According to the ancient myth, Sisyphus tried to overthrow death and for his hubris was condemned to what is ultimately a meaningless activity: spending all his energy every day rolling a giant boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down every night. Albert Camus saw Sisyphus as an allegory for the absurdity of human existence, noting that his torment lies in his awareness of the futility of his actions. But Camus reinterprets the myth, praising Sisyphus as an “absurd hero” rather than a tragic figure.

For Camus, the world is absurd because humans are the sort of creatures set up to seek meaning, certainty, and purpose, while the world offers none. The absurd arises in the clash between how we are and how the world is.

The absurd is essentially unstable because humans just can’t help but reach for meaning, value, justification. The absurd hero is the one who refuses to fall back into comforting illusions like faith, hope, or purpose. That is what Camus called “keeping the absurd alive”.

Camus says that hope and faith are inconsistent with keeping the absurd alive. Sisyphus cannot escape his fate by hoping the boulder won’t roll back down, or that it might eventually amount to something more. Those are just ways of lying to himself. And we wouldn’t admire him if it was delusion that kept him going.

But also…how could he not? What else would keep Sisyphus going?

The gods meant this as punishment. That it leads nowhere is the cage designed to trap his mind, his spirit, his freedom. But for Camus, that same awareness is also his crown. The problem isn’t the absurd, it’s the difficulty in maintaining it, what Camus calls lucid consciousness. Lucid consciousness is keeping the absurd alive by being present without appeal to meaning, purpose, or justification. To live this way is to substitute the most living for the best living: what matters is not the quality but the quantity of experience, a function of lucidity rather than duration.

Camus calls this lucid consciousness a form of revolt: the recognition of futility without the accompanying resignation. To revolt is to see clearly that it doesn’t matter, and to do it wholeheartedly anyway. If Sisyphus is doomed to repeat a meaningless action over and over again, and he is the sort of being who can’t help but seek meaning, then his existence is always at risk of collapsing back into hope, faith, or the illusion of purpose. Lucidity isn’t a state you achieve, it’s something you maintain. An internal struggle, a constant tightrope over the abyss between the need for meaning and the world’s lack of it.

Camus says we must imagine Sisyphus happy. After this weekend, I’m not convinced that’s enough to keep hope at bay. One must imagine Sisyphus singing.

Singing is not a medium of self-reflection, but of self-creation. As Michael Glover Smith suggested, Dylan seems to welcome adversary. And as I’ve written before, arete, or excellence, emerges through competition. Is there any greater rivalry than Sisyphus and his boulder? In this context singing becomes self-discipline. A technique for maintaining the proper relation to the absurd. In my version, Sisyphus our absurd hero strives with rhythm, finding grooves in the dirt, cultivating the kind of attunement where even the pebbles under his feet make a little jingle-jangle. Some days it works. Some days the sky is dark and the ground is wet. It makes no difference. The striving continues all the same. Continuing doesn’t give his life meaning says Camus, but bestows it with a sense of nobility.

There’s an obvious connection here with what Dylan’s been doing for decades, depending on how you look at it. The same cities, the same songs, night after night, year after year. The Never Ending Tour runs on repetition. But after this weekend, I couldn’t stop hearing the setlist as something like what Sisyphus sings to himself on one of his days. Less of a performance and more of a routine, Something to get him from the bottom to the top and back down again, all while trying to keep the absurd alive.

So on my reading, the songs themselves function as countermeasures against falling back into the illusion that values like good/bad, right/wrong, beautiful/ugly have any reality in the face of the absurd. Night after night, the performance becomes a way of maintaining lucid consciousness, even as success, admiration, or connection threaten to make it seem as though something actually matters.

So here’s the closest thing I can give to a review of the shows: thinking about the function of each song as it lines up with an hour in a typical Sisyphusian day.

It’s dawn. The sun begins to rise. Sisyphus awakens and lays his eyes upon his wretched boulder, knowing full well what he must go through and that it will all amount to nothing, and that the worst fate of all is spiritual resignation. What song does he start his day with?

To Be Alone With You. Sisyphus is alone with his rock, after all. Dylan has been singing revised lyrics for a few years now, but the line “I wish the night was here…” takes on a different meaning for Sisyphus. It is a longing for return because nighttime is the time when the boulder rolls back down and the cycle begins again, another chance to continue, another opportunity to sing.

Man in the Long Black Coat. It’s early in the morning. His rock isn’t too heavy and the sun is still low: the danger here is the illusion of hope. The man in the long black coat functions as a countermeasure against early-morning optimism, or what Jerry Garcia called “morning dew”: the temptation that, maybe today, something might matter.

That’s why the song centers on the woman and reads as a warning: an absurd hero must remain lucid at all times. You cannot allow yourself to be seduced by promises of hope, meaning, or certainty. To embrace the absurd is to turn away from those false promises and remain committed to keeping the absurd alive. It is to run off with the man in the long black coat.

All Along the Watchtower. I was surprised to find it so early in the set, but on Sisyphus time it’s the third hour in, when focus begins to slip and one can’t help but look for a way out. “There must be some way out of here,” says the joker to the thief. The natural impulse is to hope for an escape, but the song only names the desire and holds it in place. Dylan, in his infamous white rain jacket with the hood pulled over a hat, reminds me of a thief, someone who stopped searing for a way out a long time ago.1

I Contain Multitudes. We’ve reached late morning, after hope and escape have been measured, but before full fatigue of course; a reminder that what matters is not the best living but the most living. The chorus rings not as proclamation but as reminder of the absurd. To be a hero, Sisyphus must keep in mind that in the absurd nothing resolves or coheres or adds up to something, and as such everything is happening at the same time. The danger now is Sisyphus thinking he’s become something stable,

False Prophet. By midday, the shadows are at their shortest. There is nowhere left to hide, no angle from which the task can be reframed. Another day of bitterness and doubt. I have to admit, it was a perfect fit for my fever dream: Sisyphus himself, going where only the lonely can go.

False Prophet is a song for the absurd hero, a song of revolt by a figure fully aware of his condition and its cosmic insignificance. Not resignation, but lucidity held in place through the refusal of illusion. Camus’s point is that such awareness does not give life meaning, but a nobility grounded in the dignity of striving without illusion. That is what this moment in the setlist captures: hopelessness dignified.

Black Rider. After noon the danger for Sisyphus becomes his mind turning on itself: thoughts creeping in, voices that try to pull him off course. This is Sisyphus singing to himself. A countermeasure. The lines come as instructions and each one closes something off (don’t hug me/don’t flatter me), such incantations keep the mind from turning what is for now into what actually matters.

Black Rider is perhaps the strongest contender for Sisyphus’ moment of zen. If keeping the absurd alive means rejecting any appeal to meaning, certainty, or hope, then the absurd hero needs techniques—incantations—to keep the spooks out of his head. Even if Sisyphus had legions of adoring crowds, people lining up to watch him push, paying to see it, taking pictures, telling themselves it was the most meaningful night of their life, it wouldn’t change anything. The rock still rolls back down. The day still repeats. If anything, that’s the more dangerous version of the story. Wretched hope, sneaking up in the high noon sun.

Something that continues to strike me is how easily the songs recontextualize each other, even the Rough and Rowdy Ways ones. I keep finding new lines that hit me cathartically, clarifying something I needed but didn’t realize, something idiosyncratic. Hearing Black Rider in the same set as The Man in the Long Black Coat, I felt this deep appreciation for the way that Dylan can generate new meanings from within his own songs. In that moment, Black Rider and Man in the Long Black Coat collapsed into each other, the rider and the man as the same figure, the same hopeless hero.

Lovesick. Now we’re at the midday point, physical exhaustion. It would be natural to think back on the good times, which is why the greatest threat now is the sense that love provides meaning. “I’m walking through streets that are dead… walking with you in my head.” The body is worn down, the mind won’t let go. Sisyphus is lovesick. Love never arrives, never resolves, never settles into anything that could sustain it. The feeling lingers, loops, circles back on itself. “I’m sick of love… but I’m in the thick of it.”

For Sisyphus, love would be the hardest to resist. Love offers the pull of connection, the sense that the sum of our parts might become something greater than itself. The absurd hero, as Camus characterizes Don Juan, paradoxically prefers lovesickness over “true love”, because the former acknowledges the intensity of love without the promise of purpose. Absurd heroes prefer to be lovesick; love risks resembling something that matters.

Another striking feature of the recent shows was how many songs sounded super close to the album versions, which I am legit not used to! Watchtower at first but especially Lovesick. It doesn’t take a Bobcat to catch the groove.

Goodbye Jimmy Reed. It’s late in the day and the weight has settled in, so the mind looks for something to carry it through. Apparently this song replaced Key West, and from a functional perspective the shift is significant; the atmosphere is closer to a megachurch service, the band locks in, the groove lifts, and the language turns toward creed and proclamation. As Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor tells us, people want nothing more than to give away their freedom, hence why they deseire miracles, mystery, and authority: ‘Give me that old time religion/it’s just what I need’ The song leans into this: kingdom, power, glory, thumping the Bible, proclaiming the creed, I hear the self-denial of freedom in my favorite line and its live delivery: ‘I can’t play the record / ’cause my needle got stuuuuuuuuck’

*I’m pretty sure this was the song during which I was kicked out of the Detroit show? Maybe for dancing, but probably for using a lighter I happened to see on the ground. Detroit was the last of the three shows and given that I couldn’t stop thinking about Sisyphus and Camus, maybe I wanted a little taste of that nobility you get when you revolt against futility. I skipped out of that Masonic Temple, middle fingers up and a smile on my face. I also made friends with some of the security people hanging outside, when lucidity dominates, the scale of values becomes obsolete.

I Can Tell. An Outlaw Tour holdover and for my purposes it fits quite nicely. Sisyphus has been on the job too long. He’s seen it all, seen the same gestures repeated, the same expectations cycle through, and yet “I can tell… I know you don’t love me no more.” It lands here as an address to the audience, that something fundamental has changed. I hear this because I see it too. There was a time, before the Yondr pouches, when it wasn’t a condemnation but a simple reminder: preshow announcements, little slips of paper, a request to put the phones away and be present. There was still the sense that we might, like him, find the self-discipline to be lucid. Now people pay hundreds of dollars to sit in the front row and don’t know what he’s going to play and complain that they can’t have their phones, devotion has to be enforced.

I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You. It’s late afternoon, moving into evening, when everything begins to sound like it could finally come together. I’ve made up my mind to give myself to you.” The language gathers itself into decision, commitment, offering, then stretches across time, pulls the whole day into it, asks to last. I love that it comes right after I Can Tell, which only serves to sharpen the bite; nothing has changed for the absurd hero, and in his revolt against futility he commits wholeheartedly, and earns that hard fought nobility.

For Sisyphus, this is the moment where everything could give way where he might give in to the temptation of resignation. Pretty soon it will all start over again. Like the first song in the set, I am tickled at the thought that Sisyphus would sing this song to his rock. As if he had a choice anyway :)

Crossing the Rubicon. Evening hits, the so-called finish line is in sight. ‘I crossed the Rubicon/ on the 14th day /of the most dangerous month of the year’ always hits different in April. This song is in the register of a world-historical act, the kind Hegel would recognize, where a figure moves for his own selfish reasons and in doing so, history moves with him. Like Caesar, Sisyphus takes it upon himself to bear the burden of history—roll the rock, turn the key, and fuckin’ break it off.

When I Paint My Masterpiece. It used to come earlier, but here it lands after Rubicon, and that matters. The decisive act is behind him, and what follows is the thought that it might all come together, ‘someday, everything is gonna be different’

And it’s riding that “Puttin’ on the Ritz” beat. That little jingle-jangle is the perfect example of Sisyphus finding a rhythm in the rocks, a reflection of attunement. The song lives in that balance Dylan has perfected: looking forward while mining the past, trying to keep both in play at once. The masterpiece is always ahead, but it’s built out of what’s already been done, already been lived. It never arrives, but it keeps the motion going.

For Sisyphus, this is the most refined form of hope, the dream of completion. The sense that it might add up, that the whole thing might resolve. I think Definitely Dylan has the ultiamte take on this song, if you haven’t listened check it out. And somewhere in there I saw the faces of those hungry miles in Detroit from a mile away.

Forgetful Heart. Dusk. The day is still there, but it’s starting to slip away. This was a standout song when he would sing it center stage, the curtains lit in blood red behind him. Perfect song for the absurd hero rounding out his all-too-familiar-day. ‘Lost your power of recall…’ Perhaps the closest we get to resignation, but the iconic ending subverts the whole thing and takes us back to the uncomfort of the absurd—if there ever was a door.

For Sisyphus, we find another kind of danger. When the repetitive, cyclical days begin to blur. The memory of the struggle loosens, the sharpness of it fades, and with it the discipline required to keep the absurd alive.

Soon After Midnight. We’ve already been through the day, dusk has passed, and now it’s “soon after midnight”. I guess I could try to recalibrate the whole Sisyphus schedule, but it doesn’t really matter. The function’s the same: “It’s soon after midnight and my day has just begun”…for Sisyphus of course it has. That’s the point.

The tone shifts here, lighter, almost playful. The violence is still there, the threats, the bodies, and they pass through like everything else: ‘my heart is cheerful, it’s never fearful/I’ve been down to the killing floors’. For an absurd hero like Sisyphus, ‘it’s now or never/more than ever’ there is no culmination because it makes no difference.

Nervous Breakdown. Right after midnight, which already reset the clock, this one lands like the body catching up. If the mind has been doing all this work, holding the line, keeping the absurd alive, well you know…something’s got to give.

The energy is great on this one, and it makes sense the stage set up with Dylan center stage facing the audience with only the keyboard (and those two (?) pesky mics..) resembles something closer to the ballpark tours I began with so many years ago. On the mic point, I thought it mostly worked and could see the idea is that he moves between one when standing and one when sitting, and he moves up and down a lot! Maybe he could use one of those headpiece mics like Britney Spears would use? Just an idea.

But on the point that the mics were interfering with the quality of shows during this tour. I think this is something I’ve come to appreciate about “the Never Changing Set” era of The Never Ending Tour”, that when you eliminate the scale of values, it isn’t about which shows are better/worse, because it’s all going to repeat anyway. Some days the blue skies sing themselves, on other days the pebbles just don’t jingle jangle.

Every Grain of Sand. The finale, without any pretense: no walk-off, no fake-out because for Sisyphus every night is the same. All he needs to do is sing. And it is the perfect finale song for Sisyphus to sing as he turns back to watch the boulder roll back down. The lyrics say it all, and you know it just as I do. Like Cain, Sisyphus and all world historical spirits must behold the chain of events they cannot break. The awareness of futility and meaninglessness does not enable us to escape it, it is only the beginning of the path to lucidity.

‘I hear the ancient footsteps/ like the motion of the sea’ The song is one last reminder that the cyclical nature is the grounds of lucidity, both the proof of meaninglessness and, somehow, our saving grace. Dylan, the absurd hero we need but don’t deserve. The first night there was this little piano line, just a plunking figure. It was perfect. It sounded like a rock falling back down a hill after you’ve kicked it, watching it bounce as it tumbles, feeling like you might walk down after it, maybe pick it up, walk back up and kick it down again. In Saginaw, the harmonica solo was sublime. Maybe what I’m saying is that singing is a form of play? I’ll save that for next time.

In my chat with Definitely Dylan we discussed what I take to be the “thesis” of Dylan’s (current) work, a line in Early Roman Kings, ‘I’ll dress up your wounds/with a blood-clotted rag’. I also noted that philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel praised ancient tragedy for its ability to acknowledge suffering and cosmic futility while still presenting the world as, in some sense, well-ordered. This is why Hegel calls tragedy a kind of theodicy.

Maintaining lucid consciousness comes at a price, and requires a great deal of self-discipline. Dylan tour (RRW or otherwise) is a technique for maintaining the absurd in the face of hope, faith, and love. There are moments at a Dylan show, watching Sisyphus do his thing, when I can’t help but feel that nothing matters and the world is well-ordered. Sometimes, I swear, I can actually glimpse what Camus meant when he said the fact that life is meaningless makes it even more worth living.

When people ask whether using AI “counts as cheating,” they often assume they are asking a factual question—like whether plagiarism occurred or whether a rule was violated. But that assumption already builds in a mistake. In moments like this, the real question is not what is or is not cheating, but what should the concept ‘cheating’ do for us? The problem isn’t that we don’t yet know the rules, it’s that the rules that used to do the work have stopped working smoothly.

This is what it looks like when technological innovation leads to a break down in our concepts and conceptual frameworks.

When Familiar Categories Stop Working

Think about how we normally treat cheating. In most educational contexts, cheating is governed by a relatively stable cluster of norms: the student submits work that represents their own understanding; prohibited aids are clearly specified; violations involve deception, unfair advantage, or misrepresentation of competence. These norms aren’t written into the fabric of the universe, but they’re stable enough that most disagreements can be resolved by appeal to precedent, policy, or shared expectations.

AI disrupts this stability not because it introduces dishonesty per se, but because it scrambles the background assumptions that made the old categories usable. The same act—asking an AI to generate an outline, revise a paragraph, or explain a concept—can look like legitimate assistance in one context and illicit substitution in another. Further, it seems that our answer is also generational (and role-based): students are earlier adopters of these tools, while many faculty are still negotiating where the lines should be, so the very people trying to enforce “the rules” often aren’t sharing the same background sense of what the rules are. And crucially, no amount of fact‑gathering about how the technology works will resolve this issue on its own.

This is a familiar structure. When we argue over whether a song is ‘cheesy’, whether a banana taped to a wall is ‘art’, or whether appropriation counts as ‘transformation’ rather than ‘copying’, we are not discovering hidden properties of the world. We are negotiating how our concepts should function in light of new practices.

Disputes over AI and ‘cheating’ have this same shape.

Why Disagreement Doesn’t Signal Misunderstanding

If I’m right, then the sheer intensity of disagreement around AI use is not evidence that people are being irrational, dishonest, or willfully obtuse. It’s evidence that we are engaged in a normative task we haven’t yet learned how to recognize.

In philosophy of language, this kind of situation is often described as conceptual negotiation: people use familiar terms such as cheating, authorship, learning while implicitly arguing about how those terms ought to be used going forward. Everyone may agree on the underlying facts: what the AI did, how the student used it, what the assignment asked for. And yet disagreement persists, because the real issue isn’t factual. It’s functional.

What should the concept ‘cheating’ do for us now?

Should it track deception? Dependency? Bypassing skill development? Violations of pedagogical intent? Something else entirely? Different answers carve normative space differently, licensing different responses, sanctions, and forms of trust. There is no neutral, pre‑AI definition waiting to be rediscovered to save us from this mess.

This is why attempts to “just define cheating more clearly” so often fail. Definitions don’t settle normative questions when the point of contention is what purposes the concept ought to serve in the first place.

AI as an Anomaly for our Existing Norms

One way to see this more clearly is to notice how unevenly AI use maps onto existing evaluative categories. Using a calculator in math class used to be cheating; now it often isn’t. Spell‑check once raised similar anxieties. Wikipedia was treated as epistemic poison before becoming a default reference point. In each case, the technology didn’t force a particular resolution. Communities had to decide what counted as legitimate reliance, what skills mattered, and what forms of assistance undermined the goals of the practice.

AI is more destabilizing because it blurs the line between tool and collaborator. But that doesn’t mean it automatically collapses the distinction between learning and outsourcing. It means that distinction now requires active maintenance.

Conceptual Engineering, Not Rule Enforcement

If the problem were merely that students were breaking rules, the solution would be enforcement. But enforcement presupposes stable norms. When those norms no longer track what we care about, doubling down on policing only produces resentment, confusion, and performative compliance.

What the moment calls for instead is conceptual engineering: the deliberate reconstruction of our evaluative concepts in light of new practices. This is not about finding the One True Definition of cheating, but about articulating better‑functioning concepts that serve our pedagogical aims.

That means asking questions like:

• What kinds of intellectual agency do we want students to develop?

• When does assistance support learning, and when does it replace it?

• What forms of reliance undermine responsibility, accountability, or trust?

• How should expectations differ across disciplines, assignments, and stages of learning?

These are normative questions. They cannot be answered by AI policy documents alone, nor by technical descriptions of model architecture. They require judgment, negotiation, and most importantly—disagreement.

There’s a temptation to hope that institutions will eventually settle the matter once and for all: a universal policy, a clear boundary, a definitive checklist. But that hope misunderstands the nature of the problem. Cultural and technological production will continue to outpace our conceptual frameworks. Any solution that treats today’s norms as final is already obsolete. The point of teaching has never been merely to produce correct outputs. It’s to cultivate forms of understanding, responsibility, and participation that cannot be reduced to rule‑following (you know, so-called “critical thinking”).

The Uncomfortable Freedom of Conceptual Revision

Periods of conceptual breakdown are unsettling because they deprive us of easy answers. But they also create space for reflection and revision. When the old rules stop working, we are forced to ask what we were using them for in the first place. That means we can be an active participant in what they become.

That is uncomfortable work. It requires instructors to articulate pedagogical values they may have previously taken for granted. It requires students to take responsibility for how they use powerful tools rather than hiding behind technical compliance. And it requires institutions to accept that no policy will eliminate judgment. But this is also a moment of genuine conceptual freedom.

These disagreements over what counts as cheating are not a sign that something has gone wrong, they reveal that we are in a historical context where we must decide what kinds of learners, thinkers, and collaborators we are trying to cultivate. And that decision cannot be outsourced—to machines, to administrators, or to inherited categories that no longer fit. It’s something we have to work out together.

After a longer-than-intended break from posting, this felt like the right place to come back. This is an essay about Eyes Wide Shut, camp, class, and the adult wish list.

The Christmas wish list performs many functions at once: it records a child’s hopes, signals what they think their audience can bear, and quietly reveals class, aspiration, and expectation. But it is not a confession of “true” desire.

A wish list is a public fantasy—private longing translated into something legible, permissible, and safe. It’s not what a child wants most, but what they think they’re allowed to want.

Eyes Wide Shut is about adult wish lists.

Eyes Wide Shut has been my favorite Kubrick film since the first time I saw it. I’ve always loved Tom Cruise and Christmas, but there was something about the movie that felt compelling long before I had anything like a “take” on what it was saying.

I remember reading, on my dial-up computer, that it was a critique of capitalism, which immediately felt right, because what stood out to me was something more specifically gendered: sex as transactional.

I’ve already written some on The Shining, and I’ve finally come to appreciate Eyes Wide Shut as something of a spiritual sequel, in that both films subvert the dramatic nature of their presentation and are, on the face of it, camp comedies. At the same time, a different narrative emerges once you recognize them as camp.

In The Shining, once you read it as a self-aware absurdist take on the self-inflicted torture of writing, Jack Torrance’s descent becomes almost inevitable. He takes the job because he wants “seclusion” convinced that if he could just be left alone he would finally write, a self-inflicted delusion any writer will recognize.

Of course, when the writing doesn’t come, and there’s nothing else in the way, the only available explanation is his family—his desire to write replaced by resentment toward those who only want to spend time with him. The most convincing scene is when Wendy comes to Jack one morning, cheerful, telling him it’s a beautiful day and suggesting he might take a walk, maybe even let her read some of what he’s written.

Any writer knows this feeling. The cut to the typewriter and cigarette, underscored by foreboding music, makes the joke clear.

