Stan Husi | The Ill Humor of the Humor Guard

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I wish to understand what went wrong with the recent moral panic we witnessed: Particularly, what is the role, if any, deeper moral dynamics play in generating what I call Puritan excesses. My core thesis is that those excesses are not entirely a fluke, not entirely exogenous, but somewhat endogenous, to more common moral dynamics. To make it concrete, I focus on moralizing humor as a case study. There we have plenty of data plus tantalizing examples. Finally, why is the excessive moral encroachment into the world of levity a good example for the more general problem of Puritan excesses? I conclude my talk by venturing an answer that goes beyond simply listing the various benefits humor bestows on maintaining social relations, right to the heart of human nature.
Born in Switzerland, raised in Germany, trained in Texas, Stan Husi has been teaching for over a decade at the nation’s top terminal MA program at the university of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. With humor and wit, he strives to bring greater view-point diversity, sense of community, and an appreciation of philosophical issues in a wider socio-political context to the next crop of PhD students in the profession. He teaches courses in moral and political philosophy, PPE, the ethics of transformative technologies such as AI, philosophy of history and stories, and moral psychology. He is working on a book project launched at the Benson Center last year, with a talk titled Curb your moral enthusiasm.

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Learn more about the Benson Center📕www.colorado.edu/center/benson/ Subscribe to the Benson Center Newsletter📰cu.tfaforms.net/94 Follow us on Social Media📢 linktr.ee/bensoncenter