In the clip from I Love You, America (2017–2018), comic Sarah Silverman talks to a conservative family about their beliefs regarding gun control, Donald Trump, and climate change over dinner. The comic exchange prompts reflection on María Lugones’s ideas about “world-traveling” and the role of playfulness in speaking across differences.
In her article “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception,” Maria Lugones describes “world traveling” as the experience of oneself as belonging to a multiplicity of worlds, constituted by different cultural conventions, languages, and histories, which shape a person’s self-understanding, behavior, and relation to others. While many engage in what Lugones calls “world-traveling” of necessity, simply by belonging to multiple worlds, she suggests that for others, undertaking world-traveling intentionally, and playfully, can cultivate loving perception across difference.
In a time when increased political polarization threatens to turn what were previously matters of simple disagreement—or else difficult but nevertheless understandable conflicts about value—into unbridgeable social divides, a time when what Lugones calls the “U.S. dominant construction or organization of life” (11) itself threatens to sever into two worlds, one red and one blue, I teach this text in the hope that Lugones’s suggestions can help students cultivate a habit of loving perception. The goal is that by doing so, we can keep the pathways of communication open, along with a way forward through this moment. For this reason, I turn to I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman, which seems to adopt this very approach, if at times clumsily, as a means of entertainment, or serious play.
We begin by scaffolding the concepts as Lugones introduces them: “world,” including world-travel, being-at-ease in a world, being-ill-at-ease in a world, “playfulness” and “loving perception.” We then watch the clip together. In it, Silverman visits the Michelis, a conservative family of devout Mormons at their cattle range in Wyoming. She brings hostess gifts and jokes with the children in the living room, before turning to their first substantive conversation in the kitchen about their Mormon faith and their lives in Wyoming, where one of them works in the fracking industry and another as an environmental lawyer. After briefly discussing the nature and controversy of fracking, they move to the dining room where they discuss Donald Trump, fiscal conservatism, and firearm regulations. After finishing dinner, they decide to put their final conversation to practice, where the teenage son teaches Silverman how to shoot a gun with their target practice out back.
I ask students first to briefly indicate the different “worlds” that are meeting in this video. Silverman, a self-described liberal, is also a city girl, living and working in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Michelis are conservative cattle ranchers in rural Wyoming. Students are often quick to identify the rural/city divide as one of the most decisive “world” differences that operate in the US today.
I then ask them to work together to find examples of a “successful” moment of “world-travel” in the clip, and a less “successful” example. For successful examples, students speak to Silverman’s playing with the children early on and her excitement about shooting a gun at the end. The latter, they indicate demonstrates Silverman’s willingness to playfully engage in their world, to do something she wouldn’t normally do, and to enjoy it. They also point out the moment at the dinner table when Silverman commiserates with one of the Micheli women who complains that people berated her for supporting Donald Trump: “Like, why did I not vote for Hilary as a woman.” Silverman replies “I got that pressure, too, as someone who loved Bernie.” Despite their differences, both share the experience of arrogant perception from others, acknowledging the shared experience of having their political beliefs reduced to a stereotype, “woman” and having that reduction used to shame their choices.
For unsuccessful moments, students point out when Silverman’s jokes turn to jibes. She asks the environmental lawyer if he’s a “good witch or a bad witch.” Then, when he misspeaks to claim that no client has wanted anything other than what’s best for the environment and for the “company” instead of the “country,” she pounces on the “Freudian slip.” They claim that these jokes betray Silverman’s assumptions about the Michelis’ views, similar to when she asks whether they’re members of the NRA (none of them are). Finally, students indicate that the Michelis, too, struggle to receive Silverman with loving perception, complaining about “what liberals fail to understand” at the very moment that she’s asking them about their views.
Despite these shortcomings, students observe how Silverman’s playfulness disarms the Michelis, and allows the conversation to move forward even when these tensions threaten the exchange. She diffuses the tension with a joke and they can move on to the next topic, illustrating the playfulness that Lugones proposes is necessary when one begins to “world-travel.” To “world-travel” requires treating even one’s own deepest convictions as capable in principle of being otherwise. One must tenderly suspend one’s convictions and even ways of seeing in order to attempt to inhabit, even if temporarily or briefly, the world of the other. Without a playful attitude, this kind of suspension is simply not possible. Doing so does not result in agreement, or even a mediated world of compromise, but rather a deeper understanding of the other as other, and of oneself in relation to the other. Silverman and the Michelis don’t agree come the end of the video, but they enjoy each other’s company and recognize the other’s humanity, by trying to inhabit each other’s world.
Students respond with understandable discomfort in viewing the clip, despite the success with which we carry out the analysis. We observe the general strangeness of the video, which merges superficial entertainment with earnest dialogue across difference. It’s no surprise that the show, produced in the first year of Donald Trump’s first presidency, only aired for one year. And yet, we observe that these tensions are not altogether unparalleled in real life instances of world-travel, where people are likely suspicious, defensive, and not altogether sure of each other’s motives. Bearing witness to the awkward exchange helps students internalize how the transition from arrogant to loving perception likely takes place in real life, as people learn to navigate disagreement in real time.
My hope is that students are better equipped to engage in playful world-travel and to navigate its breakdowns successfully. By seeing Lugones’ concepts at work in a short clip, students are better able to make sense of her complex framework, but they can also learn to imagine how loving perception might take shape in everyday encounters.
Suggested Readings
Lugones, Maria. 1987. “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception,” Hypatia 2, no. 2: 3–19.
Other Resources
Sarah Silverman describes the intent of the recurring segment in this clip.
Editor’s note [GC]: An essay I have found helpful is Ricardo Friaz’s “María Lugones and the Value of Playfulness for World-Making,” APA Studies: Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy 23, no. 1 (Fall 2023): 2–7.
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Lydia W. Barry
Lydia W. Barry is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gannon University in Erie, PA. Her research specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, especially political, philosophical, and poetic rhetoric in Plato. She regularly teaches courses in the history of philosophy and feminist philosophy.