The Shining becomes two different movies depending on where you locate responsibility. If you stop asking who the villain is and start asking what fantasy is organizing the action instead, the genre shifts.

Eyes Wide Shut works the same way.

It, too, splits into different movies depending on whether you treat Dr. Bill as a victim who stumbles onto a secret sex cult, or whether you see everyone as implicated in the economy of desire.

Structurally, it mimics a familiar romcom narrative, in which one or both partners almost cheat, only to end up re-committing to each other. The difference is that Eyes Wide Shut foregrounds class to subvert the very possibility of “authentic” “romantic” desire in the first place. In fact, it keeps the “rom” in perpetual scare-quotes, ironic in its presentation.

Kubrick cast Tom Cruise, for heaven’s sake. So the surface-level reading of the film is exactly what it appears to be: a happily married, attractive, well-off doctor, played by the leading actor in Hollywood, who is also in a cult, rumored to be gay, mocked for being short, and married to Nicole Kidman, experiences “jealousy” for the first time and stumbles onto a ritualistic sex cult of the elite.

The very first shot is Nicole Kidman’s naked backside. And that’s it, right? The film tells you everything in its opening image and its first line of dialogue. There is no waiting around for the “money shot”. Then, there’s the first line uttered in the film:

Our protagonist’s name is Dr. Bill, homonymous with “doctor bill.” Camp. When Alice and Bill attend the lavish, or perhaps fantasy, Christmas party, what does the man who wants to sleep with Alice tell her? “Marriage makes deception a necessity.” Whether we realize it or not, and perhaps even worse if or when we do, desire is largely a reflection of what we think we can, or cannot, have.

Here’s where I part ways with the standard psychological reading, where the narrative centers on secret desires. Eyes Wide Shut becomes a campy tragicomedy because Bill doesn’t understand his own motivations, his own desires. As such, the film is a procedural of fantasy management rather than one of discovery or creation.

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Bill moves through the night adjusting his sense of what is available to him in real time. Each encounter functions as a recalibration of desire, shaped by what seems available, safe, or socially intelligible in the moment.

There is an obvious class dimension to the entire film, one that also fits perfectly with its status as a Christmas movie. What other holiday reveals social position more starkly than what Santa leaves under the tree?

In Eyes Wide Shut, fantasies function as tools of aspiration management, and class largely determines which fantasies are permitted and which are punishable. The infamous sex orgy does not represent the “true” desires of the uber-elite, but the ritualized negotiation of desire itself.

What looks like sexual freedom in the film is usually just differential exposure to risk. Bill can move through sexual danger because his money keeps bailing him out; as the hoodlums in the street remind us, his status and mobility are class-contingent, produced by the elite spaces he occupies rather than an intrinsic trait. Alice’s fantasy, by contrast, remains verbal and imaginative. As the bored housewife, she is already paying the price for getting what she once wished for.

In the inescapable economy of desire, where does a woman’s agency lie? Not in who she desires, but in her what— how does she negotiate desire? Family? Love, money, or some wretched creation at the intersection of the three? Who has it better, the wife in her cage of a luxurious New York apartment, or the prostitute whose relative freedom comes with lethal exposure? Both positions are structured by class; Domino is not freer, she is simply more vulnerable.

Eyes Wide Shut shows that desire isn’t our secret inner world bursting outward, it reveals how desire is negotiated through available exchanges. When the new owner of the costume store discovers his teenage daughter cavorting around with two businessmen, he is outraged and protective; when we encounter him again, he is complicit and looking to benefit, eager to trade his daughter’s body for profit.

The scene exposes not deviance but continuity between Bill and the father. The transaction is not aberrant; it is legible within the same economy Bill already inhabits.

Instead, like The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut can be read as camp. It is funny because we are watching people misunderstand themselves; the protagonist is a comedic figure because he lacks self-awareness. Cruise’s casting already feels off, his character’s name is absurd, the first image is Kidman undressing, and the first line is about a missing wallet. Even the orgy scene is anything but erotic; it is a class fantasy staged so theatrically that it borders on parody.

The ridiculousness of capitalism’s awkward self-performance, a world of adults moving through life with Christmas wish lists they don’t recognize as such.

Under capitalism, personal desire is systematically misfiled, misread, and misdirected. Bill doesn’t “discover” his secret desires over the course of the night. What he discovers are the limits of what he is allowed to desire in the first place. On this reading, Eyes Wide Shut becomes a film about the economy of desire itself: who gets to fantasize safely, who pays for it, and who absorbs the cost.

This is why the film ends not with revelation, suspense, punishment, or escape, but in a toy store. Bill’s final promise is not confession or transformation, but consumption: he will take his daughter Christmas shopping. Desire collapses back into something manageable, legible, and safe.

What else is there to do once the wish list has been revised to fit the world as it is?

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Did you hear the news, Nathan Fielder flew a 737 full of passengers? Oh but actually it was a plane full of actors, and it's likely that he had practiced with empty planes beforehand, and we know he survived because we would have heard about the crash. We’re pretty sure he actually learned to fly a plane, at least.

If you finished the most recent season of Fielder’s show The Rehearsal, you might’ve felt like me, stunned and a bit whiplashed trying to wrap your head around what you just saw, or more specifically—the degree to which what you just saw was real. Fielder began the season with the premise that he wanted to use his recursive simulation scenarios or rehearsals to help minimize aviation disasters caused by lack of communication between pilots and co-pilots. This led to Fielder re-enacting the life of Sully Sullenberger, creating a fake singing competition, and by the end, earning a pilot’s license and successfully flying a Boeing 737 full(?) of actor-passengers.

Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. Fielder’s entire project is built on the audience’s inability to cleanly distinguish what’s real from what’s not. This uncertainty isn’t just for comedic effect—it’s ethical. It makes viewers more attuned to the constructed nature of the scenarios and intensifies the stakes of what unfolds within them. As viewers oscillate between analyzing Fielder's intentions and immersing themselves in the narrative, a larger question emerges: Is it ethical to trick people into participating in something they don’t, and perhaps can’t, fully understand as unreal?

Multiple articles, video essays, and Reddit threads attempt to unravel the show’s layered relationship to reality and morality, often by reconstructing timelines to determine what was real and what was scripted. Fielder’s work is compelling not because it hides that boundary, but because it systematically pressures it—forcing audiences to decide where they think the line should be drawn.

For example, one participant in Fielder’s fake talent show Wings of Voice broke their NDA to testify that they’d been taken advantage of, spending thousands of dollars under the belief that they had a genuine professional opportunity. In the previous season, a child actor became emotionally attached to Fielder while they rehearsed being a family—a situation that raised broader concerns not only about Fielder’s methods, but about the ethics of child acting more generally. And in Nathan For You, Fielder convinced the owner of a struggling electronics store to exploit Best Buy’s price-matching policy by advertising TVs for a dollar, but locking them behind a maze, a strict dress code, and a live alligator. The business owner followed through on the scheme and multiple people attempted to secure a cheap T.V.—it’s unclear whether they were willing participants or suckers.

But crucially, Fielder’s work is compelling as much as is it alienating or frustrating because he does not provide his audience with any stable footing to draw the line. He continues the bit beyond the confines of the show, such as in talk show interviews and social media posts—he never steps outside the persona to tell us what was “just a joke”. In a sense, Fielder exposes that the distinction between fiction and reality is itself groundless—less a property of the world than a projection of our expectations.

As a result, public debates over what in The Rehearsal was scripted—and, by extension, what is ethically permissible—aren’t attempts to uncover the “truth” of the matter. They’re acts of collective boundary-drawing. Fielder doesn’t just obscure the line; he hands it back to us and dares us to decide where it belongs.

For pragmatists such as John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and Amie Thomasson, concepts aren’t rigid classifications handed down from on Plato’s heaven—they’re tools we use. And like any tool, they can break under pressure. In some contexts, especially novel or rapidly changing ones, the rules we usually rely on to apply a concept start to break down. Take artificial intelligence. As AI-generated images, text, and even “conversations” have grown more convincing, we’ve been forced to renegotiate whether certain artifacts should still count as art, or writing, or even expression. Is a machine-generated painting still a painting? Can it win an art prize? If it does, does that tell us something new about what we’re were committed to when we used the concept “art” all along?

If we say yes, then machines may be eligible for copyright, or authors might lose it. If we say no, we risk redefining art in a way that excludes certain human creators too, especially those who rely on tools, prompts, or collaborations. Either way, how we draw the line has implications for what we say and do, not just legally, but socially and aesthetically as well. This is why the concepts we use matter. They’re not just labels. They structure our practices, shape our institutions, and determine what we count as valuable or worth defending.

Similarly, the rules for determining what counts as “fiction” or “reality” are often partial, purpose-relative, and deeply contested. In most contexts, we this or granted—we don’t need to think about where the line is because nothing is pressing up against it. But The Rehearsal doesn’t just “blur” the line between fiction and reality. Through layered performances, recursive simulations, and ethical ambiguity, it creates a non-standard context where our usual classificatory habits break down. And in doing so, it exposes something deeper: that the fiction–reality distinction has always been more fragile than we’d like to believe.

Fielder doesn’t collapse the fiction–reality distinction, he re-engineers the context of application so the rules break down—and what once seemed obvious becomes contestable. This conceptual instability is a feature, not a bug. It forces us to ask (maybe for the first time seriously) what that distinction was doing in the first place, and whether it still works.

While The Rehearsal is impressive for its recursive simulations and emotional counterweighting—what stuck with me most was how much Fielder’s comedic engineering of the fiction–reality distinction reminded me of alleged comedian and Women’s Wrestling Champion of the World: Andy Kaufman.

Kaufman’s comedy is what we now call “anti-comedy”, structured to deconstruct the performance frame itself. Kaufman didn’t tell jokes, and his comedy sets or lounge singer routines weren’t him playing “characters”—they were situations that caused a breakdown in the very concepts audiences relied on to understand and evaluate what they were witnessing. He broke comedy open and weaponized his audiences’ expectations. As Robin Williams famously put it, Kaufman “made himself the premise and the entire world was the punchline.” The comedy wasn’t in what he said or did, it was in the dissonance he produced when no one could tell whether they were watching a bit, a breakdown, or something in between.

While younger people might know Kaufman from the “Mighty Mouse” sketch or his stint on Taxi, his entire comedy career is one long exercise in demolishing the foundations for any reliable distinction between fiction and reality. In that sense, Kaufman’s work is closer to conceptual art, like John Cage’s 4'33", than to conventional stand-up. Like watching The Rehearsal: “You couldn’t leave [a Kaufman] show without an opinion.”1

Likewise, Fielder’s comedy fits comfortably in the tradition of Kaufman’s and they are both distinguished by the inherent inability of the audience to discern where the persona ends and the person begins. Notably, Fielder and Kaufman are both interested in magic, and a good magic trick blends reality and the illusion in such a way we can’t help but want to know how it works. A good illusion takes us beyond the land of reality, where we’re no longer even interested in asking the question.

As one Redditor put it:

“Honestly, I think anything in it is up in the air as being an illusion. I don't think that makes it any less incredible though, or any less of a magic trick. The story, the statements and movement of the plot are the same regardless. Just the very form the show takes—that can leave us so confused about what's real and what's not—is brilliant.”

Before Fielder climbed into the cockpit of a Boeing 737, Andy Kaufman was locking women into headlocks as a self-declared “intergender” wrestling champion. Starting in the late 1970s, Kaufman began inviting women from his live shows to wrestle him on stage, offering cash (or occasionally marriage) if they could beat him. Eventually, he took the act on tour, boasting an undefeated record across more than 300 matches.

From there, Kaufman launched an extended wrestling career as a heel, embedding himself in the Memphis wrestling scene—a regional circuit known for its intense fan devotion and strict insistence on maintaining the illusion. In that world, the line between performance and reality was still treated as sacred. Kaufman played the perfect outsider villain: an arrogant, coastal elitist mocking Southern culture and taunting his audiences with cartoonish misogyny. His feud with Memphis legend Jerry Lawler became the centerpiece, culminating in a televised brawl on Late Night with David Letterman, where Lawler slapped Kaufman out of his chair. Whether, or to what extent, it was all a bit remains an open question to this day.

It should be no surprise that Kaufman was drawn to professional wrestling at a time where everyone else in Hollywood looked down on it as a lower art form. Wrestling is a genre that thrives on collapsing the boundary between fiction and reality. In fact, the wrestling world has its own term for this specific blend of persona, performance, and emotional investment: kayfabe.

“Kayfabe” is the term used in professional wrestling to name the specific blend of fiction and reality that defines the art form. It doesn’t mean “fake”—it refers to the combination of scripted narrative, physical performance, and emotional stakes that resists any clean separation between what’s real and what’s not. Like a good work of fiction, a good wrestling storyline isn’t judged by whether it’s true, but by whether it works—whether it compels belief, investment, emotion. Whether it feels real enough to matter.

The significance of kayfabe is especially clear in the wrestling promo: speeches or monologues used to hype up a feud or storyline. Take “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s legendary “Austin 3:16” promo in 1996. It is considered one of the GOATs of promos because it feels like something spontaneous and authentic has broken through. The audience isn’t just cheering the content, they are responding to the collapse of the performance boundary in real time. The line between performance and person dissolves in the heat of the moment, and that dissolution is the aesthetic event.2

Kaufman bought local commercials in Memphis to promote his heel persona, published articles threatening to sue NBC, and blurred the boundaries between legal action, performance, and delusion. Every move he made made it harder to tell whether the whole thing was the joke—or just the delivery system. He used kayfabe to reveal the fundamental instability of the fiction–reality distinction itself. It was a conceptual magic trick, and the world was (is?) the rube.

Kaufman was the king of kayfabe, in and out of the ring. Like his alter-ego Tony Clifton, he was the heel the comedy world didn’t want, but desperately needed—capable of riling up his audiences then leaving without any resolution (but perhaps some milk and cookies). Like all great wrestling promos, the bits compelled us to ask, like David Letterman asked Jerry Lawler, “Is it fixed or not?” When Kaufman announced his retirement from wrestling, people laughed, because no one knew if he was being serious. When he died, the majority of the country didn’t believe it.

In the documentary Andy Kaufman: I’m From Hollywood Kaufman acknowledges that his wrestling career is him taking the bit as far as he can: “Going all the way with it...playing it straight to the hilt”. Friends and colleagues described their utter confusion at his commitment to wrestling, suggesting that Kaufman became “obsessed”, and the bit was a way for him to “live out his fantasies” (or “checkout with the baggage”). You could say the exact same thing about Fielder piloting a 737.3

When a performance deliberately breaks down the line between fiction and reality, it doesn’t just confuse us—it shatters the tools we normally use to make sense of the world. It exposes the limits of what we think we know, and forces us to sit with that uncertainty. You can judge Kaufman’s wrestling or Fielder’s flying to be ethically objectionable—after you’ve done the conceptual work. Until you’ve experienced the boundary break down, you’re not in a position to redraw it.

Because if we can’t settle whether Kaufman’s matches were performances, or whether Fielder actually flew the plane, we’re not in a position to make competent ethical claims about them, either. If you can’t say what kind of thing it is—performance, deception, sincerity, art, all of the above—you’re not ready to say whether it’s right or wrong.

How we answer will shape what kinds of responsibilities we assign, what sorts of harms we recognize, and what boundaries we treat as actionable—because our classifications are not neutral descriptions, but tools that license entitlements, structure accountability, and govern what follows from what.

If the conceptual precedes the ethical, then we need art that puts pressure on our concepts. That shows us that they can break. That refuses to let us off the hook.

That’s what the heel is for.

In popular culture, love is often portrayed as an abandonment of the self, a sacrifice. Love is altruistic—it is to prioritize another’s well-being, even sometimes to the detriment of your own. The ideal form of romantic love, as all the Disney movies teach us, is finding that one special someone who completes you, your other half. The test then becomes reaching that ideal state, and spending the rest of your energy maintaining it.

But what if we've misunderstood the nature—and thus the value—of love altogether? Love isn’t an abandonment of the self, or if it is, you’re not doing it very well. Drawing from ancient philosophical traditions and modern existential insights, we might instead see romantic love not as the tranquil endpoint, but as an agōn—a purposeful struggle, a perpetual contest that sharpens and defines us. It is a test of your excellence, your ability to be excellent in intimate communion with another. Romantic love is self-interested because it offers an opportunity to develop that excellence—and the products of excellence are always, themselves, excellent. So when you get this right—when your striving sharpens real excellence—the other person benefits too. To say that love is self-interested is not to say that love is selfish.

This idea isn’t entirely new. Sartre—whose personal life offered a case study in the contradictions of his theory—also described love as fundamentally self-interested, and therefore futile. On his view, love is a doomed attempt to fully possess or merge with another—a desire for a wholly free other to freely (without compulsion) devote themselves to you, over and over again, for-ev-ver. Thus, the object of romantic desire is incoherent and ultimately futile. I think Sartre gets half of this exactly right: love is indeed self-interested, animated by desire, and intimately connected to what we lack or aspire to become. But labeling it as futile mistakes the nature of love's value, even on existentialist grounds.

Sartre thinks love is futile because it fails to produce permanence, but that’s only a problem if permanence is the standard. Camus flips the frame: value isn’t secured by lasting forever, but by how fully we live right now. Love fails only if you expect it to last; it flourishes when you let it move.

Actual Ladies’ Man Albert Camus—fellow French existentialist thinker who abhorred the title—offers a better account. For Camus, there is no value “out there” in the world; it is always a product of our acts of consciousness—our taking the world to be meaningful for us. This entails the substitution of “the best living” for “the most living,” where what matters is not the quality of our experiences, but the quantity. (Not in the shallow, checklist sense—but in how often and how fully one is able to feel alive, conscious, and present. A quiet cup of coffee alone can count, if it’s lived intensely enough.) Quantity, then, is a matter of being fully present, fully conscious, fully engaged in the moment (something Camus thinks we can do better once we reject an external standard of values or criteria).

For Camus, the “absurd hero” fully embraces their fate as the origin and end of value and lives the most they can in spite of that fact—in revolt against it. As such, Camus champions Don Juan as someone who has fully embraced the absurd, substituting the myth of the “one true love” for the reality of “one true love for me, right here, right now.” I think with Camus we also inherit the counterintuitive insight that love may find its highest value not in quality or permanence, but in quantity and repetition. That love is, ultimately, self-interested. Don Juan embodies a ceaseless passion, his significance arising precisely from his refusal to fixate on any single love as the ultimate or definitive experience. His relentless desire represents not superficiality, but courage—the willingness to repeatedly ascend, risking vulnerability with each new pursuit. In that sense, the absurd hero values his absurd existence as a ceaseless agōn, with romantic love being one of the many events at the games, so to speak.

Another event is friendship—might that too be understood on the egoist model? According to the Ancient and Roman Stoics, the Stoic sage was fully rational and self-sufficient. It was an open question, then, whether or how the sage would value or pursue friendship. What reason would a self-sufficient person have to make friends? They would be, strictly speaking, external indifferents.

Seneca argues that the sage does not need friends, of course, but they take advantage of the opportunity to make friends because doing so offers a chance to develop their virtues—wit, moderation, temperance, and the like. In fact, Seneca claims that the sage delights more in making friends than in keeping them. Applied to love, this means its meaning is found less in holding tightly than in the graceful and courageous willingness to let go, to ascend again, to remain open to transformation through each encounter. In other words, there are different skill sets involved, and the self-interested romantic—our proverbial Don Juan—values the skills involved in making new loves, rather than tending to the old flames. (Though I don’t mean to suggest one or the other, or endorse this claim.)

Like friendship, romantic love is less a destination than a series of events—each one a test of who we're becoming.

Perhaps love might be better understood through the metaphor of Wittgenstein’s ladder: something we climb not to remain safely at the top, but to achieve a clearer perspective and then let go. Lovers, then, are like ladders—each relationship a step upward, an opportunity for self-discovery, self-definition, and ultimately, self-excellence (aretē). This echoes something already gestured at in Plato’s Symposium, where love propels the soul upward to abstract ideas and Forms through stages of desire, each stage a rung on a ladder toward truth and beauty. But perhaps what matters isn't the final destination, but the act of climbing itself.

Romantic love, on this model, is not primarily an altruistic desire focused on the other person's good. Rather, it's fundamentally self-interested: a desire to demonstrate and reinforce one's own excellence or strength. Each new relationship, each emotional investment, becomes a proving ground, testing and manifesting one's personal virtues and capacities. But crucially, this is not self-interest as domination or control—it is not the Sartrean attempt to subsume the other into one's own projects. It is not a futile desire. Rather, it is a fully self-contained striving, in which the beloved is not a possession but a provocation, an instigator of ascent. In this sense, Sartre's account fails not because it sees love as self-interested, but because he misunderstands what kind of self-interest is at stake.

Jenny Holzer gets it.

Desire itself can be seen as a kind of contest—a dynamic tension between what we are and what we lack, between the actual and the possible. It pulls us forward not just toward another person, but toward a future self made more vivid by that pull. To desire is to stretch, to strain, to enter into an ongoing negotiation with who we are becoming. Nietzsche implores us to embrace our envy—it signals who we want to be.

However, this conception raises a tension: perhaps the altruistic desire for the other's well-being and the self-interested drive for personal excellence are ultimately incompatible—or at least distinct. The richness and complexity of love might reside precisely in navigating this tension, continually renegotiating the balance between caring for the other and refining oneself.

Take your broken heart / Turn it into art / Can't take it with you

Seeing love this way also helps us handle heartbreak and disappointment differently. The pain doesn’t get easier—but we do. As Epictetus reminds us: "I am fond of a jug!" If it breaks, we mourn, but we also remember it was never ours to begin with. Love, when framed as agōn, invites us to channel the ache of loss into something constructive: art, scraps, poetic lines, or even essays (ahem). It becomes not a wound to carry indefinitely, but a site for practice. A way to hone our skills. To sharpen our clarity. To continue the climb.

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Thus, love as agōn suggests that what makes love truly valuable isn't achieving lasting unity or completeness, but rather embracing it as an ongoing contest—one in which we repeatedly discover, challenge, and shape who we are. Camus’s vision of Don Juan is vindicated here: not as a figure of moral failure, but as one who refuses to collapse the plurality of love into a single totalizing bond, and instead affirms desire itself as the theater of becoming. In this way, even the Platonic vision of love as ascent—so often misread as an escape from the physical or emotional—can be reclaimed as an early intuition that love is not a possession, but a movement: upward, outward, ever unfinished.

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Ames’s thesis stuck with me because, for a few years now, I’ve had this sort of personal philosophy (philosophers hate that term) that "the good life is the good lives." I think the double life is an ethical necessity. Not because it makes us more productive or interesting or well-rounded, but because it gives us room to stretch—to surprise ourselves, to disappear and return, to be haunted and still keep moving. It’s easy to forget that meaning doesn’t have to arrive fully formed. The double life isn’t just a convenience—it’s a kind of moral scaffolding. This thesis is inspired by my own experience of what feels like two separate lives—not in the "secret life" or nefarious sense, but in the sense that I’ve inhabited two distinct ways of being that both feel authentic to me, yet have operated largely independent of each other.

