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Articles

Only Joking?

Last year Laurence Goldstein stepped down from his post as head of the ever-turbulent Philosophy Department at the University of Wales Swansea, following a battery of allegations made by three of his colleagues and a complaint that he had told jokes ‘with sexual overtones’ at a departmental Christmas party. He, and other colleagues who left at the same time, were unwilling to continue working in a department where, for years, brutal hostility has prevailed. On the plus side, however, the experience did inspire him to write this article.

On Glasgow Central Station the other day, I caught sight of a large billboard showing a photograph of a youth, his face horrendously bruised and zipped together with two long lines of suture. Under the picture was the message “Sectarian jokes can leave you in stitches.” A joke about jokes, although you weren’t really supposed to laugh. The primary intention of the poster was, evidently, to make a serious point.

It is unclear, however, just what the local council (or whoever funded this advertisement) intended to convey.

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