in the cases of Bruce and Roth, they also reinforce a picture of the citizen as a vulnerable human animal. I conclude that a liberal political conception of justice can adequately meet Fanon's challenge (a) if it includes with human vulnerability and animality a capacity for humorous play in its political conception of the person as a citizen and (b) if institutions regulated by the conception can be expected to support the play sphere of social life.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Chicago, 2011.School code: 0330