On one hand, I’m a professionally trained philosopher. It’s my career, and so my values, goals, daily habits, routines, and friend groups are largely grounded in that role. At the same time, for many weeks each year, for more than fifteen years now, I’ve also occupied the role of a Bobcat—someone who follows Bob Dylan on tour, both domestically and internationally. Life as a Bobcat also entails its own distinct values, goals, habits, routines, and (most importantly) friend groups.

But I am not just talking about the public/private distinction, or “work self” and “weekend self”. I mean living through distinct modes of interaction, different orientations to the world in a way that you might encounter conflicts between the two lives in such a way that you cannot “Step outside” them to some third personality to neutrally assess the two.. At the beginning it was an accidental consequence of my two different obsessions. But after awhile, once I started thinking more about my life as a “double life” I tried to consciously keep them separate—not out of fear, but out of respect. Like in the film Ghostbusters: "Never cross the stream."

But something happened Friday night that changed how I see it: I crossed streams.

One of my philosophy colleagues and friend runs a lab at Purdue, and when he learned Dylan was coming to town, he invited me to give a talk as part of a lecture series. That alone was an incredible honor and opportunity, but the fact that it also meant seeing Dylan live... honestly, it felt too good to be true.1 For a while, I tried to come up with reasons not to go—I think I was anxious about crossing the streams.

But, just like in Ghostbusters, when I did cross the streams, it worked. In fact, it didn’t feel like friction at all. It felt like transcendence—the kind that sneaks up on you somewhere between a footnote and a harmonica solo.

Of course, Dylan has been living the good lives for decades. As he used to be introduced in my early days as a fan, he’s been: "the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. The voice of the promise of the '60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock, who donned makeup in the '70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse, who emerged to 'find Jesus,' who was written off as a has-been by the end of the '80s, and who suddenly shifted gears and released some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late '90s."2

Maybe that’s what I’d been missing. Maybe the good lives don’t just run in parallel. Maybe, under the right conditions, they bend toward each other. Not into a merger, but into a moment.

Anyway, enough about me and my weird philosophy of lives—the show was incredible, and I thought I’d share some thoughts. Review below.

The RRW Spring 2025 tour feels like a tour of the living dead—or maybe a tour from the bardo, that transitional space between life and death. If you were like me, you took the “2021–2024” on the old tour banner to signal the end of the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour and, by extension, the end of the NET. Although a few wise ones suggested it was more of a "farewell tour" marketing gimmick, perhaps they were right.

So, what does the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour look like now that it’s in the fourth level of the bardo? In other words: now that it’s moved beyond its original lifespan?

I was almost late to the show (the price you pay for living a double life), but I made it to my stage right, row 11 seat—a $50 StubHub snag that morning. Great view of Bob, and the people around me were in good spirits, vibing along with my seat-dancing. Unlike my friends' section, no one bailed early. While I only arrived five minutes before showtime, the car lines were still packed, the entrances backed up, and no one seemed too worried about being seated at 8 p.m. sharp. (Must be their first RRW show.) So it’s no surprise the show started ten minutes late.

When it began, I was thrilled to hear "I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight" back in the set—and as the opener, no less. During the second half, Dylan really seemed to lock in. His vocals grew stronger, and he got more playful with the piano. But it was the second song, “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” that pulled me in. He began with an extended guitar solo—maybe two minutes? (I haven’t heard the tape yet; maybe that’s standard.) It was followed by a strong, powerful vocal performance. He even delivered the famous “No, no, no” chorus loudly and clearly, like the record—seemingly inviting a singalong.

I’d read on Expecting Rain that some folks thought his voice sounded weak on this leg. I didn’t hear that at all. He sang strong and clear when it counted, and softened appropriately for the quieter songs. To me, it was consistent with previous iterations of the RRW tour.

“I Contain Multitudes” has shifted from the '80s love ballad vibe of last spring (which I loved) into a much more sinister rendition—closer in spirit to 2023’s "My Own Version of You." I loved it. As always, the arrangements keep shifting. “False Prophet” might be my favorite live track just because I love hearing him boast: “I climbed a mountain of swords on my bare feet!” Strong vocals, standing mic—he was *in it*.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece” still leans on the *Puttin’ on the Ritz* backbone, but this version felt softer, sparser. Dylan seemed really engaged. The crowd recognized it right away (unlike “Every Grain of Sand”), and we even got some harmonica. He added playful phrasing, including a “doggone” flourish in the final chorus.

“Black Rider” is always a highlight. I love the eerie echo—it reminds me of how he used it in “Ballad of a Thin Man” circa 2011. It puts the crowd in a trance. My colleagues who hadn’t seen the RRW show before said it was one of the standouts.

But for me, the real standout was the radically pared-down arrangement of “My Own Version of You.” It’s now something closer to “Murder Most Foul”—loose, unstructured, no driving beat. And somehow it works. That sinister pulse from the original is gone, but what remains is just as powerful. It’s as if Dylan has removed the heart—the beat—from the monster he’s built. We’re left with a haunted figure roaming the graveyards of the bardo, doomed for eternity to search for someone who feels the way he feels.

This arrangement perfectly reflects the tour itself—adrift between life and death, without needing a rhythmic core to carry its weight. When it ended, I actually exclaimed “holy shit.” Dylan must have agreed: it was the only “thank you” of the night.

“To Be Alone With You” and “Crossing the Rubicon” were enjoyable, though nothing stood out to me. Maybe the tapes will tell a different story. “Desolation Row,” with its upbeat drum backbeat, offered a more uplifting spin that blew me away. The song now reads as deeply ironic—perhaps it always did—but the arrangement lets that irony shine through. More generally, Dylan’s willingness to invert and reshape his best work is, to me, the clearest sign of his excellence as a performer. He refuses to stagnate, even with a static setlist. He’s not afraid to split his own songs open and suck out their juice. (If only I could find a way to do that with my writing.)

“Key West” was also pared down but still hit hard. My colleagues called it “poetry,” and maybe that’s a better genre for some of the songs in this set. My personal favorite remains the short-lived swampy version from summer 2022. Still, “Key West” always makes me cry. I think of the short time we spend in the Hall of the King as its own Key West—a place to go if you’ve lost your head.

“Watching the River Flow” surprised me. I was expecting “Gotta Serve Somebody” (and I’m sad it’s gone from the setlist). Does anyone have thoughts on why it’s still in the rotation but repositioned? That said, it got a good reaction—people stood, danced.

During the band introduction, Dylan joked that they were playing “all the hits.” I turned to the guy next to me and said, “That’s actually true!” “Baby Blue,” “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” and “Mother of Muses” were all strong, though nothing especially stood out. “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” was fun for the same reason as “False Prophet”—some Dylan puffery and a little audience-shaming. He even asked if anyone had heard of Jimmy Reed before. It seemed like he was in a good mood.

“Every Grain of Sand” is the perfect closer: bittersweet and reflective. It reminds me that even this night, this experience, is but one progression in a perfect finished plan.

In the end I didn’t fully cross the streams—I hung out with my philosophy colleagues after the show, knowing I’d see Dylan friends at the PA shows next week. That’s the beauty of being a Bobcat: you regularly run into your pals all over the world.

Before this night, I assumed my double lives had to remain separate. That they couldn’t coexist as successfully together as they do apart. (I’m a good Bobcat, I’m a good scholar, but I’m not a good Dylan scholar.) Yet, in allowing myself to cross the streams, I had what might be a perfect day—where both selves showed up in full: presenting my work to a receptive audience, and witnessing Dylan demonstrate his excellence to a receptive audience that included me. It felt like a full-circle moment.

I had resisted crossing the streams for so long, afraid it might dilute something essential. But doing both—giving a talk I was proud of and seeing a show that moved me—turned out to be one of the most meaningful days of my life.

I came away from this experience more convinced than ever in the ethical necessity of the double life—and with a deeper sense of how those lives can coexist in harmony. We need hobbies, passions, and projects that we can throw ourselves into because they bring with them distinct values, goals, and routines. They give us different ways to experience the world and exercise our agency.

When we let ourselves inhabit distinct roles with distinct rhythms, we resist the pressure to be seamless or coherent. We become harder to pin down, yes, but also harder to break. There’s an integrity to that plurality, an ethical strength in refusing to collapse all our values into a single narrative. We live more fully—not by integrating everything, but by letting our lives lean on each other, unevenly, in ways that let us breathe.

Splitting our lives doesn’t divide us—it sets us free.

This essay is my attempt to think through what Heat reveals about ancient ideals of excellence, contest, and integrity—how you prove who you are not by being a good person, but by being the best at what you do, even if what you do is rob banks.

In Ancient Greek, aretē translates roughly to a thing’s excellence or virtue, or what it takes to be the best version of that sort of thing. A knife’s aretē would be the properties that make it an excellent knife, such as its sharpness or its material. A thing’s aretē depends on its proper function or role. Thus, aretē isn’t about being good in the moralistic sense—it’s about demonstrating excellence by doing your thing well. In the earliest iterations, aretē was identical with nobility—aristocrats didn’t have to demonstrate their excellence through deeds or contests; they were simply assumed to possess it by birth.

It’s in Homer’s epic poems where we first encounter individuals needing to prove their aretē through heroic feats. Achilles was excellent as a warrior; Odysseus was excellent as a clever trickster and marksman. Notably, their aretē wasn’t about kindness or generosity—it was about performance under pressure. And how do you prove your aretē? Through agōn—contest. The battlefield, the Olympics, the face-off with a worthy rival. These are the (public) stages where excellence gets shown and thus tested. This idea—that you don’t enter a contest to defeat your enemy but to demonstrate your aretē—runs straight through the heart of Heat.

Neil McCauley and Vincent Hanna are two men on opposite sides of the law, but both are fully committed to a code. They live disciplined, structured lives, and they’re both addicted to the chase—not just the thrill of it, but the way it clarifies things and refines their skills. Neil isn’t just a criminal. He’s a professional, precise and principled (the suits!). He has a foundational rule: don’t attach yourself to anything you can’t walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner. This rule ensures he doesn’t take risks, and doesn’t let his emotions dictate his choices (well, mostly—but we’ll get to that). Neil is the closest we could get to a virtuous bank thief.1

Vincent, on the other hand, is just as principled, perhaps because he’s obsessive. He works a difficult job trying to solve some of the most horrific crimes, which causes him to work long nights under high stress. Unsurprisingly, he can’t hold down a marriage. He lives for the job, which is the pursuit of justice. His marriages fall apart because he handles some of the most horrific and disturbing crimes—“I told you when we hooked up, you would have to share me, baby”—ones he has to dedicate himself to solving to secure justice. Though Vince is more emotional than Neil, he is just as excellent at his job. This is why they recognize themselves (aretē—excellence) in each other.

Take the first scene where Vincent learns about Neil’s activities. When another cop asks about their MO, Vince replies, “M.O.? Is that they’re good.” Immediately, Vince is attracted to catching these guys because he recognizes that they’re skilled. In other words, it’s the fact that they’re so good that Vince wants to catch them. The chase at the center of Heat qualifies as an agōn because, for Vince, their successful capture would further confirm his own excellence.

Then there’s the shipyard scene, where Neil tricks Vincent into playing his hand. It begins with Vincent taking pictures but ends with Neil taking them: “Is he something, or is he something? This crew is good.” Vince is thus attracted to the case, and to Neil, because he recognizes and respects his skill, which also suggests he possesses aretē.

Immediately after, Neil meets with Nate (Jon Voight’s character) who gives intel on the LAPD crew following them. He calls Vincent “a hot dog” and a “fucking maniac,” “prowling around all night dedicated,” who’s “taken down some heavy crews”—and “he’s why the extra heat.” He follows up with, “Hanna likes you. Thinks you’re some kinda star. You do this sharp…you do that sharp…” “This much heat, you should pass.” In other words, it’s past Neil’s principle. How does Neil reply? “It’s worth the stretch.”

If aretē must be recognized by others to be fully confirmed and conferred, what could be more validating than being recognized as excellent by someone you also recognize as excellent? This is the point of the Ancient Greek agōn—a contest against someone one considers excellent, designed to test one’s purported aretē. The next scene is perhaps the most iconic scene of the film, and happens at the halfway point as well.

Vincent learns the location of Neil’s car, and gets in a helicopter then a BMW to catch up with him. If you’re watching it for the first time, you might think Vince is going to arrest Neil. (I don’t remember the first time I saw it, because I was a little girl—and I thank my dad every day for that.) But even when Vince pulls Neil over and asks about having a cup of coffee, Neil agrees (as he has just learned that Hanna respects him for his aretē).

The diner scene is legendary for a reason. It cements my point that the chase is not about winning—that the core tension is not about the conflict; it’s about mutual recognition. When Neil delivers the iconic “30 seconds flat” line (though not for the first time), Vincent foreshadows the final scene by asking, “So if you spot me around the corner, are you just going to leave your woman without saying goodbye?” to which Neil replies, “That’s the discipline.” BOOM—it doesn’t get more Ancient Greek than that.

Discipline is closely related to habit, which from the Greek root ethikos, is the basis for our word “ethics.” For the Ancient Greeks, ethics was a matter of discipline. Vince and Neil agree that neither of them “know how to do anything else,” nor “do they want to.” And yet: “I do what I do best—I take scores. You do what you do best—try to stop guys like me.” That’s respect. This is why Vincent wants to have coffee with Neil and Neil agrees to have coffee with Vince—it’s the foundations of their agōn, a modern depiction of a truly Ancient ethos.

The diner scene reinforces my argument that Heat depicts an agōn: neither of them seem all that interested in "winning" in the usual sense (take Vincent’s “I gotta put you away. I won’t like it…but brother, I gotta take you down”). Neil knows the job might go sideways. Vincent knows he’s destroying his personal life. But they’re locked in this pursuit because it’s who they are, and contesting that is a way to prove it to themselves. It’s not so much a battle as a form of inquiry.

For them, “the action is the juice.” It’s not about success. It’s about proving to themselves—and maybe to each other—that they haven’t broken their respective codes. That’s integrity, in a weird, sideways way. This is the essentially Homeric ethics of Heat—not moral goodness, not lawfulness, but self-consistency, discipline, and excellence under pressure.

This is where the heist genre gets interesting. Normally, we think of criminals as outside morality—lawless, immoral, whatever. But Heat suggests something more complicated. Neil operates with more integrity than half the people on the police force. He doesn’t kill unnecessarily. He keeps his word. He’s furious at Waingro not because Waingro is evil, but because he lacks aidos—shame, reverence, respect for the code (but also, Waingro is evil—it isn’t as if there is not a connection). Waingro is what happens when someone has no internal limits. Neil, in contrast, is all about limits. Yet, he risks everything to kill Waingro. At first, Neil wants to kill Waingro not out of revenge or anger, but because Waingro’s recklessness got innocent people killed and betrayed the crew (what Aristotle called righteous indignation).

But over time, Neil’s obsession with exacting justice on Waingro takes on a different tone. It’s not just about preserving the code anymore. It’s about restoring a record. About proving to himself that no breach of his code goes unanswered. That personal obsession becomes the seed of his tragic end. Once Neil learns that Waingro is working with Van Zant and sabotaged their last heist (leading to the death of Tom Sizemore’s character, and Val Kilmer’s wounding), Neil risks everything to kill Waingro—not merely out of revenge, but because he cannot tolerate the disrespect.

The Ancient Greeks believed that the good life involves securing what is truly in our self-interest—but for them, being self-interested wasn’t the same as being selfish. Neil fails when he demonstrates the latter. What makes this tragic isn’t simply that Neil dies (after all, it's better to die well than to live poorly). It’s that he chooses revenge over everything else, even love. He’s told he’s “home free.” He has the exit, the clean break, and he even has the girl—yet he can’t recognize that he should concede. At that moment, he’s no longer acting in his best interest; he’s acting selfishly.

Hence the white tunnel. I think the white tunnel shot is the most visually stunning and thematically loaded scene in the film—it represents three important points that foreshadow Neil’s downfall. First, it signals a dilemma—a moment of choice. A literal threshold—will Neil recognize this is the proper moment of concession, or is he fated to pursue revenge to the end? Second, I think it represents Neil’s tunnel vision: he can’t let go of Waingro. He’s not choosing discipline, self-mastery, or even love or safety. Finally, it represents the beginning of his collapse in aretē (even though, as a true Homeric figure, he pulls off some heroic feats first). Neil chooses to try to “win” the contest by killing Waingro, even though that’s not the point and it’s already cost him everything. He’s overly invested in his reputation and fails to leave the contest when he should. It’s a powerful image of obsession disguised as discipline.

This is where the Ancient art of concession comes in. Knowing when to step away from the contest, when to yield, when to live was also an essential component of demonstrating aretē in an agōn. One does not demonstrate virtue only or always by “winning”—it is in the pursuit of the contest itself, for its own sake through which one demonstrates their excellence. Vincent, in contrast, does concede. After he thinks Neil has fled the country, he goes home. He plans to take a shower, sleep for days. But life pulls him back in—his stepdaughter has tried to commit suicide and is bleeding out in the tub. That moment wakes him up, literally and metaphorically. So when the call comes that Neil is still in town, Vincent is ready. His concession wasn’t failure—it was aretē. A justified withdrawal that allowed him to return with full presence. (Unlike Neil, where the information about Waingro’s location should’ve been ignored.)

Thus it is perfect Ancient Greek tragedy when Neil sees Vincent coming around the corner and abandons Eady—whom he had convinced to transgress her values to stay with him—without saying goodbye. Only to be shot by Vincent on the airfield and die holding his hand.

The final scene symbolizes something of true intimacy between the two men, not because they love each other, but because they’re the only ones who really see each other—it is the handshake of mutual recognition in a noble loss. Neil recognizes Vincent’s excellence, and vice versa, even in death. That’s Homeric as heck. It’s not a morality play. It’s a story about excellence and the mutual recognition of those who live by a code.

Maybe that’s why Heat still hits so hard 30 years later. It’s not just a story about crime and justice. It’s a modern epic about how to live—and die—with integrity, even when the world doesn’t reward it.

And what of Chris, Val Kilmer’s character? He’s the only member of the crew to survive. He doesn’t get a heroic showdown, and maybe that’s the point. In the most quietly heartbreaking moment of the film, his wife Charlene—"the sun rises and sets with her"—warns him off with a silent signal because the police are waiting. He doesn’t try to win the contest. He doesn’t stick to the job. He sees the sign, concedes, and escapes. Unlike Neil, Chris knows when to walk away, and in doing so loses his sun, his son, and his heart. Chris’s guiding principle was love. And maybe that’s why he lives.

Cuyahoga Falls.

First of all, it’s been so long since I’ve seen Dylan on a festival circuit and these Outlaw Fest shows were in huge amphitheaters with even bigger parking lots. However, I did appreciate the Ohio tailgating crowd. I arrived relatively late, during John Mellencamp’s set and I think there were more people out in the lots partying than inside, which makes sense given the cost of a beer in there.

Anyway, Cuyahoga Falls began with a badass All Along the Watchtower, which it turns out was covered by Mellencamp in his opening set. I thought it was a great performance, though I prefer Buffalo’s version.

Cuyahoga Falls is notable for me because it would be the only time I’d see Shooting Star. Fantastic harp solo. What really struck me was Under the Red Sky—something about the lyrics made me feel nostalgic for my early days following Dylan and how much has changed since then (and how much remains the same). There was an old man and he lived in the moon/One summer's day he came passing by.

I struggled a bit to “get into” the slowed down and deconstructed Can’t Wait, which is one of my favorite songs, but afterwards my friend (the indomitable Kait) reminded me that I needed to let it wash over me.

Overall I enjoyed Ohio, being my first Outlaw show, and it was certainly worth the 5 hour drive on a school night. But I felt it was a relatively subdued show (though that might also have been my projection of the audience). At least they let me stand and dance.

Burgettstown.

Another large venue, we had to leave early because it took 45 minutes to get from the parking lot to the venue. Good grief.

The show started with another high energy All Along the Watchtower (I assume Mellencamp played it as well). I also really enjoyed the Rainy Day Women from this show, and I think the juxtaposition of these two songs works well with the nonstandard Outlaw crowd (makes sense they’d narrow down the pattern on the fourth to last show).

This night I thought the new “Murder Most Foul”esque Hard Rain worked well, building up to the end “and I’ll tell it, and think it, and speak it, and breathe it”—nice little promo for the Marigold movie to boot. Can’t Wait was much more effective this time through as well, I finally “got it” as Kait said.

I think I’ve written before about how much I love I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight on the current Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. There’s just something playful and satirical about an 83 year old man singing “bring that bottle over here” It’s always great to see/hear him laugh as well. (also, I forgot to mention how much I love when he sings “not a day over seventeen” in Little Queenie loool)

Buffalo.

What else is there to say? Final shows are always imbued with a special energy. This one was no exception. I was able to score a 7th row center pit seat for below face value and it was a great audience down front, lots of standing and dancing throughout the entire show. One gentleman could no longer resist the urge to boogie and started dancing to Things Have Changed which was just an absolutely joy to witness and join.

(you can see me standing up front in the first 2 seconds)

Of course, when Dylan began singing “They’re selling postcards of the hanging..” I freaked out. I knew we were getting something special, but little did I know where it would go. From my experience in the 7th row, the stage had a positive energy and the performance was dialed in. Dylan did not seem particularly annoyed or upset (when he shakes his head, etc). However, when he started clapping I was genuinely surprised. I interpreted it as an invitation for the audience to join in, and I was simultaneously confused and a little worried—IMHO it is extremely unlikely and strange for Dylan to encourage audience participation!!! I was looking around trying to gauge others’ reactions whether this was a good or bad thing LOL

But Dylan seemed to be into it, and when people would stop clapping he’d start again reminding and encouraging us—which seemingly confused the band as well.

So Dylan kept clapping and when we weren’t keeping up he began hitting the top of the piano, and then as we all know now, picked up a wrench used to weigh down his lyric sheets and started hitting the mic with the wrench (I thought he was using a harmonica).

At this point I started yelling really loud because I knew we were headed into uncharted waters. The audience could not keep up with the wrench-rhythm and Dylan started looking back to the drummer as it seemed everyone was on a different page. But again, it never felt like things were going off the rails. FWIW In Japan I witnessed the band abort Brokedown Palace mid-song so I am familiar with what that might look like. Sometimes I think a performance can be energized by technical and other issues. What does it matter anyway?

I had a colleague out in the lawn and he was quite confused about what was going on LOL the cameras were not zoomed in enough for people to see him using the wrench, they could only hear him hitting the microphone.

However, my personal favorite song of the night, and of the shows I was fortunate to attend, was Ballad of a Thin Man from Buffalo (no video available). Dylan and his band, with Mickey Rapheal on harmonica, gave a really strong (and loud) performance which was the perfect way to “set fire to the place as a parting gift” (and almost enough to make up for not performing I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight :( ).

After the show I ran into a guy who I had last seen in France, which is such a common experience as a BobCat, and a reminder of how small the world can be sometimes.

If you’re even somewhat familiar with the current state of U.S. politics, then you’ve likely heard that Kamala Harris and her new Vice Presidential pick Tim Walz have embraced a new rhetorical strategy against Trump and his supporters: mocking them. For example, Salon published an article last week titled, “‘Pointing and laughing’: Democrats leaned in on ‘weird’ and experts say it's working,” which includes a professor of strategic political communication stating, “I haven't seen a rhetorical strategy this good, effective, and fun in a long time. This was really sharp.”

