Jokes make us laugh. But few of us look deeper into humour than this. Yet humour can tell us a great deal about our psychology and society. Jokes, for instance, can be brilliant diplomatic aids.
A well timed joke at the point that a fight or argument is about to break out can pull up the participants and send them into spasms of laughter, the reason for aggression forgotten. Or alternatively, an ill-timed, ill-judged joke can lead to insult.
WHAT IS IT?
This tells us something important about the successful humourist. Rather than just a clown, he is a master at reading moods, people and situations. Intuitively, he understands the undercurrent of humanity. If such an ability could be properly studied, we could learn much about ourselves and our ways.
What is humour? Sometimes it is said to be a play on words, but this doesn’t really say anything. Rather, humour is a sudden assault on our logic. We are conditioned to a certain way of thinking. A good joke breaks the flow of how we think something will go. In this sense, humour is illogic.
This in itself is important. For it tells us that we are quite rational beings. If we were not, we wouldn’t understand when illogic occurs, for we would have no understanding of logical processes. This is why a joke can sometimes backfire.
WHEN NOT TO JOKE
A particularly intelligent joke will not be understood by a person with lesser intelligence. Another important element of humour is therapy. Jokes or humourous situations can cheer us up when we feel down.
Black humour can strike. This is often thought of as nasty. But what black humour often does is bring a small community together in order to pour your heart out. At a funeral, a dozen people can be grieving together but alone.
A little black humour causing a communal response can initially bring embarrassment. But afterwards they are no longer alone, but sharing their grief communally, as one.
SUBTLETY
As well as mainstream humour, such as your standard joke, we also have sarcasm and cynicism. Here, we don’t find jokes, per se, but the classic play on words. Sarcasm and cynicism are often thought of as the same, but they are really quite different.
Sarcasm is intelligent humour for its own sake. Cynicism usually has a motive behind it – a need to get over a point. And in this sense humour is politicised.
Many of the older generation don’t seem to understand modern humour. And I can understand why. In a televisual age, the situation has become more important than subtlety.
Embarrassment and smut seem to be the main purposes of humour. This lacks the intelligence of humour of old. Anyone can get a cheap laugh, but in the end it is unfulfilling and does not require the degree of timing and word play that used to define humour.
MODERN HUMOUR
There are two central reasons for this decline in the intelligence of humour. On the one hand, the argument that entertainment is dumbing down is expressed in modern humour.
With a lack of intelligence, it is itself an expression of dumbing down.
Alternatively, we are not allowed to practice humour in society like we used to. Political correctness has barred so many areas of life from humour. As such, we bite our tongue rather than practice this age old ability.
In this sense, political correctness becomes a dehumanising concept, taking away one of the best communal expressions of our ability to interact.
YOU’RE ANXIOUS
Humour is particularly good at breaking ice. This is particularly so with dating. Many a courtship has begun with the humour displayed by the male. Indeed, females often say that one of the major elements of liking is the ability of their partner to make them laugh. Yet in reality, a man uses humour in such early dating in order to cover up his shyness or anxieties.
This is a major element behind humour in men. It covers up nervousness, acting as a mask of confidence to make the man more appealing. If successful, the woman plays along with this, but can see a touch of under confidence under the mask.
This is the most illogical thing about humour; the fact that underneath is a basically non-humourous mind. Humour is often used as a weapon of ridicule to stave off bullying. In this sense, the ridicule shows up the bully in front of a crowd, and this reduces his self-esteem, making him less likely to bully the joker.
Alternatively, the seriousness behind humour can be seen in the stereotype of the clown, whose face is really quite sad.
DEFENCE MECHANISM
This is reflected in many of our greatest comedians. On stage they are hilarious. But in their private life we find anguish, many of the most ingenious comedians being depressives.
This outs humour as an essentially false defensive mechanism to guard ourselves from our society. It puts up a frontage of social acceptability, but underneath we have a mind screaming out for help.
In this sense, humour can be used to endear an otherwise unsocial person to a crowd. Hence, in a way, comedy is a form of mental illness.
LAUGHTER
We can see this in the ultimate success of a good comedian. He produces a communal response in others that we call uncontrollable laughter. But in effect, such spontaneous, illogical behaviour is best understood as mass hysteria. Indeed, it is the most common form of mass hysteria we can experience.
Yet, when a hundred people laugh spontaneously, they only briefly forget their individual problems and woes. After the laughing is done, the problems are still there.
Humour therefore tells us so much about ourselves and our society.
But at the end of the day, an ability that is caused by negativity will eventually produce only a fleeting change in our mentality, leaving us essentially the same people we were before we laughed or cracked that joke.
However, this aside, long live humour!
© Anthony North, August 2007
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