The Necessity of Inappropriate Laughter

If it was appropriate, it wouldn't be half as much fun. There's no such thing as inappropriate laughter of course -- laughter is so automatic that that would be like inappropriate breathing. Laughter bubbling up or bursting forth unplanned is a type of honesty. It bursts as a force of nature, not of manufacture. The world needs that safety valve.

Yet, in cartoons or performance, during a speech or at a party, some people do complain that a joke was "inappropriate". Tasteless it may have been, but it has a function: Neitzsche and other philosophers have mentioned the release of tension and the joy of surprise.

It's socially useful to have the ridiculous laughed at (from the Latin ridere, to laugh). It's more than a personal response, it's a social corrective.

When laughter is labelled inappropriate it's usually about sex, gender, race, religion, or something ending in "ism". One person's laughable "ism" is another's no-go area.

Yet laughter goes everywhere; that's why it's powerful. No one has been able to imprison it -- not chilly religions, dictatorial bureaucracy, humorless teachers or anxious parents, no matter how repressive their reactions are. Laughter Laughs Last.

Think of how dangerous the world would be without it. Neitzsche also pointed out is that to oppose a bad idea, laughter is more effective than anger. If we had only anger imagine how much more violent life would be, how full of warfare.

In former ages court jesters were a professional group. In ancient Greece, under the rule of Philip of Macedon they were linked with Court Poets and Philosophers. Likewise in the English Courts of Henry VIII, James VI, and Charles I, where William Summers, Archibald Armstrong and Muckle John performed respectively.

This was reflected in Shakespeare's plays, with their essential Fools. ("Fool", linked to "folly", comes from the Latin noun follis, meaning bellows -- which are full of air and provide oxygen, like humour does.) Being full of air, someone to be jeered at (Shakespeare also dressed characters in ass ears etc.), the Court Fool could say what no one else could, escaping the murderous censors of the time yet managing to tell truths. 

Some comics do that today. In their act (or writings or cartoons) they present a farrago of material (a "mixed medley", originally meaning a mixture of fodder:  "far-corn").

Humour too is food, for both personal and social nourishment. Spontaneous laughter might erupt when we don't know what to think about something ... and then our subconscious tells us. Conflict is short-circuited, resentment deflected and something else takes the blame ... and escapes. Call it the scape-joke.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the frown

Remember Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, which raised silliness to new heights of art? “Silly” means “innocent, simple, foolish, imprudent”, from Old English and Old German “seely” and “saeli”, which mean luck and happiness. During anxieties around wars and pandemics we need a Ministry of Silly Jokes. We need a Humour Boot Camp in which “these boots are made for silly walking”.

Because humans are built for laughter it's contagious: someone starts, another joins in, and soon everyone's doing it. Obviously there's some evolutionary advantage here, promoting social peace and mental health. The jolly news is that you can even do it at home alone, for private peace and health. Tell yourself a joke out loud and see whether you resist giggling. (Don't worry, no one's watching.)

Psychologists make serious studies of humour. There should be a special U.N. Institute for it. “He laughs at his own jokes” might seem like a put-down, but maybe he's a clown of genius. There should be a Nobel Prize for that. Jokes, jocosity and jests probably save more lives than mood medication does. They are mental vitamins.

Language seethes with inbuilt humour. Did we build it in, or is it one of the ways Nature keeps us evolving? Humour is pre-verbal, philosophical. Or maybe philosophy (“love of wisdom”) is laughable. How confusing. (Blame it on the scape-joke.)

It doesn't have to be a side-splitter, it could be a mere chuckle a day that keeps the Black Dog of depression away. We say “I had to laugh when …”: lucky you if you had to laugh. Sometimes you have to weep, but you can escape depression if you (drum-roll for the eye-roll ...) just o-pun your mind to silly ("seely") thinking.

    

(See also: https://justjests.blogspot.com)

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The Rules of Laughter

A magazine recently invited essays about “how we negotiate cultural expectations around what it's acceptable to laugh about”. 

Laughter is defined in dictionaries as a spontaneous physical outburst of sound and upper body movement in response to something amusing. It may be spontaneous, but in today's social climate you must control it anyway. Only acceptable laughter is welcome, and the rules are getting stricter about who can laugh at whom about what. If you get them wrong you may find the consequences non-funny. You could be sued -- seriously.

So here are some tips to guide you through the Rules of Laughter:

Do not laugh at anyone marginalized. “Clowning” is marginal behaviour by definition, clowns being characters on the margin -- but forget definitions. Don't even laugh at your own feelings of marginalization. It may trigger someone. Others may see themselves in you (or worse, to them, not see themselves in you).

Do not laugh at anyone identified as “BIPOC”. “Bi-” has nothing to do with seeing both sides of things, especially the funny side. “BI” in this context means single of attitude, which as a definition may seem funny-peculiar but is not considered funny-humorous. (Grasping the difference is no joke.) 

And by the way, never laugh at jokes considered to be "off-colour". Jokes have to be ON colour, but don't call them jokes, call them social commentary. Certainly they can't be funny if People Of Colour aren't laughing. So people of no colour (PONC), whoever they might be, can't laugh either.

Do not laugh at any remark which may be construed as political. Your laughter might be interpreted as happy agreement, or shocked disbelief. Either may cause others to feel happy or shocked in turn which might lead to a chain reaction of ... reactions. So do NOT react to anything using spontaneous upper body sound and movement.

Do not laugh at something if laughter would make you sound Privileged. Remember that the slightest smile may, in some circumstances, be taken as a blazingly lit-up billboard of Supremacy. If this seems ridiculous, hide that thought. “Ridere” is Latin for “to laugh”, but there are many ridiculous things you're not allowed to laugh at it (see above re. “triggering”). In fact, also do not use these Latin-ist words: it may be construed as “privilege”, which has the same Latin root as “private”, by the way ... and private jokes are politically unacceptable. They don't meet the "inclusion" rule.

Do not laugh at other people's allyship, even if you find that ludicrous Frankenstein's monster of a non-word a source of merriment. “Ludens” is Latin too by the way, it means playing ... but sorry, I forgot: NO LATIN, no matter how bons are those mots. (Better skip the French too, unless of course you identify as Francophone.) 

Do not collapse into hysterical giggling at the stress of losing track of these rules. Don't even giggle silently behind your hand. Do not whinny like a hysterical mare if you are female (in the narrow sense of person with a uterus), and if male, do not honk like a crazy loon (I mean, a loon experiencing mental difference). And do not even think of cross-laughing, no matter how shared you think everyone's craziness is. 

Do not laugh at anyone's gender, or lack thereof, for whatever they wish to engender with their genderisms, it won't lead to the birth of mirth. 

In summary, always keep a straight face ... er, a rainbow face. I didn't mean, you know ... straight ...