Just last night Tim Walz made his campaign debut and took a “jab” at JD Vance by alluding to a popular meme implying that Vance is sexually attracted to couches.

Similarly, The Guardian published an opinion piece titled “Trump’s usual sexist sneers don’t work against Harris – and to top it off, she’s laughing at him” which concludes with the following observation:

“…with a smirk that does more work than all of Clinton or Warren’s earnest attempts to debate him, Harris meets Trump at the demotic level and states the bleeding obvious: ‘These guys are weird.’ It works because it’s true, but also because she’s doing the thing Trump hates above all other things: she’s laughing at him.” (my emphasis). So, why might humor be a more effective strategy against bad actors such as Trump than earnest debate?

In a famous passage of his unpublished work titled “No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger” Mark Twain championed laughter as humanity’s “one really effective weapon” against “colossal humbug” because “against the assault of laughter nothing can stand”1. Twain believed that humor was both distinct from and superior to other forms of defense against colossal humbugs, such as money, persecution, and coercion.

In this essay I’d like to draw on some concepts from the philosophy of language to help explain Twain’s suggestion that the best defense against an insult is a good offense.

In recent years, humor has been weaponized to undermine the seriousness of political discourse and democratic deliberation. Former president Donald Trump is well known for his penchant of using disparaging humor against his political opponents. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump frequently referred to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as "Crooked Hillary" to highlight and exaggerate accusations that she was dishonest and corrupt. Trump’s use of insults, mockery, and name-calling often shifted focus from substantive issues to personality while undermining his rivals' credibility and appeal.

More generally, “bad actors” weaponize humor by using humorous modes of communication to convey offensive ideas or stereotypes, while avoiding the responsibility that follows from asserting them (as true). Such bad actors can always avoid criticism by claiming they are “just joking”.

Humor is weird. While it can be easy to “get” a joke, it can be difficult to explain what makes a joke funny, and even harder to successfully challenge jokes we find objectionable. In his fantastic book Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters philosopher Ted Cohen argued that all jokes are both interactive and conditional. Jokes are interactive because they require input from their audience, the content of which is conditional on the audience’s background knowledge.

Okay, so take this pandemic-era meme:

The joke is conditional on its audience being familiar with the stereotype that women belong in the kitchen. The audience then “supplies” the missing information in order to “get” the joke (making it interactive). However the joke has communicative consequences beyond being cringe.

A standard approach in the philosophy of language is the idea that successful communication, or a conversation, involves what is called deontic scorekeeping. In this process, participants implicitly track what they and others are permitted and prohibited from saying or doing based on what has been said or done.

If we are trying to decide where to eat tonight and I say, “Let’s not eat at Wing Stop” then the participants of the conversation adjust their implicit scores such that Wing Stop is not offered as a possible destination going forward. This is commonly known as the “conversational record”—an implicit record of what each participant is familiar with given the conversation.

Okay so humor can alter the conversational record through a process known as presupposition accommodation. Roughly, participants in a conversation must adopt tacit presuppositions in the absence of explicit information in order to correctly interpret the speaker’s utterance. Let’s revisit the pandemic meme:

Anyone who “gets” the joke implicitly assumes that everyone else who “gets” the joke is also familiar with the relevant stereotypes. Thus, the meme covertly introduces sexist stereotypes into the conversational record through presupposition accommodation.

Because weaponized humor covertly alters the conversational record through presupposition accommodation, it is much harder to successfully target and challenge. If we target the objectionable content, or the jokester’s intentions, then the jokester can deflect criticism by noting that they were “just joking.”2 As such, humor is an effective rhetorical weapon because bad actors can introduce objectionable information into the conversational record without undertaking the risks associated with asserting it as true.

In his lesser-known 1885 essay, “On the Decay of the Art of Lying” Twain argues that lying is a natural and necessary feature of the human condition that is grounded in our essentially social nature. According to Twain, truth is not the default norm of communication, it is really the reverse:

Lying is universal--we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous men, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather. (1885/2008)

Twain notes that some forms of deception are neutral or even appropriate (if not obligatory), such as expressing joy at someone you do not know or do not feel “actual” excitement toward. This form of deception is socially appropriate, and it would be rude to ignore a stranger who smiles at you as it would cause them unnecessary embarrassment or stigma. German philosopher Walter Benjamin similarly mused, “He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest”.3

For Twain, the recognition of the ubiquity of deception is merely the first step in what he calls “the art of lying”—learning to wield deception for virtuous ends. We need to develop the practical know-how involved in the art of lying to wield this tool for good, for the sake of others rather than ourselves. Lying is woven into the social fabric of humanity, but this does not entail that all lies are created equal.

According to Twain, someone well-versed in the art of humbug cannot be destroyed by persuasion or persecution (or power), instead the most effective weapon is laughter. Colossal humbugs weaponize humor to alter the conversational record without revealing or demonstrating their own beliefs or commitments. If we attempt to challenge the humbug on the basis of the joke’s inaccuracy or the jokester’s mind, they are likely to parry our challenge with the “just joking” response. As such, we do best to embrace the “art of the insult” and develop strategies for successfully challenging objectionable humor. In other words, the best defense against weaponized humor is a good offense—turning their own weapons against them.

It should come as no surprise that Walz’s “weirdo” retort has been so successful. The “weirdo” retort covertly alters the conversational record by introducing implicit premises that characterize Trump and his supporters as abnormal. And as a recent comic published in The Guardian observes, “Democrats have begun belittling Republicans with a cruel mocking epithet … and they don’t like it!”

If bad actors are a natural occurrence in our contemporary political landscape, then I think it’s time to begin our apprenticeship in the art of the insult: learning to weaponize humor against objectionable humor and maybe, just maybe, we can shift the conversation toward more productive topics.

I was fortunate to attend a handful of shows during the Spring 2024 iteration of the ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways World Tour’ (Memphis, Lafayette, Dallas, and Austin). As always, they were a fantastic set of shows, only further enhanced by catching up and hanging out with some of my favorite Dylanheads. That being said, I’d like to offer another “review” of RRW in the spirit of my piece on the Chicago shows last year…not so much about the specific performances but moreso some of the philosophical themes that I felt emerged during the course of my multi-show run. In particular, I think Dylan is creating art that can be fruitfully understood as an instance of street art.

First, let me offer a brief overview of the ontology and aesthetics of street art. According to the philosopher Nick Riggle, street art should be understood as a response to the Modernist impulse to separate life and art - or the distinction between high and low art. Pop art did this as well, transforming everyday objects such as soup cans into museum-worthy pieces of “fine” art.

Conversely, according to Riggle, street art brings aesthetic value into the “fractured stream of everyday life”. Street art has the power to engender aesthetic attitudes (disinterestedness, aesthetic contemplation) in our otherwise non-aesthetic endeavors, which allows the aesthetic to “join the living” (or else we’d be ‘better off over there/with the dead’). For example, strolling on the sidewalk on your way to the coffeeshop only to stop and appreciate a mural.

The point being that you aren’t walking on the side walk in order to appreciate art - this is not your intended end. As such, street art has the power to “transfigure the common place.”

For Riggle, street art is distinguished by its essential dependence on the materiality of the city: “An artwork is street art if, and only if, its material use of the street is internal to its meaning." Further, street art is a form of public art because its existence depends not only on the acts of the original artist, but also on every other person that notices it and 1) does not remove or deface it, 2) adds, modifies, or contributes to it. Street art is essentially collective. Street art thus bears a commitment to ephemerality: “the artist accepts that works may be short-lived if they are removed, destroyed, painted over, or appropriated into another's work.” And it’s these points that I think resonate most deeply with my experiences of and in Dylan’s RRW World Tour.

In some ways the analogy is obvious. I think he’s always engaged with the city in which he performs, as well as the audience RRW is a collective piece of street art. Dylan also plays with and subverts the traditional distinction between high and low art. Consider the hilarious if not confounding juxtaposition ‘I’m just like Anne Frank/ like Indiana Jones’ or the fact that he ‘paints nudes’, ‘eats fast foods’, and ‘plays Chopin's preludes’. Or that during the last few iterations of RRW, Dylan has been performing cover songs that refer or relate to the city in which he is performing.

Now you’re probably thinking: but “the street” does not play an essential role to the meaning of Dylan’s works?! Sure, perhaps that’s true, but let’s consider “the street” in a more abstract sense: as the audience, in the context of each city (or each night in the same city). Every show works with rather than against its audience - allowing the specificities of each city to inform and mold the songs, to further shape its soundscape and sonic texture.

I think the best example of this is the recent re-arrangement of When I Paint My Masterpiece, which was first introduced at the March 1st show in Ft.Lauderdale, FL (incidentally a show I was supposed to attend, until Frontier Airlines had different plans for me). As the story goes, in the break after False Prophet a woman in the audience yelled “play something we know!” after which Dylan began playing the familiar melody to Istanbul (Not Constantinople) slash Puttin’ on the Ritz before singing the lines, ‘well the streets of Rome/are filled with rubble’. Fortunately, he kept this version throughout the rest of the tour because IMHO it totally works! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Laura Tenschert’s fantastic episode on the significance of WIPMM in the context of Dylan’s creative process.

Another way in which RRW engages in a transfiguration of the commonplace is the fact that Dylan’s arrival brings with it an international circus (or freak show?) of wandering “Bobcats” - a collection of sects I lovingly refer to as “delegations” : there’s the German delegation, the British delegation, the Japanese delegation, and of course, the Deadhead delegation. A Dylan show offers us freaks a chance to visit local sites and establishments, to experience the specific culture of each city. Like Taylor Swift warns in her hit Anti-Hero, she’s a monster ‘slowly lurching towards your favorite city’ which echoes one of my favorite lines in Goodbye Jimmy Reed:

‘If you don't mind me asking

What brings you here?

Oh, nothing much, I'm just looking for the man

I came to see where he's lying in this lost land’

Riggle argues that an important component of street art is that its meaning is severely compromised when it is removed from the street. I think the same follows for RRW as well. Though I enjoy listening to the occasional boot (except when I can hear myself on it…), it simply does not have the same meaning as being there in the flesh, being a component of its creation. The “static setlist” has one meaning when you’re reading it from the comfort of your couch and a whole ‘nother meaning when you’re experiencing it in person. As anyone on expectingrain can attest: what appears static on paper is anything but in person. One of my favorite things about post-show chats is how people tend to describe experiencing a RRW show to a newcomer as “getting” it. Like a joke, the RRW Tour is just something you either “get” or don’t. There is no try.

Riggle notes that his definition of street art entails that street art is: “illegal, anonymous, ephemeral, highly creative, and attractive” (246), and what better words to describe not only the performances of RRW, but the broader collective culture it introduces and supports? A virtuous freak show, the church of song and dance.

Henry Bernstein’s fantastic jacket to close us out.

Rhythm and harmony permeate the innermost elements of the soul, affect it more powerfully than anything else.
Plato

The Master said, ‘Find inspiration in the Odes, take your place through ritual, and achieve perfection through music.’
Confucius, Analects 8.8

Last weekend I had the honor of seeing Bob Dylan’s three-night run in Chicago for the Fall 2023 iteration of the “Rough and Rowdy Ways tour.” I am a self-described “Dylanhead” in that I try to attend as many shows as possible. I’ve been referring to attending Dylan shows as “going to church” partly because it feels more like a duty than a free choice, but more importantly, because of its essentially ritualistic nature. I used to treat Dylan’s concerts as a history lesson, but now I see them as something closer to liturgy. I don’t go merely for the pleasure of hearing “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” just like someone doesn’t go to church merely to sing along to “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and drink a little bit of wine. Churches, or religious ceremonies more generally, play an important social function— one that is not easily replaced in a secular culture. Attending a public ceremony offers us the opportunity to participate in ritual practices and form community bonds, important goods for humans independent of any promises of eternal salvation. 

I think Dylan’s concerts - static set list and all - serve a similar social function as religious ceremonies: it is a secular ritual and the audience is a congregation. Rituals bring us into harmony with other people, they also offer contexts where we can coordinate with others independent of our social and political values. Rituals can be what political philosopher Robert Talisse calls “apolitical spaces.” In today’s polarized digital age, we need spaces where we can come together independent of our political values… we need more (secular) rituals.

Dylan’s static setlist is the perfect context for ritualistic practice: just like certain hymns feature either in the beginning or end of a ceremony, so too, do songs like “Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way” and “I’ve Made Up My Mind (to Give Myself to You).” Further, this idea connects back to Ancient Greek and Chinese thinkers, who believed that music (and its associated social practices) played an important role in shaping moral character. 

It’s clear that Dylan’s album “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is heavily influenced by ancient Greek culture, not only in its homages, appropriations, and allusions, but also, in its ethos. Ancient thinkers believed that music was valuable because of its ability to influence moral character and promote social cohesion.1 It is rather trivial that music can affect our emotional responses: think of how the music in a horror movie can heighten our fear, or the ability of a song to make us feel sad. However, ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as well as ancient Chinese philosophers such as Mozi and Confucius not only held that music had the capacity to influence our behavior, but believed that good music had a positive influence on moral character. Ancient Greek and Chinese thinkers did not draw a strong distinction between music (or art) and its social context: rituals, funerals, and more generally the experience of acting in harmony with others.2

Music (as a social practice) is both a social and ethical good. Humans have a natural tendency to move along to the music, it’s an automatic causal process. Public musical performances such as concerts not only influence our mood, they also encourage us to act together in harmony. It’s better, all things considered, for us and for a society to have ritualistic social practices such as concerts because they offer us a context to come together and act in harmony. So, for the ancients, music is naturally pleasurable and socially valuable as well.3

In one sense the content of Dylan’s songs in the “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour is morally instructive: many songs contain lyrics with profound moral lessons. “Mother of Muses” emphasizes humility in the face of world history, that the artist is merely a conduit for the Muse (another Ancient Greek notion), and how world-historical spirits such as Martin Luther King Jr “struggled with pain so the world could go free.” “Black Rider” warns against the perils of self-doubt, that we are often our own worst enemy. “Serve Somebody” tells us that everyone, including ambassadors and socialites, must worship something, though we may come to discover that we are mistaken about the worthiness of our target (it may be the devil, after all), while “Crossing the Rubicon” reminds us of the courage it takes to follow through on our commitment, regardless of age, ability, or fear. And of course, “Key West” and its meditation on the complex nature of happiness.

But, the “Rough and Rowdy Ways” tour is also morally instructive in its form: it is a ritual. In fact, the static setlist highlights its ritualistic nature, which allows us to appreciate songs not only for their lyrics or arrangement, but also their position in the set. There are songs where it is appropriate to dance, to leave for a bathroom break, or to sit in contemplation. Consider as well the  meaning that arises from the juxtaposition of certain songs, such as the fact that “Make My Own Version of You,” arguably the most sinister song in the set, is followed by its most playful: “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.”4 The concert is an opportunity to worship, not Dylan the person, but as a collective ritual. Coming together with other people to enjoy these songs is a tool for participating in a collective experience, which enables its participants to be more harmonious with each other: moving in coordination or cohesion with others (even if this is merely swaying back and forth). It is good for us to want to imitate the orderliness we experience with music.

So, songs like “Mother of Muses” are a prayer in both form and content: you ought to sit there and contemplate the words alongside everyone else. In my opinion, “Key West” functions as “the Lord’s Prayer” which teaches us how to pray in the first place. In other words, “Rough and Rowdy Ways” has the potential to not only influence our moral character, but to make us better people. According to this “ancient idea” it is good for us to respect rituals and social norms (but not to dogmatically submit to them either, of course). This makes us better people, better citizens. This is also the standard by which we ought to evaluate music: on its ability to positively influence moral character. As such, the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour is exactly what Ancient Greek and Chinese thinkers would evaluate as good music.

So, to say that the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour is “church” is to emphasize its communal, moral, and aesthetic dimensions, harkening back to Ancient Greek and Chinese thought where music is a social tool for moral instruction, not merely a form of psychological entertainment or release (though it could be that, too, after all it contains multitudes… :)). Needless to say, I will continue to perform my duty as a Dylanhead and attend as many shows as possible. I will also cherish the opportunity to participate in a socially-valuable ritual alongside others, irregardless of our political identities. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn to be more harmonious and orderly in my non-Rough and Rowdy Ways life as well. 

I’ll see you at church, don’t you dare miss it! 

In his essay “Shipping Out” (commonly known by the title A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again), David Foster Wallace describes how vacationing on a cruise led him to an existential crisis. For Wallace, the cruise experience is crafted to make you feel like you're having a good time. The colors, words, images, and physical spaces are all curated to evoke pleasure and relaxation, rather than offering genuine opportunities to do nothing—a pre-packaged vacation designed to keep you, as he puts it, “pampered to death.” But being surrounded by this artifice of pleasure only made Wallace feel despair, and painfully aware of his own mortality.

The Death Cab show was at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater, and I was pleased to discover my ticket included “free parking,” given that paying for or finding a place to park is always an added hassle at concerts. What I didn’t realize was that the amphitheater is located inside a racetrack complex called Circuit of the Americas—complete with multiple parking lots, bleachers, and a carnival. Unsurprisingly, the “free parking” lot turned out to be about a mile from the venue, and the “complimentary” shuttles were too small and infrequent to actually save you any time.

Once you make the trek to the actual complex, you’re greeted by inflatable people soullessly grinning at you, welcoming you into a mini-carnival with a free roller coaster, various rides, and the usual carnivalesque food offerings like funnel cakes and nachos. (At first I thought I was in the wrong place.)

Like Wallace’s cruise, everything at the arena is set up to make you think you’re having a good time: bright lights, colorful displays, free rides, and loud music. The whole thing was nauseatingly corporate—everywhere you looked, huge signs reminded you of your benevolent corporate overlords. The “Brought to you by Spectrum” billboard was larger than the sign for the restrooms. I couldn’t help but think of the corporate-sponsored years in Wallace’s Infinite Jest—pretty soon, every concert will begin with “Mastercard Presents…”

There wasn’t a single aspect of the space or experience designed to make things easier; it was all a ploy to extract as much money from you as possible. After all, you’re supposed to be having fun! From the carnival entry to the “Win Tickets to See Queen with Adam Lambert!” display, everything felt like a goddamn chore. Why would anyone find pleasure in trekking through crowds, lights, and advertisements? Why would I want to miss the performance to wait in line and overpay for beer? It was like a funhouse of mirrors—but the image reflected back at me was a grotesque portrait of the current state of live entertainment.

The truth is, in venues this large, the point isn’t to enjoy the music—it’s to say you went. The actual experience of the show is beside the point. This was nostalgia dressed up in a corporate suit: tailored to remind you of the good times without actually giving you any. There were far too many people, and no one seemed to be having fun. I was surprised by how many didn’t even seem to know the songs, as if they had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than pay hundreds of dollars to trek through this arena, stand in lines, and overpay for beer and nachos.

Even Gibbard, the lead singer of both bands, seemed to be going through the motions—forcing himself to imitate the excitement of a live performance, jumping around and clapping in an attempt to motivate the crowd. He looked spiritually checked out, and I don’t blame him. These days, people attend live shows expecting the artist to simply perform at them. They don’t want to participate. They're more concerned with filming the moment than being present for it. They’re not there for joy—it’s just something to do. (As Wallace observed on the dreaded cruise ship: doing nothing is akin to death.)

Notably, the so-called “New Sincerity” movement, with which Wallace is often associated, began in Austin.

The soullessness of nostalgia perfectly reflects our hollowed-out culture, where the experience of spectacle replaces any sense of authenticity or existential risk. Most of the people there seemed only vaguely familiar with the music—and they’d laugh at you if you even attempted to enjoy yourself. In fact, the people around me openly mocked those who were (at the very least) trying to connect with the music.

After Death Cab performed my favorite song from Transatlanticism (“Passenger Seat”), I looked up and quietly said to myself, “That was worth the panic attack.” A group behind me burst out laughing and started repeating the line in a mocking tone: “That is almost worth the panic attack, haw haw haw.” I mean—what kind of life are you living if you go to a Death Cab show just to feel superior to other people?

In a 2003 interview, Wallace criticized the oversaturation of irony in TV and fiction, which he believed threatened to destroy the possibility of earnestness and sincerity. He paraphrased Lewis Hyde’s essay on John Berryman to warn that irony, when it becomes a way of life—a default lens for experiencing both self and world—risks becoming “the song of the bird that has learned to love its cage.”

People are trapped in a self-imposed prison of insecurity, where the only thing they know how to do is laugh at others. Not because they’re cruel, necessarily—but because they don’t know what else to do.

The truth is, the concert experience has become just another manifestation of corporate greed, and seeing nostalgia acts won’t help us reclaim the innocent pleasures we might have enjoyed twenty years ago. Back then, we didn’t know how cringe we were—but now that we do know, the only way out of defensive irony is through it to the other side: post-cringe sincerity.

I wouldn’t consider myself someone who does the whole “back in my day” thing, but really—back in my day, you bought a ticket to see a band in a repurposed house with terrible acoustics and decently priced drinks. Now, you buy a ticket with a 40% service charge to see that same band play those same songs in a soulless warehouse that charges twenty bucks for a White Claw.

And God help you if you actually let go and enjoy the moment. People will assume you’re trying to prove something—like you think you’re a “bigger fan.” (That’s an actual comment I received at the Broken Social Scene 20th anniversary show last week.) But seriously—who gives a fuck? I’m not here to prove anything. I’m here to enjoy the music.

The least we can do is be fully present at a concert where artists are taking real risks in the service of art. Or I guess we can stay safe in our little bubbles—self-assured assholes who mock performers for taking an extra minute to tune their instruments. (Something I’ve witnessed more than once.) People are too awkward and self-conscious to enjoy themselves. They’re afraid of the vulnerability that comes with being earnest, and so it’s easier to mock someone else than to do the spiritual work required to actually feel something.

Next time I’m feeling nostalgic for the music I loved twenty years ago, I’ll just stay home, put the album on, lie on the floor and cry.

Skyler, like Walt, tries to justify her actions under the goal of preserving Walt Jr’s innocence, that so long as he does not think of his father as morally corrupt, even if he thinks she is a bitch, then what Walt does is permissible. In Plato’s Apology Socrates defended himself against the charge that he was “corrupting” the youth by arguing that no one voluntarily does evil, because to do evil is to harm others which entails harming oneself - if the people close to us are bad, then they will inevitably hurt us as well. Since harming ourselves is not in our best interest, and we cannot act against our own self-interest, no person knowingly does wrong. In other words, the road to breaking bad is paved with good intentions. Following this Socratic thread, throughout the series Walt is not only guilty of lying to his loved ones, he is guilty of lying to himself. Walt tells himself that he can keep his “Heisenberg” alter-ego separate from his family, that he can have his meth empire and eat birthday bacon too (err or something like that).

The tenth episode of season three is called “Fly” and it is considered the most divisive episode in the series: the episode with the lowest IMDB rating in the series and one that inspired many a think piece and Reddit post. Even those that defended the episode tended to focus on how it helped flesh out Walt and Jesse’s relationship (fwiw like the introduction of Mike Ehrmantraut, the episode was a product of non-narrative constraints). However, I think it is important to contextualize Fly within the season and series more broadly. Fly is the episode that directly follows Skyler confessing to Marie that Walt is addicted to gambling, which signals her “acceptance” of Walt’s career and her attempt, like Walt, to use this evil for “good.” Skyler’s “breaking bad” reveals how Walter’s moral corruption (Heisenberg) is like his terminal cancer: something that grows for the sake of growth, a malignant tumor that cannot be contained - hence the problem of “contamination” that anchors Fly.

