That’s Not Funny

Friedrich Nietzsche defined humor as sublime cruelty. Cruelty is not always disrespectful. Sometimes it is the opposite. Why do guys commonly banter insults with friends? It’s an acknowledgement that the other fellow is strong enough to take it. The insults have to have some bite, too, which means they must have at least a kernel of truth. (There is of course a line the location of which is best not to misjudge too often.) Humor also can be genuinely critical – even contemptuous – which also is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to be able to laugh not just at what we hate but what we love – very much including ourselves. It’s the best way to get the proper intellectual distance to (re)evaluate our values, beliefs, and desires. This is why Fred valued laughter so highly: “And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.” It’s no surprise however that others are not always amused.
 
At the moment there is considerable social power in being offended, most notoriously on college campuses. Numerous comedians such as Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld refuse to work colleges for that reason. John Cleese agrees and adds, “And the whole point about humor, the whole point about comedy, and believe you me I thought about this, is that all comedy is critical.” The trend is likely to continue until enough people start to find the trend funny.
 
All this comes to mind from two books that formed my nighttime reading last week – reading in bed being my most common soporific. First up was Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious by Sigmund Freud. Sig’s reputation has taken a serious dive in recent decades, but mostly because of backsplash from the narrow-mindedness of the workaday hacks who followed him and called themselves “Freudians.” His own books are much more exploratory and thought-provoking. If I were to recommend just one of his books to someone who knows him only from secondary sources it would be Civilization and Its Discontents. In it he reveals himself to be far more open-minded than many of those secondary sources suggest, as in his remarks about alternative sexuality:
 

"The requirement, demonstrated in these prohibitions, that there shall be a single kind of sexual life for everyone, disregards the dissimilarities, whether innate or acquired, in the sexual constitution of human beings; it cuts off a fair number of them from sexual enjoyment, and so becomes the source of serious injustice." (Civilization and its Discontents, 1930)
 
Freud was not really known as a natural raconteur, but he did enjoy a good joke. Being himself, he could not resist analyzing them, however, which led to this book. Nothing kills a joke more effectively than explaining it. So, this is a very unfunny book but an interesting one. None of the jokes he uses as examples are knee-slappers. Those that involve wordplay seldom survive the translation from German. Don’t expect to laugh at any of them. After all, he is isn’t trying to be funny but trying to make points about the motives and reactions (both conscious and unconscious) of the jokers and the audience. This one about unreasonable expectations is about as amusing as they get, I’m afraid:
 
A man goes to a match-maker to find a wife.
Marriage broker: “What are you looking for in a bride?”
Customer: “She must be beautiful, rich, and educated.”
Marriage broker: “Very good, but I count that as three matches.”

After Freud’s book on jokes, I figured I’d check on another unlikely source on the subject: Marcus Tullius Cicero in How to Tell a Joke. This is actually a portion of De Oratore, translated by Michael Fontaine with the original Latin on the opposing page. (My Latin is very very rusty, but enough of it survives to check on how free the translation might be.) Cicero thought some people had a natural knack for being funny while others did not. However, he also thought anyone can improve on their base skills through training and practice even though the person who is not a natural will never be as good as someone who is. Cicero, who was apparently known for being a smartass in his day, is interested only in the use (and misuse) of jokes in oratory and legal arguments. He mentions but dismisses other forms of humor as outside his purview. Jokes are effective in oratorical contexts, he says, only if they reveal or exploit a truth. He also notes the risk of jokes backfiring if they create sympathy for your opponent or if they can be turned against oneself. He specifically warns against the temptation to express a clever line when it will hurt your cause: never choose a good joke over your goal. As it happens, he failed to take his own advice: he annoyed Mark Antony enough that Antony ordered his head and hands (the parts that spoke and wrote speeches) to be cut off and displayed on a rostrum. That is probably not the preferred response for any speaker. Like Freud, he doesn’t offer any knee-slappers as examples, but unlike Freud he is occasionally wryly funny.
 
Examples: When asked about the death of an enemy, “When did Clodius die?” he answered, “Too late.” When told he didn’t live up to the reputation of his ancestors he pityingly responded, “You live up to yours.” A story not in this book but mentioned by Plutarch involved Julius Caesar’s new calendar, which vastly simplified astronomical predictions. When Cicero, an opponent of Caesar’s dictatorship, was told what date the constellation Lyra would rise, he grumbled, “No doubt it has been ordered to do so.”
 
Fontaine’s translation also includes On the Art of Humor by Quintilian (35-96 CE), even though for some reason it receives no mention on the cover. Quintilian was an academic, not a politician, so he was at little risk of political murder for his commentary. In his tract he largely echoes Cicero’s tenets and even uses some of his remarks as examples, such as when Dolabella’s wife claimed to be 30. “It must be true,” Cicero said. “I’ve been hearing her say it for 20 years.” (I don’t know if Dolabella became an Antony partisan, but his wife might have.) He also tells a story that shows Augustus good-naturedly could take some sass. During a show (“in spectaculis”) he spotted one of the equites (upper middle class) drinking and snacking. “When I want to eat lunch I go home,” chided Augustus. “You don’t need to worry about losing your seat,” the man answered.
 
I suspect neither book has improved my jokes or their delivery, but both offer food for thought. There are of course plenty of “jokes” in the world that are indefensibly mean, bigoted, or rude, but every person draws the line in a different place. Everyone will cross someone else’s line at some point. I’m therefore more inclined to simply call the offending joker a jackass or to just let his jackassery bray for itself rather than go all Mark Antony on the fellow – which nowadays involves head-chopping of a less literal kind. There is more merit in being Augustus.
 
As for political humor, Cicero’s advice to keep a core of truth in the barbs is still valid. (This is sorely lacking in most modern political memes, which most commonly shamelessly misrepresent the other side: satisfying to partisans but unconvincing to anyone else.) Will Rogers: “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” Will was funny.
 

Jefferson Airplane - Share a Little Joke