Lauryn Nosek, Fall 2007
Humor is a dangerous weapon that needs to be brought under control before it’s too late. Too often humor is used in arguments where it doesn’t belong or isn’t required, confusing millions of helpless readers, listeners, and viewers. Humor is best described by Andrea Lunsford, John Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters in their book Everything’s an Argument with Readings: “By its very nature, humor is risky. Sometimes playing fast and loose with good taste and sound reason, writers using humor turn what’s comfortable and familiar inside out and hope readers get the joke” (394). Writers need to be more respectful towards the readers and ought not to attempt humor unless they can guarantee that the readers get the joke. Otherwise, readers may be traumatized by that loss of reason and the familiar, causing damage that can only be blamed on the writer’s reckless use of self-indulgent humor. The fact of the matter is that humor desperately needs to be better regulated because “it’s too powerful a tool to leave solely to comedians” (396). Lunsford and company again highlight the dangerous nature of comedy when they say, “not all such purposes [for humor] are praiseworthy; schoolyard bullies and vicious editorial cartoonists may use their humor just to hurt or humiliate their targets” (399). This unexpected downside of humor is rarely discussed. Indeed, humor is hazardous and detrimental to our way of life in more ways than one would expect.
Did you know that humor is a threat to our nation’s very stability and efficiency? Both on a political and a personal level, humorous arguments threaten to slow the system to a standstill. American politics are often exceedingly confusing and extensive in subject matter, ranging from foreign affairs to local environmental concerns. Some would call politics boring or dull. Humor has often been injected into speeches in an attempt to enliven an audience and promote useful insomnia at political events or rallies. Political cartoons and humorous lenses are used to explain and interpret the legalese of government into a form the public at large understands and finds interesting, encouraging them to get involved. This is one of the worst things that can be done to solve the problem of boredom and low participation in politics. Sure, there are those who would argue that political cartoons are meant to poke fun at politicians who seem to take themselves too seriously, or to criticize the establishment in the hopes that attempts will be made to correct the imperfections inherent in the system. On the contrary, if one examines the level and quality of the work that is accomplished within the U. S. government, it becomes clear that the use of humor can actually further slow the entire process and lower the quality of legislation as well as of elected officials.
The reality is that there are too many politicians who lack, altogether or in part, a sense of humor. The use of humor in arguments of a political nature by those who possess a sense of humor is unfair and all too often only confuses those poor politicians (and an extraordinary number of observers of the system) who lack that sixth sense. How are they supposed to know which suggestions are merely jokes and which are intended to be taken seriously? If, in passing, one politician makes a joke, especially one infused with sarcasm, and the other cannot sense that it was not meant to be taken seriously, he or she may end up wasting valuable time and resources in the pursuit and development of serious legislation related to the joke. That isn’t fair to them and it most certainly isn’t fair to the tax paying public at large. Then there are the inevitable blows to their sense of self as they are lampooned and teased. The psychological suffering they go through must have an impact on their ability to make crucial decisions that affect the nation as a whole. If such dry humor is to remain, some sort of notification system must be developed, a sarcasm sign or laugh track to indicate the humorous intent of a line of conversation, something portable and overt in relaying its message.
As for the portion of the public who turn to humorous articles and satirical news programs for the majority of their information (sources like The Onion and The Daily Show come to mind), they are simply irresponsible. The point of such articles and programs is to be funny, manipulating the facts of the story if need be. Relying solely on those comedians for news isn’t going to provide the same kind of understanding that examining the letter of the policies and studies would bestow. The responsible thing is for them to remove themselves and, as a result, the confusion, from influencing public opinion. If this cannot be achieved, it’s up to the public at large to avoid such unreliable and absurd resources at all cost.
In addition, Lunsford et al also point out that in the creation of humor, “suspension of good judgment and taste” (409) are required. Regrettably, good judgment and taste are in too short a supply for the people who do possess them to go around suspending them just for the sake of creating a little bit of humor, especially when that humor may be doing more bad than good already. Until a new source of good judgment and taste can be found or a synthetic substitute can be created, it is our moral obligation to conserve the levels currently in circulation, if not for ourselves, then for posterity’s sake. Do we really want our children to grow up in a tasteless world with only bad judgment to guide them?
The various senses of humor that exist and at times contradict one another can lead to discrimination. Like the five senses, not everyone possesses an ability to understand or appreciate the many kinds of humor. This might promote discrimination in society and would require further demands on the governmental system’s time and resources. Lunsford and company exemplify this in their book in their limitation of the “Characterizing Kinds of Humor” (399) section to include only satire and parody. Where is slap stick comedy in their “kinds of humor?” Action is in many cases a form of symbolic speech (especially for the deaf for whom it is necessary for basic communication), and since everything is an argument, what could their justification be for excluding slapstick? They also degrade another kind of humor when they say, “abstract humor probably doesn’t work for anyone except German philosophers and drunken graduate students” (408). Human history has seen how long it takes for people to overcome differences like race, gender, and religion. There is no way of knowing how bad tension between the humors could get or what new legislation would be required to accommodate for the humorously handicapped. Including explanations as to why something is funny is the most logical solution and it is also a way of keeping the amount of humor to a minimum since it is widely acknowledged that explaining what makes something funny reduces the level of humor it contains. Until there naturally occurs a universalized sense of humor, an artificial leveling must take place.
What’s more, there is still a lack of consensus concerning the effects that humor has on human health. At one point in time, a doctor, whose name seems to have disappeared from the history books, determined that laughter is the best medicine. None of the studies or experiments that proved this fact survived. In more recent history, a theory has arisen, from a similarly unknown source, that laughter is actually infectious and/or contagious. Again, there is no surviving proof that this is in fact the truth. The first suggests that laughter is a cure for disease, while the latter implies just the opposite: that laughter could actually cause a disease that spreads easily and quickly through the population. Though laughter does not always result from the use of humor in arguments, until doctors and scientists are able to determine whether laughter is a disease in need of eradication or a useful drug, the very fact that laughter may occur when humor is used, should be enough of a reason to limit its use, at least until more on the subject is ascertained. If researchers should determine that laughter is a disease, further research ought to be conducted to determine the exact correlation between laughter and humor in hopes of figuring out ways to minimize laughter. Perhaps they will be able to create a synthetic humor that reduces the risks of side effects like laughter. On the other hand, if laughter should be found to be “the best medicine,” or even only a valuable vitamin of sorts, further research would need to be performed to maximize humor’s potential for laughter so that it can be harnessed and distributed to those who need it most while keeping the aforementioned side effects to a minimum.
Humor is unpredictable and once it is used, it cannot be prevented from offending, confusing, and humiliating people. The full effects of its impact on society are not yet known and those that are observable at present are largely ignored. Lunsford and company say, “some would suggest that humor is a gift” (407). But perhaps it’s a gift like Pandora’s box, one that is best left unopened.
Works Cited
Lunsford, Andrea A., John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything’s an Argument with Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007