The fly symbolizes Walt’s moral decay, and his all-encompassing attempt to extinguish the fly under the guise of contamination mirrors his willingness to kill anyone that threatens to “expose” his secret life. There is a scene near the end of the series when Skyler and Walt meet Hank and Marie at a restaurant in an attempt to forestall the inevitable - and Walt claims that it wouldn’t be “right” to crush Walt Jr with the knowledge that his father is a drug kingpin given that Walt’s cancer has returned, which means he will die sooner rather than later. Hank balks at Walt’s use of the word “right” because what is “right” to Walt Jr would be not manufacturing meth altogether. That if Walt Sr had done what was actually right there would be no need to hide anything from Walt Jr in the first place.

As Hegel once said, happiness is being at home in the recognition of the other. And Sartre expanded this to argue that who we are is not “up to us” but instead a product of how others’ recognize us. Ideally, we want others to recognize us in the ways we recognize ourselves. Bu humans are essentially free - we cannot “force” another person to view us in a certain way. So, the best we can do is manipulate others in order to control how they see us: to have our social self-consciousness birthday bacon breakfast and to eat it too. Walt, and by the end Skyler too, continually attempt to control how others’ view them - and this helps explain why Walt care so much about how Jesse views him, as Jesse is the only link between Heisenberg and “Mr. White”; Jesse is the only way Heisenberg could be recognized as the “same” person as Mr. White. Skyler does not know Heisenberg, only in glimpses and in that devastating final phone call with the police listening in; Walt’s hail Mary in using language in an attempt to control the narrative - to control how others recognize him. By the end, as Gretchen says on the news program that inspires Walt’s return to ABQ, Walter White is dead, only Heisenberg remains. When Walt finally admits to Skyler that he did it for himself, he is admitting this to himself as well - and Socrates might argue that it is no coincidence Walt goes on to sacrifice his life to “save” Jesse - if evil is ignorance, then the person that causes harm to those they love has two options: to lie to themselves or sacrifice themselves. In the end, Walt finally makes the right choice.

Critics found the work “baffling” and many objected to what Dylan either said in the book or what he didn’t say. The Guardian viewed the work as a playful blending of genres, while others such as The Los Angeles Times, objected to its misogynistic content and “pretentious” title (I do wonder if it is the first book with ‘philosophy’ in the title that includes the word ‘cunt’). The Slate review declared the book, “Brilliant, Nonsensical, and Misogynistic” while the New York Post found the work lacking due to the absence of female artists, references to his own songs, and lack of engagement with more recent genres such as rap. Notably, in addition to questionable observations about women and lawyers, some essays don’t even discuss the song in question, while others use the song merely as a starting point. There are also stream-of-consciousness “verses” prefacing many of the essays that are often written in the second-person, as well as a curated selection of images without any accompanying explanation. All in all, critics were in agreement that the book is “incoherent” and a “jumble”: there isn’t a clear organizational principle that unifies the essays and explains why certain songs (or images) are included while others are omitted. 

In other words, PoMS challenges conventional assumptions about literary classification, coherence, and authorial intent. What exactly is Dylan trying to communicate or achieve? What should the audience takeaway from reading it? If it’s “philosophy” then ought it offer us insight into the fundamental truths regarding Modern Song? Viewed through conventional literary or philosophical criteria the book appears to be, at best, a minor work of philosophy, and at worst a failure, which would be injurious to Dylan’s reputation as a writer/wordsmith. After all, this is his first book since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature! 

Critics, and perhaps the general public as well, appeared to treat PoMS as autobiographical, as communicating what Dylan “really” thinks or believes, or offering his “philosophy” of modern songs and songwriting. Of course, audiences were seemingly justified in treating Chronicles Vol. 1 as autobiographical, given the book was classified and promoted as an autobiography. According to literary conventions, an autobiography is testimonial - the author offers us truths about their experiences, beliefs, and/or values. Testimony is justified when it is true, when it accurately reflects the events or the author’s beliefs - “No honey, I was out late working in the office!” The revelation that passages in Chronicles Vol. 1  were  appropriated lines pulled the testimonial rug out from under us. Consequently, this brought into question the classification of the book as well. But this essay isn’t about Chronicles (I have a series of essays on this here Substack that deal more extensively with Chronicles and the question of appropriation). Here it seems to be the fact that “philosophy” is in the title suggests that Dylan is going to offer his thoughts on what really makes a song, or melody, or whatever. However, it isn’t clear or obvious that “philosophy” is necessarily testimonial, either. 

To wax metaphilosophical, it is an open question, and a topic of debate within academic philosophy itself, just what does or should “count” as philosophy. When a philosopher claims that a statue is “composed” of its clay, how do we evaluate this claim? We cannot “observe” the differences between “composition” and “constitution,” which causes some philosophers to diagnose debates regarding the relationship between a statue and its clay as “mere verbal disputes:” verbal disputes are actually pseudo-problems because they ultimately turn on how we use words, rather than anything substantial or “out there” in the world. This is all to say that what counts as “philosophy” isn’t given or agreed upon. Some so-called pragmatist philosophers, such as Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, or Carnap, take philosophy to be closer to poetry than scientific observation, which of course makes it harder to know how to assess or verify philosophical claims. Pragmatism is considered a (or perhaps the only) distinctly American philosophical tradition, and it is often associated with 19^th century thinkers William James and C.S. Pierce. James and Pierce rejected the conventional philosophical model of truth, which is a property that holds between thoughts or words that accurately reflect or represent the non-linguistic world. For pragmatists, ‘truth’ was not a relation between words and the world, but a matter of usefulness. For James and Pierce, truth = useful, which means that the “truth” can change over time. 

Contemporary “neopragmatists,” most notably Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Rorty, Amie Thomasson, and Robert Brandom are pluralists about language. Pluralists resist the identification of ‘truth’ with usefulness and argue instead that language serves multiple legitimate functions in addition to describing or representing non-linguistic reality (as well as a speaker’s mental states, beliefs, or values). Their pluralism is motivated in part by an emphasis on the practical upshots of our thought and talk. For example, parents will often tell a misbehaving child “if you keep making that face it will stick that way” this is not a description of a truth, but instead a way of using language to reinforce social norms about appropriate behavior. For pragmatists, what matters is the point or purpose of what we are saying, not merely its accuracy or inaccuracy. So, pragmatism comes in many flavors, but its unified in virtue of its emphasis on the practical. 

Pragmatists are also pluralists about philosophy; philosophy is not so much a series of texts, truths, or theses, or even a set of questions. Instead, philosophy is a tool or better yet (like language), a collection of tools suited for different purposes. In some cases, philosophy is a tool to help us discover and extract bad assumptions or beliefs, for others its a tool to help us improve our psychological well-being, still others take philosophy to be inquiry into the fundamental features of reality, or to paraphrase Marx, not to merely explain the features of our social conditions but to change them. Wittgenstein characterized his own philosophy as a “ladder” that one ought to climb and then toss aside, an analogy borrowed from the Ancient Greek skeptic Pyrrho. To claim that a work is a ladder to climb and then toss it to suggest that the work is not to be digested or accepted as universal “truths” - but instead a tool we use to reach new and different heights. Now, I’m not suggesting that climbing a ladder to new heights means we find ourselves somewhere “better” than where we began, that’s to sneak truth back into the picture. Instead, think of “new” as “other” - to become something other than what we were before. So, perhaps the title of my essay is misleading, it’s not so much “the” philosophy of PoMS but “the philosophies” of PoMS. 

Okay, so a pragmatist might reframe my earlier points about PoMS being treated as autobiography and ask instead: What is the point of an autobiography? Consider how (published) autobiographies are a type of public writing, which invokes the public/private distinction encountered in political discourse. For a statement (or set of statements) to be public entails one has the responsibility to defend or justify themselves to others - if I propose a public policy that affects members of my community, then I have a responsibility to justify or defend why that policy is in their best interests. This is a cornerstone of democracy: persuading you through reason rather than brute force or manipulation. The private realm does not entail the same set of obligations. Consider love. Love is a paradigmatic private emotion - I am not under any obligation to defend or justify to others why I love who I love. It would be mistaken to ask someone “justify to me why you love this person” (though at the same time, not having any reasons for loving someone also seems mistaken, but that’s a different issue). If autobiography is a public text, then it requires statements that can be justified for others, but this makes one’s inner thoughts (feelings, etc) public property. But, wouldn’t this amount to something like a public journal? Isn’t that a paradox?

he assumptions that PoMS is offering something testimonial, in addition to criticisms that the work is incoherent, remind me of criticisms against Mark Twain’s autobiographical works, specifically Life and The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Twain’s autobiography is incoherent and unconventional, especially for a work in the early 20^th century. In fact, Twain’s Autobiographical works are notoriously “jumbled” : composed of fictional cases, excerpts from others’ works, from Twain’s other works, newspaper clippings, and the like. Twain is also, I argue elsewhere, a pluralist about language. He has an essay defending the “art of lying” where he criticizes so-called “truth mongers” who hold that the truth is a universal obligation, even when it is at the detriment of others’ well-being. Consider a so-called “white lie” - you ask if you look fat in that outfit, and while it’s true that the outfit is unflattering I say “you look great” because I don’t want to hurt your feelings at the fancy dinner. I lied in order to preserve your dignity (although of course a white lie could be done out of cowardice as well). A “truth monger” is someone who prioritizes the truth over others’ feelings. Twain’s autobiography was (and is) largely considered a failure. According to Lou Renza’s 1987 article ”Killing Time with Mark Twain's Autobiographies”, Twain’s autobiographies lack an “organizational principle” that lets the readers passively digest the text as a work of public writing (as representation of Twain’s private thoughts, experiences, and values). Twain was notoriously suspicious of confessional or testimonial works - he believed that it was a law of human psychology that we care about what others think of us, which influences what we are willing to express publicly. In other words, the promise of a public journal is impossible.

As Twain observes in the first volume of his Autobiography, “What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself...The mass of him is hidden - it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written.”

Likewise, Dylan once claimed that, “I want to write from inside me, and to do that I’m going to have to get back to writing like I used to when I was ten—having everything come out naturally. The way I like to write is for it to come out the way I walk or talk.”

Like Dylan, Twain’s autobiographical works appear to be a failure when evaluated by established literary criteria or conventions (e.g., they do not present events in chronological order, do not represent the past faithfully). However, according to Renza, Twain was self-conscious of the assumptions and demands of his audience (both present and future) and sought to produce a text that existed wholly in the present and thus as authentic. Twain’s use of “overexposed styles” functions to present an “obtrusive appearance” that “interferes with the reader's conventional demand for a representationally thematic autobiographical story of self-progression or regression” as well as offering a “stylistic exhibitionism” that invites the reader to “rationalize as a series of mere literary jokes.” Of course, Twain’s status as a humorist encourages audiences to adopt a self-conscious relation to the text – actively interpreting rather than passively digesting it as testimony (like jokes). Renza suggests that Twain’s presentism entailed a “principle of pleasure” one that facilitated a private relation to an otherwise public text. As such, Twain’s seemingly disorderly references constitute a a compositional praxis that functions as a forerunner to stream of consciousness prose. Sound familiar?

Ultimately, Twain’s maintains an authentic relation to his writing by producing works that distinguish themselves from the (American) literary mainstream. His autobiographical works thus exhibit a “pastoral” mode of representation, which replaces literary labor with that of play (the pleasure principle). As such, Renza claims that the point of the text is not to “discover” what Twain “really” thinks, but to “kill time” – in one sense through juxtaposing past and present with stream of consciousness prose which allows the text to avoid collapsing into (mere) historical testimony, and in another sense because its point from the perspective of the audience is to “kill time” rather than discover facts about Twain or Twain’s inner thoughts. To paraphrase yet another pragmatist philosopher, Richard Rorty, one ought to let the work “wash over you” rather than treat it as a series of observations or confessions. In his most systematic work, The Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche proposed a genealogy of the social role of the philosopher - a role that descended from religious ascetics or Sadhus. According to some religious scholars, the social role of the religious ascetic or Sadhu came about with the rise of mercantilism in Southeast Asia, where individuals did not have to directly contribute to society, and could “live off” the charity of others. So, the philosopher is the figure of leisure extraordinaire. As such, it seems fitting to consider the work both as a work of philosophy and as unified by the goal of killing time. One should read PoMS as a tool for “killing time” – as a form of literary play, a self-conscious “minor” literary (or philosophical) work that allows Dylan to operate in the pastoral mode of representation - thus maintaining a private relation to an otherwise public work. 

Renza likens the pastoral mode of representation to a “fugitive” mode of writing, which is keeping in the spirit of Dylan as a public figure. As Dylan’s character fugitive cinematic figure Jack Fate muses at the end of Masked and Anonymous: “All of us in some way are trying to kill time. When it's all said and done, time ends up killing us.” I think PoMS operates as a self-conscious rebellion against the literary conventions which commodify and thus forge writing into a form of commodified labor, which is existentially alienating and creatively stifling. Readers will have a richer and more rewarding experience if they approach PoMS in terms of its practical implications, assumptions, and presuppositions – as doing multiple different things, rather than transmitting truths or representing what “Dylan really believes.” This is to suggest that audiences adopt a dynamic rather than static relationship to the work – that what matters is what we are doing with the text. In other words, the book, as philosophy, is a collection of tools rather than (merely) the transmission of truths. 

Crucially, some of the same outlets that published criticisms of the book also published pieces that dealt with the point of the image on the cover - but they then abandoned this approach when engaging with its inner content. Perhaps this is in part due to the nature of language versus images… Regardless, it isn’t impossible that we can “do” things with the text beyond treating it as a public journal. For example, my esteemed panelists Graley and Laura serve as exemplars of this pluralist and pragmatic - using the book as a tool to explore issues of authorship, the music industry, gender, and the nature of literary traditions, more broadly. In the end, what we take from PoMS is what we bring to it, which is what philosophy is all about. 

It’s been two years since my piece on democracy was published in the online magazine Aeon. The essay argued that democratic deliberation isn’t just about changing what people think or believe—it’s about changing how they feel. I remember how worried I was about how others would respond, and let me tell you: people hated it. (In that way, the article inadvertently proved its own thesis—by getting people to feel stuff.)

For example, everyone (almost exclusively dudes) on Facebook trashed it. They claimed my thesis supported dictators and “Trumpers”—that a politics aimed at shifting how people feel is indistinguishable from propaganda. They’re not wrong to be concerned. My commitment to anti-authoritarianism includes rejecting the idea that ‘truth,’ ‘reality,’ or even ‘facts’ play a fundamental role in justification, explanation, or argumentation. For instance, it would be authoritarian to say someone should respect women because it is true that women are equal to men. What makes that statement true, exactly?

If we treat truth claims as observations, then they’re (in principle) empirically verifiable. But it’s not clear to me what, if anything, would verify a metaphysical claim like “women are equal to men.” If we treat truth as an explanatory concept, we risk slipping into a soft form of authoritarianism—because there’s no room to argue with reality. You either accept it or you’re accused of denying reality. And who denies reality? The mad, the irrational, the dangerous.

I’ve heard progressives make this accusation constantly—that “the right denies reality.” Even Obama argued that contemporary political discourse needs to reclaim the truth. But here’s the TL;DR version of my thesis: the best way to combat propaganda is not through censorship. It’s also not through doubling down on truth. It’s by producing better propaganda—flooding the public sphere with progressive affective appeals, and getting people (especially socially influential ones, like Elon Musk) to actually give a fuck about, say, race-based discrimination.

A funny thing about publishing public philosophy is that people don’t seem to recognize the inherent risk in making your thoughts, beliefs, or experiences publicly available. Some offer uncharitable readings—taking to Facebook or the comments section to trash your work without offering a real counterpoint. And let me tell you: trying to persuade them they’re mistaken only makes things worse.

Others send dismissive or insulting emails. And notably, the few positive emails I received all shared the same feature: the person felt entitled to share their own work. One guy literally sent me a book manuscript. I wanted to reply, “Respectfully—who gives a fuck?” Just because you read my piece doesn’t mean I owe you anything. My time already went into the writing and editing required to publish that shit!

Getting published in a venue like Aeon involves multiple rounds of editing, professional feedback, and in my case, an editor with far more experience writing for public audiences than I’ll likely ever have. The fact that people thought I should read their unedited, unpublished drafts supports my earlier point: the public doesn’t recognize the risk of publishing something online, nor their responsibility as readers.

And this raises real questions about what public philosophy is even for.

I get the irony, of course. Substack is exactly the kind of platform where you can publish whatever you want without editorial oversight. At best, it’s something like a digital free market of ideas: the best arguments (ideally) rise to the top because people like, comment on, and share what they find persuasive. It’s a kind of grassroots influence—not the built-in credibility you get from academic journals, high-profile venues, or a large social media following.

I’ve been working on a chapter for an edited collection on The Philosophy of Fame and Celebrity, where I argue that ignorance about pop culture is not a virtue—and that philosophers ought to take pop culture seriously in order to discern and combat its pernicious effects.

During my research, I came across the work of Neil Postman, who in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business argues that “form excludes the content”—the idea that the form of discourse determines or constrains its content. This is a modification of Marshall McLuhan’s famous dictum that “the medium is the message.”

For Postman, cognitively significant explanations or justifications must be linguistic. There’s a fundamental difference, he argues, between describing a state of affairs in a newspaper article and reporting on the same event in a televised news broadcast. What accounts for this difference? The role of advertising.

Although newspapers also depend on advertising, they are not “cut up” in the way that televised news is—fragmented by sensational headlines and segmented by commercial breaks. The different stories aren’t connected by temporal or material relations, but simply because they’ve been placed side by side in the programming schedule: “And now for something completely different.”

Or take televised political debates: while their ostensible function is to communicate a politician’s values and commitments, the medium transforms them into something else entirely—a performance where what matters most is how one looks or appears. The goal is to “win,” not to offer a sober and genuine expression of one’s platform or convictions. Just consider how few campaign-trail “promises” ever come to fruition. According to Postman (and others in his orbit), this is because the visual medium actively inhibits genuine promise-making. A real promise requires durability and accountability, but those simply aren’t the kinds of things that can be effectively communicated on a televised stage.

As an expressivist, I’m sympathetic to the idea that the medium is the message, because I endorse the view that language serves multiple legitimate functions beyond describing or representing reality. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein and Amie Thomasson, I reject the assumption that language has an essentially declarative or descriptive function—or that description ought to be treated as the “primary” form of communication. For example, children first use language to express needs and desires, and only later develop the ability to describe their experiences.

Both McLuhan and Postman—as well as critical theorists like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer—were deeply skeptical of visual media such as television and film as vehicles for genuinely informative content or testimonial discourse. I mean, these guys were worked up about television. Imagine how much they would’ve hated social media.

Consider Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Each of these platforms can be understood as a medium, and as such, each has its own form—and that form determines and constrains the kinds of content that can be expressed. Thi Nguyen has a relevant piece on how Twitter “gamifies” communication, which serves as a helpful elaboration of Postman’s thesis that form excludes the content. According to Nguyen, Twitter’s built-in features—character limits, likes, retweets, replies—determine the types of expression that can succeed. The design incentivizes short, punchy, often antagonistic declarations. It’s much easier to tweet “academic philosophy is the outhouse of culture” than to explain how academic philosophy might be complicit in cultural decline.

Offering reasons and evidence (in the form of a proverbial thread) simply provides fodder for people to nitpick, ignore, or dismiss. Twitter isn’t a venue for democratic deliberation—it’s a site for shitposting. Short declarations invite interpretation, but that work is pushed onto the audience, who must “unpack” the meaning based on their own assumptions and background knowledge. Nguyen compares this to Ted Cohen’s theory of jokes, which are interactive and conditional; they only work if the audience shares the right background. On Twitter, people either get it or they don’t—and in some cases, there may be nothing to get at all. (To be fair, I just made up the outhouse thing.)

Although Nguyen limits his analysis to Twitter, I think we can easily extend his framework to Instagram and TikTok. Instagram is an image-dominant medium, which doesn’t lend itself to nuanced discussion or debate. TikTok comes closer to a kind of deliberation through its short-form videos and the ability to “duet” with other users, but even here, success is determined by the algorithm. To reach an audience, your video has to make it to the For You Page. This means creators must game the algorithm, which, for instance, penalizes content if users leave the app after viewing. In the end, TikTok suffers from the same structural problem as Twitter: it privileges outrage and clickbait, encouraging doom-scrolling that keeps users trapped in the app.

If I want to have any influence on these platforms—even for progressive or emancipatory ends—I need engagement: followers, likes, circulation. And yet it would be self-defeating to post a video encouraging people to, say, pick up a book or do something that pulls them off the app.

For Adorno, the culture industry is the system that produces mass culture: cultural objects and commodities engineered to appeal to the broadest possible audience, because the primary goal is profit. The same is true of platforms like TikTok or Twitter. Their aim is not communication, truth, or sincerity—it’s to keep users engaged. If your video goes viral, it’s because it serves the interests of the culture industry—not because it’s true or meaningful. (And if it is, that’s just a coincidence.)

Back when I was on philosophy Twitter (RIP), I always found it funny how tenured philosophers and journalists treated the platform as a site for serious disagreement or public discourse. They’d list their credentials in their bios, attempt meaningful conversations about politics—as if this were a forum for reasoned exchange. But Twitter is optimized for brevity, spectacle, and antagonism. Sincerity only feeds the trolls. Which is why it makes total sense to me that Elon Musk would take it over.

The express purpose of social media applications—or maybe every app on our phones, period—is to keep us using them. On that front, they’re perfect tools for the culture industry: collapsing any supposed distinction between high and low culture, or between entertainment and deliberation. This is, perhaps, why most of these apps are best suited for shitposting.

FWIW, I do think Zoomers are better at discerning the non-discursive function of these platforms. They’re more likely to post satirical videos or comments that imitate sincerity while actually revealing how these apps merely pretend to be platforms for “serious” discussion. Consider the genre of “day in the life” videos: on the surface, they offer sincere snapshots of someone’s daily routine. But often, they’re covert advertisements, recruiting tools, or satire. It’s not always clear. And it doesn’t really matter—what ends up on the FYP is whatever serves the culture industry, even when that content appears critical of capitalism itself.

I don’t have TikTok, but I’m genuinely curious: have any of the top videos ever critiqued TikTok itself? Maybe I should make one just to test the system—because in today’s culture industry, a girl’s gotta get those likes if she wants to be someone rather than no one.

Okay, before I go, I want to turn my thesis toward this very medium: Substack. What is the purpose of Substack? How does its form shape its content—and what kinds of discourse does it exclude? Does the lack of editorial oversight undermine its legitimacy? What about limiting access through paid subscriptions, or framing through tags? Is it somehow more “authentic” to use your real name, pretending that this creates a sense of accountability?

Maybe Substack is just a lesser evil. After all, it’s not like editors at even the most prestigious philosophy journals are editors because they’re closer to reality or truth.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

And don’t forget to like and subscribe. :)

Earlier this summer I went on a quasi-“date” with someone I had hit it off with during a conference a few weeks prior. The night went horribly, I mean one of the most cringe experiences I have ever had. How bad you ask? Bad enough that I resorted to asking questions like, “What’s your favorite movie?” This grown ass man in his late thirties answered Stepbrothers. Yikes. Little did I know: it is possible to completely bomb that question and there are people out there that genuinely do not “like” movies. Even worse, he told me that he doesn’t believe in rewatching movies!! It was that fateful night I discovered that I had a “dealbreaker” - people that don’t like movies. This was ironic because my question was prompted by the fact that my close friend and next door neighbor was at home watching Fight Club. Now if there is any movie that rewards rewatching, it’s fuckin’ FIGHT CLUB! Needless to say, the date ended shortly after that and I didn’t talk to him again.

Anyway, Fight Club is a satire on masculinity, duh. However, because of the “twist” its satirical ethos is only evident upon rewatch. This essay really isn’t about Fight Club, don’t worry. However, what I love about Fight Club most is something you discover when you rewatch it - the inversion of Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Marla. On the first watch, her character plays into the stereotype of the “bitchy girlfriend.” She just doesn’t understand the important stuff that Ed Norton’s character is doing! She just wants to fuck Tyler Durden! She is short-tempered and prone to mood swings - she doesn’t seem to have much depth. However, when you rewatch the film knowing that Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are the same person, that the “Narrator” is genuinely, deeply, mentally-ill, Marla is vindicated. Instead, Marla comes off as a flawed yet sympathetic partner, someone that is supportive towards Norton, given the way Ed/Tyler can “change” on a dime, fucking her one minute and treating her as obsessed scum the next. She is the only sympathetic character in the film. On that end, Fight Club is a feminist film disguised as a sendup to alpha male masculinity. 

Enter Breaking Bad. I’m currently working through my fifth (?) rewatch - it’s like an annual ritual for me. Like a good book (I think this show is literature, but that’s a discussion for another essay), each time I rewatch the series I appreciate something new. I wanted to write a little something on the similarities between Breaking Bad and Fight Club in terms of their subversive feminist protagonists. In other words, Im talking about vindicating Skyler White.

Perhaps you are aware that Skyler White is an almost universally “hated” character, that people think she is a “bitch” wife that doesn’t support or understand the complexities of Walter White’s behavior (sound familiar?). Anna Gunn, the actress that plays Sklyer even wrote an essay for the New York Times defending the character. But like Marla, Skyler is not only supportive and sympathetic, but an anchor that audiences can depend on to track the moral decay of the protagonist. Throughout the series Walt attempts to “contain” his evil deeds either through lying or murder. In many ways, the series is a testament to the power of words to manipulate. Walt continuously manipulates through words, rather than deeds: asking his loved ones to trust him, always offering “promises” that things will be okay, lying about where he is or has been. As a dutiful wife, Skyler wants to believe Walt, even as it becomes more and more obvious that he is manipulating her - that he cannot “contain” his immorality any longer. 

Skyler’s inevitable conscription begins in the third season. In the ninth episode, Walt utters one of the most famous lines of the series: “I am the one who knocks” but I think a more important and powerful statement is Skyler proclaiming that “someone has to protect this family from the one that protects this family.” Earlier in the episode Walt decides to move back in, forcing Skyler to call the cops at the same time she is unable to explain to the police the true reason for her fear. This is the point when Skyler gives up, so to speak. She decides its more important to preserve Walt Jr.’s conception of his father, and her false yet unified family, than attempt to go into “battle” with Walt -  a smart move given she how little she knows, at this point, about the extent of Walter’s misdeeds. And in that moment Skyler passes the point of no return - she breaks bad.

In the next essay I’d like to further explore the theme of contamination and containment while also vindicating one of the mosts divisive episodes of the series: Fly (which is also the subsequent episode of season three).

I recently adopted a new cat. Or, more precisely, a feral cat found me one fateful April night as I was dancing down my suburban Miami street a little drunk and a little high on shrooms. The first thing I noticed was her long tail, and the fact that she was emaciated. She was friendly enough, and followed me back to my home, which was really a pool house in the backyard of some rich kid. Good times! I was hoping she would be a companion to my 6 year old “little white kitty” Chrundle the Great or Charlie. Turns out, she’s actually Charlie’s (and by extension, my) nemesis. Anyway, here we are three months later and I’m wondering if the cat I picked up is actually the devil. Though I dubbed her “Tokyo,” her Christian name is Mephistopheles. Shit, when I began to write this essay she came and sat directly on the laptop, which I took as a sign I was on the right (wrong) track.

It’s has been a difficult adjustment period because Tokyo is part feral which means she’s four pounds of feline PTSD. Tokes constantly harasses Charlie, and she doesn’t respond well to being pet when she’s: relaxing, chilling, sitting there, sleeping, or hanging out - some sort of trauma from living on the streets, I reckon. I’ve tried to explain to Tokyo that it isn’t nice or cool to harass Charlie, who now sleeps in the bathroom by the toilet and walks through the living room like she might be attacked at any moment, apparently shell-shocked. 

The other night (maybe also high on shrooms) I found myself telling Tokyo that she’s going to pass on her own street-cat PTSD in some sort of feline intergenerational trauma and I felt like Obi-Wan using the force “these are not the droids you are looking for” but, you know, without any effect cos I’m pretty sure the cat doesn’t understand English. I started reflecting on the nature of choice and consequence; about how what was at the time an impulsive but good-natured “decision” to “adopt” Tokyo has long-standing consequences, of which I did not fully grasp. But, that’s how all things are, huh? Rarely do we ever fully recognize the extent of our choices, if we can even call them choices. “No one is responsible for anything” Nietzsche might chime in. But if that’s the case, how do we reckon with the effects of what we do? Perhaps it’s just me, an unfortunate product of my impulsive and immature nature - I am closer to being 40 than anything else and yet here I am adopting cats willy-nilly, irrevocably changing the course of her life, my life, and my current cat’s life in one quick swoop. Tokyo was roughly 7 months old when I found her, so she might just be “part feral” and being bit for no damn reason at all might be my new reality. 

Sometimes I find myself waking up after a long night of drinking gin relieved that “nobody is ever missing.” But that’s really my repressed frustration at the fact that I cannot control her, or the world, that I do not have magical force powers and even if I did, I doubt they work on archangels expelled from paradise. “But, she can’t be evil!”you proclaim, “she’s just an animal!” Yeah, well, like that song “What if God Was One of Us?” Perhaps the devil is just a grey cat with a perpetual “Kubrick stare” and a long-ass tail. Either way, you can’t deny that the devil would come from Miami. 

I have so many essay drafts, both for this silly little Substack and for my “career” as a “professional” “philosopher” (yuck), and after reading a few other Substacks (looks weird plural) by philosophy people I’ve realized I put too much pressure on myself to make things “perfect” (is this a jab?) Plus, just like adopting the devil I’ve otherwise published or posted shit I’ve written impulsively (she engages in it compulsively, and without joy) and nothing bad happened: other people didn’t hate me, and if they did I didn’t care anyway. Trust me, people trashed my last Aeon essay and all it did was make me stronger. Though its a cliche I fully endorse that whole “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” thing. What matters is that I keep on swinging before I end up swinging, if you know what I mean. So, this post is a promise to myself to start posting more, and it will be something closer to scratching an itch than elucidating a truth, and I hope that this will help me maintain the “hunger” of creativity, and perhaps, just maybe, I’ll enjoy writing again. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the tape deck though, and by that I mean the whole professional philosophy thing. 

Anyway, pray the rosary for Charlie and I as we navigate the consequences of what we do and don’t do, and learn to love a 5 pound cat forged in the bowels of hell. 

“In another time they would have called him prophet…” – Anonymous quote found on Sam Kinison’s gravestone.

It is a long-standing adage that humor contains a kernel of truth. We can use jokes to communicate otherwise offensive attitudes or embarrassing situations in a lighthearted or unserious manner. Humor, like philosophy, is a mode of interpersonal communication that transcends the very conventions it relies on in order to operate. 

The philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that a serious work of philosophy could be written entirely in jokes. Though he was not known for his sense of humor or playfulness, Wittgenstein also thought that grammatical jokes shared the same sense of “depth” as philosophical puzzles, because both arose from a seemingly competent misuse of language. Philosophy that takes itself seriously considers itself to be in the business of straightforwardly revealing or describing the fundamental nature of reality, whereas jokes reveal the truth only indirectly, though subtle mechanisms that are hard to explain and easy to deny. Like the ability to ask about the purpose, meaning, or value of some action or event, the ability to laugh and joke is a universal human trait. 

The human being is just as much a creature of laughter as one of language and morality, and all of these practices are culturally-mediated. One has to have the relevant background experiences to “get” a joke. A person’s sense of humor reveals just as much about their values and sentiments as do their judgements of praise and blame. We might even judge someone more harshly for their sense of humor than for their choice of music or film. 

Language, morality, and humor are all universal human practices that exhibit cultural variation. Various cultures and communities have developed their own humorous traditions and practices, as well as institutionalized social roles dedicated to humor, such as the cross-cultural figure of the court jester or fool, most popularly associated with medieval monarchies, but which can be found as far back as Ancient China 4BCE, and geographically-distinct cultures like the Aztecs. In her book, Fools are Everywhere Beatrice Otto argues that the jester, understood as a figure crowned by a socially-recognized authority to transcend the operative social rules and norms, is a universal phenomenon. One can find references to jester-like figures in documentations from Ancient Egypt, to the indigenous tribes in the US, to Indian sultans and emperors. Otto suggests that the court jester performed a vital function in the “ecology” of the royal court: they could say things to the king that no one else could, which granted them both a degree of reverence and a certain amount of risk. Otto argues that various cultures established social roles dedicated to humor in part because of the long-standing belief that humor is a means for communicating the truth. Humor can be a mirror that turns reality upside down and in doing so reveal it for how it really is or should be. Jesters also provided much needed comic release in times of royal tensions or offenses. Importantly, the jester’s license went as far as the king’s ability to laugh - to genuinely cause offense or betray the king’s goodwill resulted in death or dismemberment.

Polish jester Stańczyk

Thus, the jester is a someone who can subvert social norms so long as the powerful laugh with their antics. Laughter is otherwise taken to be a threat to seriousness, as laughing at the authorities can exhibit immaturity or event dissent. Laughter is contagious, and it can arise involuntarily and during inappropriate times or topics, which means laughter can become a very serious topic indeed. Laughter has thus always posed a threat to what is taken to be serious or unquestionably authoritative, such as God, tragedy, and, yes, even philosophy. It perhaps unsurprising that philosophers have tended to ignore the social dimensions of humor and comedy, (although there has been recent interest since “the slap” and other controversies associated with stand-up comedians). Further, comedy isn’t considered a “high” artform like poetry, music, or painting - though jokes, humorous songs, riddles, and comedies are just as old as these more traditional art forms (if not older). Popular art forms such as film, poetry, dance, and music all exhibit a formal structure or syntax, as do individual and categories of jokes. In fact, humor seems much closer to poetry and music, and can be an effective tool for political persuasion. 

For example, laughter occupies a troubled relationship to the universal authority found in monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam. There are long-standing debates about whether Jesus laughed, as Jesus is never depicted laughing in the Bible. The prophet Muhammad is depicted as laughing as a sign of triumph and righteous superiority, not as a response to something funny or ridiculous. Interestingly, polytheistic religious such as Hinduism and non-theistic religions such as Buddhism embrace laughter as a marker of enlightenment and a method for spiritual education. Daoism, a non-theistic religion, recognizes jokes as an indirect means for ethical and philosophical communication, alongside aphorisms and parables.

Notably, however, humor enjoys a particularly important and special relationship to the Jewish religion. While it is overly simplistic to suggest there is “a” Jewish sense of humor, many historians, theologians, and comedians have noted that there is are longstanding practices of canonical “Jewish” jokes that center on themes that mock or subvert Anti-Semite stereotypes, as well as a tendency toward self-deprecation. [Maybe I’ll rite a follow up essay exploring the connections between humor and religion in the future…]

Philosophy, like religion, takes itself to be in the business of identifying and articulating fundamental ethical truths. Thus, philosophy also shares a somewhat fraught relationship to humor, in part because philosophers often take themselves and their subject matter rather seriously. Plato was famously hostile to the comedic form, viewing comedy, poetry, and the imitative arts more broadly as posing a threat to rational deliberation and thus a genuine hinderance to ethical development - very serious endeavors, indeed. It is important to note as well that Plato’s hero and teacher, the great Socrates, was put on trial and sentenced to death for charges that stemmed in part from the reputation he developed from the way has was depicted in Aristophanes’ comedic play The Clouds. Written in 432BCE, the central character, Socrates, is portrayed as a clumsy sophist, declaring that he “walks on clouds and contemplates the sun.”

The practical, descriptive philosopher Aristotle was warmer to the value of humor, claiming that laughter is a universal human trait and arguing that the comic is the dual side of tragedy and a means for rhetoric, though he didn’t say much beyond that. Italian novelist Umberto Eco’s 1980 book, The Name of the Rose depicts a monk’s question to find Aristotle’s long-lost book on comedy, considered a heresy by the Catholic church (for the above-mentioned reasons). 

If humor and laughter are the mark of the unserious, then it makes sense that humor would be seen as in tension with “serious” philosophy, the kind that communicates fundamental truths about the nature of the True and the Good. But, as the follower of The Way already understands, humor can also be a means by which we can convey genuine philosophical and ethical insights. Even Socrates, at times, seems to employ irony and sarcasm in luring the unwitting bourgeoise into his venus (gad)flytrap.

For example, in the beginning of the 16^th century Desiderius Erasmus wrote a satirical “academic” essay called In Praise of Folly that lambasts political philosophers such as Plato and the Stoics for failing to appreciate the importance of folly or what is silly and unpretentious.  The essay is narrated by a character named Folly who suggests that the absence of laughter in the philosopher’s ideal political society is due to the fact that philosophers lack the requisite social skills, such as charisma and wit. Folly mocks the very idea that a person could take themselves to be qualified to speak on how a society should be governed yet fail to appreciate or understand the value of humor, laughter, and silliness. Erasmus’ narrator argues that folly is a direct route to uncovering the practical significance of the “everyday” which is a necessary condition for any political or ethical philosophy worth its weight. In Praise of Folly is simultaneously a satirical takedown of the pretentiousness of traditional political philosophizing and an example of the ethical import of the comedic form. It’s got some great pictures, too.

Of course, not all philosophers thought or think that humor is without merit or value. There have been (roughly) four main philosophical theories that purport to capture the nature of humor. While I think each theory helps capture a core dimension or use of humor, philosophers have yet to provide a satisfactory theory that unifies the various ways we use and appreciate humor and captures the fact that laughter is cross-cultural and culturally mediated. That’s where my dissertation comes in. But first I’d like to offer a brief survey of the canonical theories of humor, as well as note some of their shortcomings.

Incongruity Theory

Perhaps the most compelling and well-known theory of humor is the “incongruity theory.” According to the incongruity theory, humor is a product of a clash between expectation and reality, between what the joke delivers and what should be the case. 

Incongruity theory is often attributed to Mr.Funny Bones himself, 18^th century philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant saw humor as the expression of universal rationality because it involves the appreciation of the frustration of expectation. Kant thought that laughter, like most things that we enjoy, was without moral value but laughter did have instrumental value because it helped jostle and thus warm the organs…which is pretty funny. He also claimed to have “drank” air through his nose, quenching his thirst in the middle of the night. 

There are of course issues with taking incongruity to be what unifies and explains the universal nature of humor - there are lots of incongruities that aren’t funny, and it isn’t clear exactly which sorts incongruities count as humorous and why. However, I think incongruity does capture a crucial component of humor: that humor involves a grammar, structure, or quasi-logical form.

A recent proponent of incongruity theory, Tom Cochrane, has argued that in order for an audience to find something funny, they must recognize that the incongruity at the heart of a joke or depiction is “unreal.” In other words, if we interpret the joke as actually referring or applying to us or anything else in a way that causes us to evaluate our beliefs, values, or behaviors then we cannot also find it funny. Laughter as the recognition of funniness is thus a form of release or relief at the fact that we are not in any real danger, that our reputation is still intact (oh they didn’t that, they were only joking…). If we think that someone is pointing out our incongruous characteristics or beliefs in order to laugh at us from a position of superiority, then we are likely to feel shame or offense, and attitude inhibits us from finding it funny. I’ll argue that humor involves the same social-perspectival capacities as shame: considering ourselves from an external perspective, as if we were another, conscious, person. Laughter is thus the recognition of one’s limitations and incongruities without the shame or offense that should accompany it. But more on that in a bit.

Superiority Theory

So, it seems as if humor and shame share a special bond. We can use humor and laughter to mock and belittle others, to point out their incongruities or flaws in order to laugh at them, perhaps alongside others “like us.” Thus, another popular theory of humor holds that the function of humor (and laughter) is as a way to express one’s superiority. This is similar to the notion of righteous laughter, mentioned earlier. The superiority theory says that the function of humor is to demonstrate or express superiority over others and has been attributed to philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud. The canonical example in support of this view is the practice of telling hostile jokes intended to make fun of other cultural or ethnic groups.

Importantly, superiority theory can be included within incongruity theory - one feels superior in relation to others’ moral, personal, or aesthetic incongruities or flaws. Humor can and is often used as a means for expressing contempt toward others for socially significant incongruities. However, if we change the conditions such that the person telling the joke is a member of a historically marginalized group, and the joke is about the ridiculousness of a stereotype that defines one group as superior to another for features that both groups instantiate, then what was once a form of superiority is now also a form of genuine social critique and a valid means of expressing political resistance. For example, the significance of self-deprecating humor in the Jewish tradition is explained in part as a response to the historical oppression faced by Jewish people. Jewish people have developed humorous practices as a means for living in a hostile world. This means that it matters who is telling the joke, the target or targets of the joke, the audience for the joke, and the historical relationships between these elements. 

In fact, the appropriation and subversion of stereotypes is a long-standing tradition in humorous performances, as is the use of profanities and slang. When we center the analysis on the role of humor for people who must exist in contexts of systemic oppression, we can readily appreciate how such humor also has an emancipatory function: laughing at the oppressors might not stop them from oppressing you, but it lets them and those suffering alongside you know that their authority is not given or natural, it is forced and forged - borne from fear and insecurity rather than trust and competency. Laughing at evil demonstrates that you acknowledge that it is there but are not compelled to take it seriously.

In the chapter “Black Laughter” in his book Black Folk Culture and Black Consciousnesses Sociologist Lawrence Levine argues that humor was an essential mechanism for the creation and persistence of communities of black Americans living in the US during and after slavery. Levine argues that black Americans who were/are forced to live in a racist society that defined itself as liberal and free, developed robust folk cultures and traditions surrounding insult humor, such as the popular practice of “the Dozens.” The Dozens is a general name used to refer to the ritual of insult humor which were a widespread practice in the US that went by different regional names. Where I come from we call it “Yo Momma” jokes. Levine shows how the Dozens is simultaneously a collective performance or ritual, an artistic medium for demonstrating individual verbal wit and skill, and communal method of resistance and cultural production. The most effective tool against unwanted authority is mockery, and the Dozens involves sophisticated wordplays as a weapon for navigating treacherous social waters. Trading insults between friends enables participants to not only express trust and increase intimacy but develop skills to help deal with a hostile and insulting world. Insult humor requires a rather high degree of familiarity or trust (confidence?), or explicitly artificial contexts, such as the comedic roast. Levine argues that insult humor became a means for social bonding and verbal wit, and as a way for black Americans to prepare themselves and each other for resisting an insulting world.

Paradoxically, demonstrating superiority in contexts where one is considered or expected to be inferior by the majority functions as a means of expressing pride: it undermines the presumed authority of those that aim to insult you in order to make you feel shame. Thus, superiority theory reveals that humor can be a means to challenge the legitimacy of authority in contexts where the world tells you you are inferior. However, superiority is not humor’s constitutive or fundamental function. 

Superiority theory understands humor as a means for expressing contempt, disdain, or aggression toward others, thus demonstrating that one is morally or socially “superior” or better. Laughing at fools, people who are pathetic, due to personal choices or traits and traditions attributed to their culture, race, or religion is not a reflection of a pre-established social reality, but an active tool for forging that reality. This is one of the key arguments in Eric Lott’s Love and Theft where he argues blackface was a tool for forging social distinctions, rather than (merely) a form of entertainment. [Full disclosure: this is the backbone of my entire dissertation] But, there is also a longstanding and rich tradition of humor targeted at those who presume to be superior – religious authorities, politicians, emperors and the like. This is the role of humor out of which we get the cross-cultural phenomenon of the jester, as argued by Otto. Superiority theory seems to get at something important about humor, something about the way we can use humor to turn otherwise hard-lined norms and customs – a sort of perspective switch that is employed by humorist and audience alike, that is successful when the audience laughs at or “gets it.” But it’s not the whole story.

Coping Mechanism

Focusing on the importance of humor in contexts of historical oppression reveals that humor can provide a means for coping with, rather than denying, an insulting and oppressive world. Freud, predictably, also thought that humor was a psychological coping mechanism which provided a means for individuals to express otherwise taboo or “censored” beliefs and attitudes, the kind that we prefer to hide away in our subconscious. Jokes provide a means for psychological release or as a type of pressure valve, allowing us to express pent up fear, hatred, anxiety, or desire. 

A canonical example in support of the view that humor functions as a coping mechanism is what Freud termed “gallows humor.” Gallows humor involves what is otherwise morbid and grotesque, what should not be joked about. A popular study used to draw on the psychological value of gallows humor focused on the value of jokes shared between hospital and health care professionals or firemen. 

Humor functions as a coping mechanism because it allows us to take an external or “detached” perspective or personal distance from the tragedies that necessarily affect us, including those we cannot fully comprehend, like death and genocide. Humor can be a means by which people can acknowledge but not succumb to some of the most horrific events in human history, including the Holocaust and chattel slavery. Humor allows us to adopt a perspective as if we were another person, thus freeing us from the “serious” attitudes that are appropriate to someone befalling such atrocities and tragedies. Laughing in the face of the inhumane is not to minimize or dismiss it, but to revel in one’s resistance and survival. Laughter lets us express our fundamental subjectivity and freedom: that no matter what is thrown at us the human spirit can and will prevail. Nietzsche once warned that a “joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling” and perhaps he was referring to the capacity jokes have to enable this psychological distancing. However, I take the implicit point to be that some feelings deserve to die, at least for a moment or two. 

Humor is a means for communities and individuals to cope with a hostile or unforgiving world, and to acknowledge without accepting those incongruities that aim to humiliate and demean, that can only attempt to rob us of our humanity and freedom. Ted Cohen dedicates an entire chapter to identifying and explaining the history and significance of the so-called “Jewish” sense of humor. Cohen argues that a focus on Jewish humor reveals how humor allows creatures like us to deal with what is otherwise incomprehensible, such as death and the incongruous nature of an all-powerful God that allows rampant misery and misfortune. Like religious faith, humor is a means for us to acknowledge what we cannot fully comprehend. Humor, it turns out, is more spiritual than guttural, as many of those socially awkward philosophers once claimed.

However, it’s hard to see how humor as a coping mechanism is wholly distinct from humor as a means for expressing superiority. In many ways, feeling superior is a way we cope with our involuntary, unequal, but necessarily human environments. Incongruity is found in all cases: whether its the incongruity of reality itself, the fact that self-conscious beings exist in a world where they know they will die but cannot do anything about it, or the ways in which other humans reveal themselves to be inhumane. Crucially, in every instance humor and laughter only make sense in a social setting, which brings us to our final and most promising philosophical theory.

Social Bonding Theory

Another popular theory about humor posits humor as a particularly effective means for expressing otherwise taboo or prohibited attitudes or terms. In the beginning of the 20^th century, philosopher Henri Bergson wrote a book called Laughter where he suggested that “laughter always stands in need of an echo” because humor is a distinctly social phenomenon. 99 years later, Ted Cohen proposed in his book Jokes that jokes perform an essentially social function. According to Cohen, we tell jokes and try to make each other laugh in order to increase bonding and intimacy. Cohen argues that jokes are conditional because they require background familiarity with culturally-relative experiences, values, or events. Effectively drawing on those universal but specific experiences in order to cause people to laugh, creates what he called “affective communities” which are related to each other through the shared feelings that underlie laughter’s echo. Group laughter can be coercive: no one wants to be the “killjoy” who doesn’t laugh or the person who isn’t hip enough to “get it.” The social role of humor helps capture why humor is a particularly effective means for group creation, persistence, and solidarity, such as the use of memes in the rise and popularity of the alt-right.

Further, each of the previous theories of humor presuppose a social context or environment. For example, it is because humor is a means for expressing attitudes that are conditional on culturally-relative values and experiences that we can use jokes to further distinguish ourselves from “others” - in order to express superiority to them or to others “like us.” Though we might laugh while watching a movie alone in our room, laughter first arises because we find ourselves in a social world, as something we do with and because of other people.  

In fact, it seems that the capacities required to appreciate and perform behaviors intended to make other people laugh arise relatively early. Children try to make their caregivers laugh starting around 10 months old, and do so universally. Psychologists, historians, and anthropologists all more or less agree that humor is a universal human capacity, though they disagree on its evolutionary origins and mechanisms. Someone raised by wolves would feel neither shame nor express laughter; the significance of laughter only makes sense in a world with other beings that can recognize us as laughing, and that can potentially laugh with us.

The ability to appreciate humor develops alongside the capacity to recognize a “logical” or “grammatical” order in the world, particularly as we recognize other people recognize it to be, which is why humor is conditional or culturally relative. We speak grammatically long before we can state or explain the rules of grammar. We begin telling jokes and behaving in otherwise ridiculous ways in order to make other people laugh with us, with the faith that they’ll recognize we aren’t speaking mere gibberish, or behaving awkwardly due to incompetency. Attempting to be funny or tell a joke implies that a recognition that other people also have the capacity to distance themselves from the order of the world, and can not only acknowledge but even appreciate when that order exhibits inconsistencies.  

Each “theory” of humor gets something right about the nature and function of humor, but none of them can explain everything we care about when we care about humor. I think we ought to add another to the mix. I propose what I’ll call the “social acknowledgement” theory of humor. According to acknowledgement theory, humor is a method of collective acknowledgement or expression, one that requires the materials out of which communities build and navigate their social reality: mutual expectations about what is and is not permissible, appropriate, and the like. According to social acknowledgement theory, humor utilizes the same capacities for recognizing social conventions as language, which is why humor (like language) facilitates social bonding, increases intimacy, and serves as a particularly efficient means to express otherwise socially-inappropriate attitudes such as contempt and superiority, and enables us to laugh at the horrific and absurd. Jokes are like lies - a manipulation of the very capacities that make interpersonal communication and coordination possible.

In fact, I think the significance of humor in the face of the inhumane, the incomprehensible, the overbearing, and the horrific sheds light on its most important feature. One controversial topic in the philosophy of humor is the nature and permissibility of jokes that involve racist, sexist, or otherwise demeaning stereotypes. However, as I mentioned above, historically oppressed cultures have employed insult humor and self-deprecation as a means for undermining the authority of harmful stereotypes and subverting the established power structure. Importantly, to utilize harmful stereotypes that apply to oneself in order to reveal that they are ridiculous or not to be taken seriously, is not always or only to accept or endorse them. To joke about being bad at math because one is a girl is not the same as claiming that one really is bad at math because they really wear dresses. The appropriate attitude to the latter being stated as fact would be pity or dismissal. Likewise, the appropriate response to the tragic or inhumane is despair, anger, or disgust. When we take something seriously, then we are compelled to adopt a particular attitude about it given its seriousness. This is why jokes taken “too far” offend and shame - the jokester failed to appropriately gauge the seriousness of the situation.

But, as Thomas Nagel once argued, human existence is absurd because we have the perpetual capacity to consider everything we cherish most dearly and seriously as arbitrary, unserious, and utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe. This ability to “step back” from the seriousness from which we take our lives not only provides psychological relief but is a marker of our “most interesting characteristic”: self-consciousness. To be self-conscious is to be able to take this “external” perspective on oneself, to consider the necessary limits of one’s abilities without the ability to transcend them. Humor is thus a product of our essential human characteristic: our self-consciousness.

To see how humor relates to self-consciousness, consider the subversive power of insult humor. A disparaging stereotype only makes sense when uttered from the perspective of someone that despises or pities another person or group and in a larger cultural or historical context. To use that stereotype against oneself as a member the purported target class associated with that stereotype is to defang the power taking that perspective is supposed to have in the first place - the authority to enact the “distanced” perspective on oneself that leads to shame. But, to joke about the tragedies that befall us or the stereotypes that are used against us is not to “resign” oneself to the narratives dictated by the stereotype or dominant script: as pitiable, powerless, or tragic. Self-deprecating humor and insult humor are a means by which we can express and collectively acknowledge an insulting and incongruent world without endorsing, accepting, or denying it. Humor can allow us to acknowledge what is otherwise insulting or ridiculous without endorsing it (which is why comedy is a tricky moral space). Humor and laughter are collective forms of expressing self-conscious defiance.

The connection between self-consciousness and defiance was first articulated by 20^th century existentialist writer and philosopher Albert Camus. Camus believed that defiance was the only appropriate attitude one can adopt in the face of the absurd. In his seminal novella The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus argued that human existence is necessarily absurd because humans are value and reason-seeking creatures thrown into a valueless and irrational universe. Camus compares our existence to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who attempted to overthrown death and was sentenced to an eternal punishment of rolling a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down again each evening. According to Camus, Sisyphus’ fate is tragic because he is conscious of the futility of his actions. Likewise, humans are doomed to an existence that is also essentially futile: yearning for meaning in a universe utterly devoid of it. Camus drew on  Sisyphus as an “absurd hero” because he performed his necessary but futile fate out of revolt and defiance, which Camus understood to be the only “coherent” response to the recognition of futility at the heart of the absurd. 

According to Camus, taking the attitudes of faith or hope as a response the absurd amount to denying that the search for meaning is essentially and necessarily futile. Defiance and revolt, on the other hand, are attitudes that take as their precondition the recognition of futility or what is otherwise a hopeless situation: that one is responsible to a world that they had no say in and for no greater purpose or reason. For Camus, the attitude of defiance in the face of the futility and meaningless of our striving and suffering does not give our lives meaning, but instills a sense of nobility and self-respect. Defiance is the recognition of futility without the resignation that should accompany it, it is the final frontier of self-conscious freedom.

Nagel, in the piece mentioned above, criticizes Camus for taking the absurd too seriously, for judging it to be a problem in need of revolt. Nagel thinks the appropriate attitude to the absurd is irony: if nothing matters, then that doesn’t matter either and there’s no use getting worked up about it and defying a world that isn’t listening anyway. Irony involves the “external” perspective that grants us distance from an otherwise insulting world, but remaining at an ironic is psychologically inert. David Foster Wallace worried about the post-modern emphasis on irony. Wallace thought irony could serve a useful role from time to time but is alienating when made into a way of life, akin to a form of willful delusion. To be human just is to involve oneself in the world, to care about what is by all accounts idiosyncratic and trivial. Seeing the futility of combatting, say climate change, with a detached irony is to take up the position that it “doesn’t really matter.” Irony becomes incoherent in Camus’ sense when it functions as a way of life because it is identical to denying or dismissing the human significance of human concerns. Family members laughing at the techno music that accidentally plays during the funeral isn’t a marker of ironic detachment or posturing, but something more liberating, a brief repose from the seriousness of the situation. It is a brief revelation that no matter how serious life is or must be, its seriousness is and always has been based on our attitudes and behaviors. That humans concerns don’t matter to the universe is not a reason why such concerns shouldn’t matter to us. The animal that can feel sorry for itself is an animal that must be able to laugh at itself as well.

Laughter reveals the lighter side of Camusian defiance: a means by which we can collectively acknowledge futility, hostility, the wretched and absurd, without accepting it as appropriate, endorsing it, denying it, ignoring, or avoiding it. Laughter can mark collective acknowledge of something as a problem - as incongruous or unreasonable - without entailing that we’re saying it is okay, preferable, reasonable, or appropriate.

On my reading, Sisyphus’ fate isn’t tragic because he is aware that his eternal task is utterly futile - his fate is tragic because the Gods took away his ability to laugh at the futility of his condition and his suffering alongside others who he recognizes are doomed to the same fate. Perhaps Sisyphus could laugh at the gods, mocking them and demonstrating superiority, but mocking laughter isn’t the same as laughing with others at the ridiculousness of futility. Defiance may give our lives nobility but laughter redeems us, and both attitudes exhibit the incorrigibility of self-respect and limitlessness of human freedom.

According to the social acknowledgement theory, humor is a means of communal acknowledgement alongside, but importantly different from serious, straight-faced assertions and claims. Humor is a universal cultural practice that enables communities to mutually acknowledge features of the social world that might otherwise lead to offense, dismissal, or denial. Like the blues songs of Leadbelly, which are often ironic and lighthearted though dealing with the serious and insulting, art more generally operates as a medium for collective acknowledgement that operates in some sense “outside” the conventions of social reality at the same time it acknowledges or refers to them. Whether an artwork is “true” is not something we take to be important for evaluating its aesthetic value (unless the work purports to be about the truth). Art shows rather than tells, and as Wittgenstein gestured, therein lies its ethical significance as well. 

Art forms like humor are the means by which we can collectively acknowledge what we might otherwise fail to fully comprehend, accept, or endorse. Revolt and laughter are politically and socially transformative because these attitudes involve an acknowledgement of what is insulting, unjust, and oppressive, of an illegitimate authority without any of the corresponding attitudes that should accompany the acknowledgement of such truths. Acknowledgement, rather than denial or avoidance, is a necessary step toward action and change.

Though Dylan outgrew his roots in traditional folk music, his skill in appropriation marks him as employing an artistic method that is undeniably “folk” and places him as a member of a longstanding tradition of folk cultures in the United States. Folk traditions began as oral traditions, which means they had to fit in the fallible human mind…so it is essential to folk traditions that they recycle or reuse various elements such as melodies, lyrics, phrases, characters, titles, and events. These mechanisms serve to signal what sort of tradition the song is operating in as well as transmit important cultural truths in ways that can be both readily identifiable and digestible for other members of the community, those “in the know.” The most famous example is the musical traditions associated with the blues, which date back to African-American folk cultures living in the US during the institution of chattel slavery in the 17^th century. In the blues, appropriation is a method for both continuing and changing a historical conversation that started long before one joined but that one judges as worth participating in and thus continuing, albeit with minor modifications.

Appropriation is a method of artistic creation that wears the essentially self-referential nature of art on its sleeve, that every work of art is an invitation to participate in an ongoing inside joke. But, just like inside jokes, one must have the relevant background experiences to discern and appreciate what “makes it” funny or significant, as well as the appropriate degree of trust to suspend their typical expectations or assumptions. One must trust that there is a point to the borrowing, to the blatant referencing, even if they can’t quite discern what it is, just like we trust a comedian that their use of taboo words or phrases has a greater purpose than mere shock or humiliation - a point that vindicates its otherwise “offensive” features. If there isn’t a point, then the work fails to be anything more than artistic product-placement.

Importantly, trust is neither unconditional nor based on fleeting feelings, as opposed to the cold, hard truth which philosophers want to tell you exists independently of humans altogether. We can have good reasons and evidence to trust other people, or to mistrust them. Institutional accreditation is a standardized method that
(supposedly) helps us identify trustworthy sources; we have good reasons to offer a high degree of trust to the testimony of a scientist, or perhaps good reasons to distrust our child’s retelling of their playground scuffle. Not everyone will have the sufficient degree of trust to discern or appreciate the work’s aesthetic features, and they may have good reasons for doing so. But lack of familiarity with the relevant subject matter is not a persuasive reason. 

Of course, not everyone will find every joke funny, and some people find jokes funny that are really just poor taste, but that someone does not find some joke funny is not sufficient evidence for determining that the joke is an utter failure. One laugh makes a joke but the absence of laughter does not constitute a comedic misfire. A failure to “get” a joke can of course mean that the jokester has misjudged their audience, but in cases where a great many people find the joke funny or meaningful, one has at least some reason to increase their familiarity with the relevant sources in order to “get it.” This might come naturally, as well. My Austrian MA advisor pointed out to me that he simply did not understand Seinfeld until he had lived in the US for a few years and became sufficiently familiar with various US conventions and stereotypes. Funnily enough, appropriation now seems like a type of academic exercise after all, one has to do or have done enough background research to actually understand what’s going on.

Poet, writer, and cultural critic Nathaniel Mackey has written extensively on the relation between artistic creation and identity, specifically in the context of the experiences of black people living in the global north. Since the rise of third-wave feminism and the importance of intersectionality, progressive ideologies have shifted emphasis from the notion of the self or subject as a wholly discreet entity to the idea that subjects are composed of elements that derive their reality from their relation to a cultural or historical group or community. What was once the priority of the individual is now the primacy of the group. Mackey has warned that contemporary progressive writers and critics have gone astray in merely replacing the priority of the individual with that of the community or culture, while maintaining its underlying structure. Mackey believes that the contemporary liberal emphasis on individuality and agency as a function of group-membership, and group membership as a product of an indelible yet shared history or collection of experiences, threatens to reify the same assumptions it purports to “problematize.” If the goal is to shift away from assumptions that there is some observable “me,” then why replace it with the assumption that there is a discernible “we” ? 

Mackey endorses a methodology that he terms “black centrifugal writing” that draws from the actual practices of back creators like blues musicians Colman Hawkins and Blind Willie McTell. According to Mackey, the centrifugal method continually resists the impulse that calls for a creator or individual to define or identify oneself as a member of (and thus responsible to a discernible or countable) tradition, something antecedently “given” whereby it is shared and agreed upon that certain practices or attitudes are permissible and others are forbidden. Mackey asks us to draw on the model of the family as a place from which we necessarily derive our sense of self and history, and the values that depend on them, and as the original site from which we continually escape or flee in the attempt to distinguish ourselves as individuals. Centrifugal writing, 

…says that “we” was never a swifter fiction—not so much a war between family and flight as the familial song of one’s feeling for flight. It says that only such admitted fugitivity stands a ghost of a chance of apportioning prodigal truth. This is one of the lessons it has learned from black music. It remembers that Coleman Hawkins felt no identity crisis playing an instrument invented by a Belgian, that Lester Young referred to the keys of his horn as his people.

A family is a “we” something that a person both needs but didn’t fully choose, understand or wholly endorse, but cannot live without. Mackey asserts that centrifugal writing begins by saying “goodby” to all “givens” - that there is anything certain, necessary, or stable. To flee is simultaneously to acknowledge, rather than ignore or avoid but importantly it is not an attitude of mere adherence either - we flee what is familiar but threatens to consume us. 

In the context of the blues tradition(s), appropriation is a means of making an authentic whole out of seemingly impersonal, and in some cases wholly uninteresting, parts. Successful artistic production, on the folk model, isn’t achieved until one has been appropriated. Appropriation is at once an expression of one’s subjectivity that complicates the very notion of a subject, that in its intelligibility it renders the singular subject less intelligible. Where does the appropriator’s “true” feelings begin? According to Mackey, centrifugal writing reveals that the very notion of a “we,” a intelligible and discreet (countable) collection of concrete people distinguished by their  shared history, values, culture, or experiences and from which one derives their understanding of who they are as a “me,” someone who is the creator and “owner” of their ideas and creations as a reflection of that history - is merely a fiction masquerading as a more liberating reality. 

I think appropriation is a mechanism by which public artists like Dylan can engage in centrifugal creation, fleeing the unfulfillable demand for originality and the confines of tradition that provide them with the very conditions for meaningful artistic production in the first place - the audience is the family the artist always finds themselves fleeing. Appropriation is at once a way to acknowledge oneself as indebted to others, and as a way to subvert the associated responsibilities and commitments of that acknowledgement. Appropriation unmoors the very concept of a “self” or an author as a discreet entity altogether, as well as the “we” on which that self depends. 

It’s important to note as well that many blues songs are laced with satire and irony - from Blind Willie McTell’s satirical take on domestic violence, to Leadbelly’s observation that, “a white man had the blues once, wasn’t nothing to worry about.” The blues demonstrates how appropriation and humor can come together to function as a powerful and redemptive artistic medium. Humor enables us to acknowledge what is otherwise insulting or degrading, granting a certain amount of emotional distance from it at the same time, which provides fertile conditions for authentic expression - it no longer has any authority over them. I’ll write another nine-thousand word essay about this someday as well. 

Okay, so you might be thinking that, sure, appropriation is all fine and well when its used in music and poetry, but memoirs, documentaries, and Nobel speeches are another thing - Dylan ignored or flouted the norms that distinguish memoirs from fiction, documentaries from performance art, and award speeches from creative exercises. In that sense Dylan really is a liar, rather than a centrifugal jokester. But, I think the very demand or expectation for wholly original work reveals the misplaced expectations of the offended, rather than the failings of the offender. Instead of being the victim of a lie, it is a failure to appreciate a clever joke.

This is what happens when the audience has expectations.

Being a popular and beloved artist brings with it a rather robust but constraining set of expectations from both appreciators and critics (the so-called artistic hecklers). Dylan has been producing work for 60 years, and with that comes the weight of one’s own achievements and history, a history that perpetually re-creates itself for each new generation with a passing curiosity and access to Google. But, is an artist still the same person - artistically speaking - as they were five, twenty, forty years ago? Doesn’t authenticity also demand change? The very idea of a “historical documentation” or “description” of Dylan’s life is loaded with innumerable and ultimately unfulfillable public expectations and assumptions. Go ask George R.R. Martin how useful those are for artistic creativity. Though an artist both needs appreciators and thus their expectations, at the same time they cannot not allow themselves to be dictated by them, which can also come off as placating and thus inauthentic. Check out the last season of Game of Thrones to get an idea of what I’m talking about. 

Of course, Dylan could have refused to write a memoir or given the speech. Or he could write it “authentically” - in this case, utilizing extensive appropriation from works that he must clearly value to craft lyric-like passages that function to convey moods, sentiments, and impressions, even if they do not operate as testimony about historical events. In Macdonald’s case, his status as a comedian aided in the public’s acceptance that his self-described “memoir” is really just a series of jokes instead of a description of what really happened. Macdonald’s memoir surely conveys something about what he thinks, even if it is hard to articulate exactly what that is. One cannot deny that the work exhibits whatever it is that marks Macdonald’s particular brand of authenticity, his comedic je ne sais quoi. Macdonald’s use of jokes successfully acknowledges and provides distance from the duties of the very medium he is writing in, allowing him to do it “his way.” 

Jokes, like appropriation, provide a degree of distance between the sayer and what is said that can elicit genuine artistic freedom. Public artists cannot merely neglect their duties or else they risk rejection or dismissal, losing the trust that makes their bending of the rules possible, but they also cannot just do whatever audiences expect - this is also artificial, aesthetically off-putting. It is a matter of mutual recognition - a calibration of trust and expectations between various interested parties, not a one-way demand, either way. Art is a mode of coming to know something about ourselves and the world, a way of being acquainted with the perspectives of others that is not reducible to or understandable on the model of testimony, assertion, or a confession. 

Finally, consider the duties associated with Dylan’s commitment to give a speech as the first musician to win the Nobel prize for literature. I see the award ceremony itself as equivalent to a trap-door: a covert tactic to garner publicity and conjure up the figure of “Bob Dylan” and coax him into testifying, into revealing his magician’s secrets - how he crafts those fantastic, transformative rhymes and lines. But again, the demand betrays a lack of artistic  sensitivity, like asking Groucho Marx to give a eulogy for the owner of multiple industrial factories. Even more so, Warmuth has revealed that Dylan’s speech for winning Record of the Year at the 1991 Grammy’s also contained appropriated lines, as has every interview he’s given since at least 1966 (consider his responses to the media during his first Australian tour). In all these cases, Dylan is playing a joke on the very institutional and formal structures he must participate in as part of his social role, as well as the navel-grazing audiences that feel entitled to speak on someone’s artistic output merely because they are a popular figure who produced stellar albums some decades ago. 

Like a self-deprecating joke about your biggest insecurities, appropriation can be understood as a means of acknowledging and engaging with the public duties associated with authorship without succumbing to their authority. The joke is on anyone that thinks or expects Dylan to just abide by those rules because “them’s the rules.” If you don’t get it, that’s on you.

Fans that loved following Dylan did so in part because it wasn’t clear what he would play. As an act of perfect irony, Dylan switched to singing the same song at the beginning of his live performance, his Winning Things Have Changed that features the lyrics “I’m trying to get as far away from myself as I can” and a chorus which declares: “I used to care, but things have changed.”

We cannot assume that someone’s joke reflects what the jokester actually believes, though jokes certainly give us some insight into the sort of person that they are. Likewise, what an artist appropriates, its origin, the new context, all function to provide audiences with an artistic insight - though, like a joke, it is hard to pin down and explain exactly what it it. Appropriation allows a creator to maintain a self-respecting distance between themselves and the public figure that shares their likeness, accessible to any and everyone through web searches, books, videos, and images, and all its associated expectations and duties. This “distance” is the space where artistic authenticity and integrity can grow because an artist can acknowledge their public role and its associated duties without being determined by them. Appropriation is a method for fleeing the “authority” of the author - that everything stated is to be treated as a confession. 

Successful comedians, like Richard Pryor, are such in part because they demonstrate trustworthiness, that even when they make fun of other people, there is a point to it beyond mere superiority or mockery. When we trust that there is a purpose or a point to the work, we are more likely to be responsive to it. When we understand vulnerability as shared rather than exploited, we let them get away with more. But sometimes, perhaps vulnerability itself is not equal. Public artists are already vulnerable, subject to unauthorized books, photos, accusations, and encounters in virtue of being well-known and/or liked. To quote Rorty once again, “art forms like fiction are a safer medium than theory to challenge the authorities…” 

Artists do not always deserve our trust, of course. But the joke model shows that discussions about trustworthiness in art are markedly different than those about truth or intention, or honesty - though, again, they are not wholly distinct, either. To joke is to demonstrate that one does not take the subject matter too seriously, and laughter’s infectious nature encourages others not to as well. This can be used for nefarious purposes, but most of it can redeem. A joke done well can imitate what would otherwise offend, but redeems itself through its purpose - employing a racist stereotype in order to laugh at racism with (not at) its victims. 

When we joke with others, we transgress the mutual trust that enables successful communication just like we do when we lie, but reestablish it at a higher level, not as a mere means for our own amusement, but to delight in our collective fate as self-assured but ridiculous beings. I trust that you will discern the point of my behavior and laugh, which I do not to deceive you (though I can use humor and jokes to do that, too) - but to bond with you. I want to to “get” it - and hope that you see the value in it as well. It is a spiritual experience, akin to religion and, of course, art. Trust is what enables anyone to express themselves authentically to others, and what supports aesthetically pleasing encounters.

So I end this triology of essays with a cliche - the problem with appropriation is not found in the appropriator, it’s us. When we are upset at an author’s work, what we are doing is revealing that we do not trust them or their work to have valid or redeeming point, that there is nothing for us to gain - the magic trick is all cheap distraction for unredeemable ends. Trust is not independent from evidence and common sense - trustworthiness can be affected by one’s behaviors and statements - we can have genuine debates about whether or not someone is trustworthy that are different from debates about whether they are “right.” But the question about whether we should trust Dylan, Koons, or corporations like Disney shifts the discussion to discussions of responsibility, rather than what’s true and who owns what. Trustworthiness need not equate to honesty, and the truth is only secondary.

I think Dylan is ultimately a jokester, not a thief or a liar - and so what really matters is whether or not we trust him to carry the joke through. Not all jokes work and not all jokes are funny. We can still debate about the things we care about when we care about art, but we do so on slightly different terms. We draw on historical elements to establish trustworthiness, rather than mere empirical facts about the type of artwork or performances that it is. The significant feature that distinguishes whether an artist is appropriating or plagiarizing is whether we trust them and the interesting debate is now whether we should.

Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I’ve actually had the following essay prepared since my last newsletter, but back when I originally planned to share it a public complaint was filed in New York State summoning Dylan to answer to accusations of sexual misconduct dating back to the 60’s, which he denies. Then, on the eve of my second attempt at publishing the essay Norm Macdonald unexpectedly passed away due to cancer. Then, I lost my will to write. This essay explores the “joke” model of artistic appreciation by drawing connections between Dylan and Macdonald (and funnily enough, after Norm’s passing a mere conjecture I made in the original essay was confirmed!). Though I find great fulfillment from writing about my personal passions, it is also difficult to discern what is valuable because I love it and what might be valuable for other people. So, hopefully I have some combination of that here. Thanks to those of you who signed up after reading my first essay and I hope future work won’t face such delays.

In my first piece I argued that debates surrounding artistic originality and appropriation often presuppose a model of art as a method of testimony: as reflecting or referring to what an artist or author really believes, feels, or intends. On this model, art is valuable to the extent that the artist successfully communicates what is true. The “testimony” model of artistic appreciation helps explain why instances of non-obvious appropriation are judged by audiences as a type of artistic deception, or a lie (the opposite of testimony). Artists are blameworthy when they present work as if it is original, or reflects their true perspective and/or experiences. However, audiences would be hard-pressed to find a work of art that does not draw in some way on other works, and many highly praised artists have drawn on other images and reproductive technologies in constructing their “masterpieces.” Thus, originality is an epistemic, rather than aesthetic, value. I proposed that appropriation should be understood on the model of a joke, which shares many similarities with lies but is importantly a matter of mutual trust, rather than the truth. This second essay continues exploring the similarities and differences between lying and joking, with a focus on Dylan’s “written” forms of appropriation: his 2004 memoir Chronicles and 2017 speech for the Nobel prize for literature.

In this essay I’m going to expand further on the claim that appropriation art is a joke and that the successfulness of a joke is not merely a matter of its veracity. Instead, successful humor is ultimately a product of trust. I hope to convince you that the artistic model of a joke is a richer model for thinking and talking about artistic value in contexts where originality - or accuracy - present themselves as pressing. We need not tell the truth in order to make others laugh - but we can still be held accountable for our sense of humor. So, what distinguishes a joke from a lie? 

Lying is a way we use language to manipulate others, to get them to do or believe what we want without their consent - a form of social control. Kant famously condemned lying as universally prohibited because the liar treats other human beings as mere means for their own ends. Further, lying is illogical because it involves the manipulation of the very conditions that make communication possible in the first place: trust and charity. Liars take advantage of the trust afforded to them by their audience: the assumption that people mean what they say which makes us vulnerable to their lying. The assumption that others’ utterances reflect what they think, feel, or plan operate as the “default” social conditions that allow communication to “get off the ground” in the first place. Lying exploits these default conditions, the symmetry in vulnerability at the heart of successful communication, because one person acts as if they are saying what they believe in order to convince the other person to form false beliefs based on that false information - in the words of Nancy Baier: the liar seeks to exploit our goodwill. We feel betrayed when we discover we have been lied to because we have made ourselves vulnerable in the expectation the other person is doing so as well - that we and our interlocutors are committed to the things we say and claim, can be held accountable to them and liable to be challenged - the game gets going because everyone has something to lose. 

We feel anger, resentment, hostility, and betrayal towards people that have taken advantage of our trust and goodwill: taking advantage of our vulnerability, while preserving their own vulnerability in return. Likewise, artists that are revealed to have borrowed or used material from other works without making it obvious offend us in their refusal to be aesthetically vulnerable - the conditions that underly our judgements of authenticity, and perhaps even effort. Art is risky and true artists take risks. If you have nothing to lose, where’s the risk? 

Much of my thinking in regards to art and trust has been informed by C. Thi Nguyen’s work. Nguyen argues that, in the aesthetic domain, trust serves as a background that helps explain why we are motivated to learn more about an artist, to give an artist more of our time and effort in the attempt to better understand their work - to accurately judge and evaluate it. Aesthetic trust, unlike general interpersonal trust, is such that we do not acknowledge artists or their artworks as responsible to us, as individuals. Instead, we trust them to be responsible to themselves and to aesthetic value (rather than monetary value, popularity, or sheer controversy). Nguyen understands aesthetic trust as sensitivity to what he calls aesthetic “sincerity” which is their commitment to act from evaluations of aesthetic value - what would be best, aesthetically speaking. Further, sincerity - like authenticity - demands that one be responsible to their own “individual” aesthetic sensibilities too, rather than merely doing what the fans, the marketing strategies, or the media tells them to do. 

Comedy the same way. Superiority and vulnerability.

I don’t see much distinction in appealing to sincerity versus vulnerability, as it seems like being responsible to oneself, rather than the market analysis, also involves taking on a higher degree of responsibility for the aesthetic content of the work, and its subsequent success or failure. So, sincerity just is another form of vulnerability - which is why irony is the haven for the superficially invulnerable. That being said, jokes are not typically seen as a method for sincere communication, and a joke interpreted in sincerity can surely offend. To defend what we said as, “only a joke” just is to reinforce that we’re not being sincere, but sincerity isn’t necessary anyway. A joke can have elements of sincerity, of course, and there is something about a comedian’s “sincerity” that aides in our trusting them - though what that involves is not as easy to articulate as it is to discern.

A jokester also manipulates their audience’s trust and thus the conditions that support communication. But what distinguishes a lie from a joke, or a magic trick, is the audience’s trust and expectation that there is a point to the “deception” on that they can both recognize and appreciate. Everyone benefits from the supposedly selfish act. Mark Twain argued that lies were not only permissible, but necessary for creatures like us. We lie when we smile at a stranger, but the worse lies are lies to ourselves, including lying about the naturalness of lying itself. As Ted Cohen notes in his brilliant book Jokes, the function of joking is one of intimacy and bonding - it is a wholly social phenomenon.  A successful joke increases trust between a jokester and the audience, rather than undermines it. I think particularly skillful comedians such as Richard Pryor, are so in part because they demonstrate vulnerability (sincerely?) and thus trustworthiness - we can trust Pryor when we makes a joke about “hillbillies” that he is not doing so from a position of moral or absolute superiority - as a way to belittle or mock them, because he has already made insulting jokes about himself. Pryor demonstrates a vulnerability that audiences then afford him a higher degree of trust, which then allows him to “violate” otherwise entrenched norms or conventions, including what sorts of language is appropriate for mainstream, predominantly white audiences. 

Pryor’s ability to quickly and efficiently convey his trustworthiness establishes him as a successful comedian - audiences let him get away with more, and because of that he transformed the very rules of comedy, particularly racially-themed comedy intended for mixed audiences. Pryor could speak in a way that was generally reserved for members of his community, and in using that language he doesn’t aim to alienate the audience, but to convey that he treats his audience like a close friend. The joke model reveals that skilled comedians can say or use phrases that are otherwise prohibited because they successfully convey that the joke is not meant to mock or belittle, that it is meant to cause shame rather than laughter. This is a point related to my “theory” of humor, that I will write an essay about at some point as well.

not really into this guy, but i hear the kids are

In order for us to joke with other people, we have to trust that they will understand or “get” that we are joking (if we say something possibly offensive) and the joke itself (that they have the relevant background experiences). For me to make a silly face in order to get you to laugh presupposes that I know that you know such faces are not appropriate, at the same time I trust that you can come to appreciate how my being “inappropriate” is harmless, enjoyable, or funny - it is for your benefit as well. Jokes that offend work best when the point of the joke is to laugh with its target, not merely at (and a Kantian insight shows up yet again). The audiences must trust that the jokester is not demonstrating lack of respect or understanding of the relevant expectations in saying something inappropriate or misleading. Pryor isn’t using racial slurs in order to cause white audience to feel uncomfortable and alienated, it is to make them feel like they are familiar with him, that there is already a sense of kinship. Joking is a matter of mutual trust and it is this that enables the jokester (like the appropriator) to get away with more than we would otherwise allow. This trust is essential in art’s ability to transcend and thus revolutionize our appreciative and social practices.

Importantly, focusing on trust as the transformative feature that makes an otherwise offensive phrase or expression permissible or funny changes the conversation about the ethical dimensions of jokes from questions about intention, consequences, or the “meaning” of the words. Instead, it is about what matters for establishing trust and accountability, how our trust is influenced in a myriad of subtle and overt ways. As Nguyen has shown, trust is a matter of familiarity and often chronology - we are more likely to trust whatever we are most familiar with, whatever we were exposed to earlier. And familiarity or chronology has no bearing on the truth or their actual trustworthiness. 

Our trust is mediated by our social and material environments, by signifiers of social status, including age, class, and institutional affiliation. Social practices of marking trustworthy sources reveals that we take trust to be a sort of distributive good: we have to mark certain people or social roles as more or less trustworthy or else individuals would spend too much time trying to evaluate various equally trustworthy sources. So, academic degrees and professional certifications establish someone as more trustworthy in a given domain, to signal that others are thereby less trustworthy. Professional comedians might get an extra “dose” of trust almost by default, by the very fact that they are performing on stage in the context of the comedy show. Context does matter, but as a side-effect of our practices of giving and withholding trust - something that informs who and how much we trust.

Our degrees of trust toward others can be determined by factors like their (and ours) social status, history, familiarity, cultural background, reputation, or affiliation with a public institution or entity. If we think that an artist has successfully used appropriation to further meaningful ends, then we are more likely to trust (and expect) that future works will as well. The same is true on the side of the Courts: if someone has a reputation or standing as a parody or appropriation artist, then they are more likely to withstand potential lawsuits. Further, our expectations and understandings of artistic responsibility are informed by the artistic genre or category in which we take the artistic or work to belong. But as Nathan Fielder has shown, this also causes us to be easily exploited and misled. Importantly, I think artistic categories or genres also function to calibrate our expectations and thus how we approach an artwork and how or whether we trust a particular artist, or art kind.

Consider the literary genre of the memoir, a book written as a straightforward retelling of the author’s experiences and history. A memoir is a canonical example of a work of nonfiction, where the assumption is that its contents reflect historical events and operate like testimony from or about its subject matter, which in conventional models is explained by the fact that the contents of the work are true. One reads a memoir in order to form true beliefs about the subject matter, typically from the subject’s own perspective (rather than how they feel about those events or how other people interpret them). 

Bob Dylan’s 2004 memoir Chronicles, Vol. I was a New York Times bestseller praised for its lyrical prose and expressive quality. The book was eagerly anticipated as it promised to provide a “first hand account” of important times in Dylan’s career, including his notorious rise in New York City during the peak of the 60’s social revolution, his experience in and out of the folk scene, and, of course, his personal life. However, some fans and bibliographers quickly took issue with various details in the book, which ranged from seemingly inaccurate timeframes to what could only be classified as either poor memory or straight fiction. 

In 2006, historian and blogger Ed Cook published a series of blog posts purporting to have discovered various textual “borrowings” in Chronicles, including phrases from Mark Twain and Marcel Proust. Since then he has teamed up with “New Mexico DJ” Scott Warmuth to extensively identify and annotate Dylan’s sources for Chronicles and they have discovered that a rather large and ever-growing percentage of Chronicles is composed of lines and phrases drawn from other places. Dylan has paradoxically written a personal narrative composed of other people’s sentiments. 

What makes Dylan’s work of creative fiction marketed as a memoir different than James Frey’s publicly-maligned A Million Little Pieces which was likewise marketed as a memoir only for it to be revealed that he “lifted” whole passages and scenarios from other sources? Frey’s book is now touted as “semi-fictional” while Dylan’s is ranked among the 100 greatest rock memoirs of all time. Is the difference merely one of celebrity or clout?

Warmuth is an invaluable source on the identity and extent of Dylan’s appropriation in all of Dylans works, going back as far as 2008. Warmuth, like me, does this not do this as a way to condemn Dylan’s works or “prove” that his genius is merely stolen, but as a way to enrich the “Bob Dylan artistic universe” so to speak. Warmuth has suggested that Dylan’s heavy appropriation is not a lie, but a “puzzle” that he wants audiences to discover and solve. For Warmuth, there is a “code” or deeper significance to Dylan’s patterns of appropriation, which allows Warmuth to discern when certain passages are likely borrowed. Warmuth’s Pinterest and Twitter pages contain a continuously updated catalog of sources from Chronicles, as well as images for Dylan’s paintings, his interviews, and even the script for Dylan’s 2003 film, Masked and Anonymous. Warmuth suggests that Dylan is often conveying images of a certain slice of American life and a nostalgic experience, one that is culturally mediated and so not always or universally recognizable. I am not interested in whether Dylan’s appropriation is a puzzle that we are supposed to solve, though I do agree that it is not supposed to be an absolute secret. 

When reading a memoir, we assume - or more accurately - trust that the author is relaying the relevant and important information to the best of their ability. In doing this we treat the content of a memoir like a form of testimony, something we use as the basis of beliefs about events and items that we do not have first-hand experience of or acquaintance with. This trust is a necessary part of the implicit contract that makes a given work a memoir rather than a creative exercise, it informs how we interpret and treat its contents. The author, in committing to writing a memoir and not a work of fiction, understands themselves to be accountable to their audience on the basis of their accuracy, how well they abide by the rules of the game of writing a memoir. The (often implicit) trust that what we are being presented with can function as testimony is what marks something as nonfiction. This is why the revelation that a memoir is not an accurate retelling of the author’s experiences causes audiences and critics to be offended and often leads to public retractions, clarifications, or even professional repercussions. 

If Chronicles had been classified as a lyrical memoir, loosely based on Dylan’s experiences in the Sixties and beyond, would audiences be less likely to balk at its heavy use of appropriation? What if it contained extensive footnotes noting and citing every source? Perhaps the book is better understood as conveying moods and experiences, rather than describing them - the latter of which functions as testimony when we use it to form beliefs about “what things were really like.” Obviously, Dylan didn’t fully inform his editor or publishers that the work contained lines from other sources, but perhaps he didn’t think he needed to. Is this a failure of his duties as an author, his publisher’s editorial staff, or our expectations as appreciators?

My roommate was reading Norm Macdonald’s 2016 memoir, Based on a True Story: A Memoir, which as it turns out is not so much a factual description or retelling of Macdonald’s life, but a book-length collection of jokes, loosely based around actual events in his life, such as his audition for Saturday Night Live. Reviews of Norm’s book are largely positive, though they make sure to note that the book is only a memoir in name, and audiences are not offered a sincere peek behind the curtain, or insight into Macdonald’s private thoughts. Macdonald, of course, has a long-standing reputation as a comedian and so the discovery that his memoir is in fact a series of jokes is immediately apparent, even if we originally expected the book to be historical testimony. 

The literary form of the memoir seems to trade on the expectation that audiences will get a private access to never-before-discussed topics and experiences. Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis famously described losing his virginity to a prostitute at his father’s behest. Monica Lewinsky was finally given the platform to share her side of the story. Presidents are expected to write memoirs, and they seem to have a stronger duty to report events as they happened, as their memoirs do function as historical record. Does any public figure with a large enough following incur the duties of a government official or academic researcher? Lay audiences often judge Dylan as a shining example of the innovation of the 60’s counter-culture, a wholly-original American artist, worthy of cross-generational fame and success, ideals that are very serious indeed and thus treated as antithetical to such extensive appropriation. Joking, on the other hand, naturally brings with it a degree of unreality and un-seriousness. If Macdonald were to do a comedic performance composed entirely of other people’s jokes, we’d interpret it as a joke about jokes. What if Dylan is not the genius of originality, nor the cryptic puzzle maker, but the perineal joker, failing to take anything, even his own reputation or the duties of a Nobel Prize ceremony, seriously?

In fact, I think the similarities between appropriation and joking run deeper than these two memoirs. Consider Dylan’s recent collaboration with Martin Scorsese on the 2019 Netflix “documentary”  Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. Note that the title of the film specifies it as a “Bob Dylan story” and in retrospect the title functions as a wink to the film’s content. The subject matter of the film is Dylan’s famous 1976’s US Tour composed of a traveling group of artists including other musicians such as Joan Baez, T Booker William, as well as artists like Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and violinist Scarlett Rivera. Dubbed “The Rolling Thunder Revue” Dylan intended for the tour to resemble a 19^th century touring revue company. Fans “in the know” are aware that the tour was also documented by famed documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, who filmed the documentary Don’t Look Back and whose notable absence, or more specifically recasting as David Lynch-type character Van Dorp, was at least my first major clue that everything wasn’t as I expected. Within 20 minutes of the film I realized something fishy was gong on - most of the well-known and in some cases well-documented elements of the tour were either misrepresented or completely absent. 

General audiences were shocked to find out that most of the contemporary interviews, characters, and events in the film were for the most part, completely fictional. Further, Dylan himself is in the film providing interviews and false information backed with actual historical film footage in which he is the central figure. Sharon Stone even makes an appearance as herself claiming that her and Dylan met and hung out during the tour, at a time when she would have been a teenager. The film turned out to be a mockumentary disguised as nonfiction: a work in the tradition of Rob Reiner’s film This is Spinal Tap assumed to be following in the steps of Dylan and Scorsese’s last encounter, the 2005 nonfiction documentary No Direction Home. 

The difference, as I see it, is that audiences approach Reiner’s film knowing it is a mockumentary, whereas Scorsese’s film exploited its audience’s expectations in order to blur the line between the two cinematic traditions, and thus the fiction/nonfiction divide itself. Documentaries are of course canonical examples of nonfiction - typically treated as historical documents and thus a form of testimony. But, of course, documentary films incorporate varying degrees of fictionality - from editing techniques to choices in who and what they depict, not to mention documentaries that attempt to pass off as spontaneous capture what is in fact scripted performance. Philosophers working in the philosophy of documentary have spent decades trying to outline what criteria or properties mark a film as genuine nonfiction while acknowledging the varying ways in which documentary films incorporate fictional elements. I think the joke model shows how the entire debate is misguided.

I watched RTR with the expectation that there would be heavy use of material from Dylan’s famous but unpublished 4-hour surrealist film Renaldo and Clara. That film is also part dramatic narrative, part concert footage, and part “fake” documentary of various backstage affairs, starring Dylan, Joan Baez, and Dylan’s then-wife all playing “versions” of themselves. The film was only publicly shown once, in France, but as a pathological Dylan fan of course I’ve seen it. The film is the reason why there is so much video footage from the ’76 tour, footage that Scorsese’s film appropriates into a wholly new and confounding narrative. Soon after I realized that the film would not be a straightforward retelling, however, I began finding it incredibly funny and enjoyable: I just let it wash over me. Dylan is making fun of himself, having fun with his own history, and giving us an insight into who he is - on his own terms and with some kick-ass concert footage along the way. Again, the appropriation is a joke, and the joke is on the rules and responsibilities of the artform: like memoirs, documentaries are meant to be historical retellings, able to be treated as testimony, liable to be used as evidence in court (consider that Robert Hurst HBO documentary).

via Rolling Stone

Naturally, people felt duped and confused, articles were written, and many fans in the Dylan fan forum thought that the fictive elements detracted from the value of the documented footage as a historical record of the time period. Audiences were once again promised a special insight into a mythical and mysterious public figure and once again they were denied, an artistic slap in the face where audiences found themselves to be butt of the joke rather than the ones laughing. 

Did Dylan and Scorsese (or Netflix) willfully deceive us? Why not say straight out that the film is more fiction than fact? Well, where’s the fun in that? To promote the film as a fictional mockumentary would have spoiled the punchline and revealed the magic trick. The first scene of the film is a man performing a magic trick, followed by the phrase “conjuring” the Rolling Thunder Revue. Magic, like humor, is a means of willful deception, and its success is a matter of trust - audiences allow the artist to bend or violate the natural and social laws because they trust that they do so for a point or purpose that (ideally, at least) vindicates the deception. The film invites us to engage in willful deception with the trust that, like a magic trick, the payoff will be worth it. It also provides multiple experiences - offering something different if one dares to watch it again. If what audiences care about are the salacious details about backstage affairs and disputes, they will have to read the unauthorized biographies. If they want to understand the essence of the organic entity that was this mystical turned mythical tour, then this is what the film provides, if only a peek.

Again, the difference between Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder and a film like Best in Show is found in the audience: we have the right background information to readily recognize they are scripted bits masquerading as nonfiction documentaries. Art is a matter of historical tradition - art is always referencing other art. The historical nature of art helps explain why the film needed to operate in disguise. Someone transported from 1957 and wholly unfamiliar with Christopher Guest’s works or the genre of fake-documentary would easily mistake Waiting For Guffman or The Office for nonfiction, and might feel offended or upset when or if they discovered it what they were show was in fact scripted performances. They might also fail to “get it” if you explained to them that the works are employing the techniques of a documentary in order to be funny - they might ask, echoing critics of Dylan’s film: well, what’s the point in doing that? 

Given that funniness is a matter of familiarity and understanding, jokes are also notoriously subjective and culturally-relative. An explicit disclaimer at the start of Rolling Thunder Revue clarifying that the events depicted are largely fictional would detract from the significance of its magic trick as a marker of a particular moment in our art-historical traditions, that it is an inside joke, funny to those who know enough about the tour and trust that the misdirection has some further point to it beyond mere deception. Scorsese’s film also reveals that Dylan’s appropriation is without limits: so ravenous as to become cannibalistic, not even his own words and images are immune. Isn’t Dylan allowed to be playful with his own image? What do we care about more - historical testimony or aesthetic authenticity? 

In the next/final part of this essay, I consider the relationship between an artist’s public role and their private convictions, and examine in more detail the history of appropriation.