Practitioners of Zen believe that humor is the highest form of expression, because it can transcend language. Generally, a joke doesn't need to be explained to someone. It is what it is and it's funny. They love puns and riddles.
So the Zen Buddhists place comedy as the highest form of expression, while other cultures place it among the lowest. The latter seems a bit pretentious, don't you think? So let's give the Zennies the benift of the doubt and trust their wisdom.
What is funny? Comedy takes many forms, but humor is mostly a privelege. A social privelege, as a matter of fact. Humor relies on degrees of "separation;" that is, a person's ability to enjoy a joke is dependant on their freedom from hindering social factors. If the ideal is the purity of mind to embrace humor, then factors that detract from a person's ability to laugh at something are restrictions on a person's mind. Such factors include personal strife, trauma, and pressure as a result of such things as terrible experiences, racism, or social construction.
In other words, a holocaust survivor is less likely to be able to appreciate a joke about the holocaust. An individual that has been plagued by racial violence will have difficulty finding a racist joke amusing. An uneducated person will not grasp wordplay. A person raised to be concerned with "proper" ettiquette or behavior may be too serious to enjoy off-color humor.
One joke may amuse one individual and offend another. The difference is in each's level of separation from the material. A person that cannot escape the negative factors that hinder humor will be restricted in their openness to certain types of humor. It's widely unavoidable, though pitiable, if the goal is an ability to laugh at everything.
Separations are also temporal. For some, separation increases with time, so a joke that may be "too soon" now may be more acceptable later. More likely, the lack of separation is just magnified by the proximity of the topic. On a wider spectrum, temporal separation reflects differences in humor between generations.
Humor is a privelege. The highest point of mental liberation is to find humor in any subject. If you hear a joke that offends you, the immediate reaction is "that's not funny." The truth is that your experiences or background have left you enslaved to a hindering force that makes you unable to appreciate the humor. You are not as priveleged as those that can laugh. While you are surely able to laugh at other things, you're limited in what you can laugh at. You're trapped by your need to hold subjects sacred or taboo.
If there is a divinity, if there is an enlightenment . . . its symptom is laughter.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
An interesting point. I must argue that a black man laughing at a racist joke wouldn't be a betrayal of his knowledge or values. However, you brought up the subject of demeaning humor, or jokes with the intent of degrading someone. In all honesty, I neglected to consider this at all.
There is a difference, I feel, between a joke that attempts to be shocking to the point of being offensive, and a joke that deliberately exploits one group of people to entertain another. The former reveals the absurdity of our racist culture or any aspect of our society. Like Carlos Mencia, except, y'know, hopefully funnier.
But then there's the latter, which is way more complicated. What about jokes that just mock say, black people, to entertain, say, white people? That's pretty tough to defend, and I'm guessing that's your point. In this situation a white man and a black man come from different backgrounds, and the joke may be exclusive to one background to be entertaining. The same applies to a lot of inter-gender humor.
In exploring ideals I did take a bit of a naive view on what constitutes humor. I thank you for pointing that out. But does a black man laughing at really degrading joke mean he's abandoned his values and history? It might, but not necessarilly.
I feel my argument still stands, but the problem lies in the connotation. A person's background can limit their acceptance of humor directed to hurt them, and it's nearly unavoidable. However, these limiting factors really aren't negative by virtue of themselves. I would argue that if a joke is truly being repressive, it is limited not only by the audience, but by the comedian.
But again, can the joke really not be enjoyed? It could be amusing for entirely different reasons, or simply because the comedian seems so pitifully ignorant.
Words and concepts that originally exist to repress people (queer, nigger) can be taken control of by those people and effectively diffused. Of course, the process isn't uniform and some will hold onto the hate and repression attached to such things while others are able to transcend them. Some would argue that the latter is abandoning values, but I argue that it's a necessary process of moving our society forward. (The word queer has virtually no power anymore, and the word nigger is slowly declining in certain contexts. Feminists have been working with words like "cunt" and "bitch," and offensive but not racial or gender specific words, like "fuck" are nowhere near as powerful as they were, say, fifty years ago.)
Is a person that tells a racist joke racist? They don't need to be. Many of the people that tell such jokes are so opposed to racism that the jokes are funny for new reasons. The option for the targeted people is to either resist the joke outright, or to tell it, laugh at it, and mock it. If a white man tales a racist joke and offends black people, it generates hate. But what if black people take the same joke and make it their own? Doesn't that destroy the power behind it? The comedian becomes the target of the humor, and the repressed transcend their status.
My general point is that getting angered by something gives it power over you. If an oppressive joke is simply not funny, it should be shrugged off as pathetic and mocked, not hated.
Hopefully.
I stated that in the beginning humor does transcend language. It's just funny because it is. The rest was more or less exploring what prevents something from being funny to someone. And it's a lot of factors, not a big objective thing. We're the products of our environments, after all.
I disagree with your theory on "dissection." You don't need to be educated to enjoy a poem, but analyzing it doesn't cheapen it. If anything, exploring the meanings and possible forces behind a poem enhance it and do a service to the poet. Likely the poet had none of those things in mind when he wrote it, but it's there.
Beyond human comprehension? Not for something human-born. I don't accept that. I might not know why I find something funny, but I can look at what I tend to find funny compared to other people.
Of course, a joke's different than a poem. I think reading a poem and refusing to look at its construction and meaning is a disservice to the poet. The truth for you and the truth for him/her will be different anyway.
I also never said that something that isn't funny necessarily offends you. What you find funny is the process of many things throughout your life, as well as the numerous things that make up your background, not limited to race, religion, age, gender, or location, though they are all factors.
I don't think taking a deeper look at something kills the "magic" of it or cheapens it. I've studied so much literary theory that I can dissect "Macbeth" a hundred different ways, and it doesn't keep me from loving the play. If anything, it's given me a better understanding of all the things the play could mean and helped me enjoy it more.
As always, I deny any excuse to avoid thinking deeper about something. Knowing that a star is a ball of gas doesn't make it any less beautiful.
Yikes . . . so MUCH to reply to. Forgive me for dodging any questions. I'm honestly just losing track of what I'm trying to talk about here.
My general point is pretty simple in regard to anger and racism. If a person is able to make you angry, they hold power over you. That's what I believe. Words have power. Let's take a word like "nigger" or "fuck" or "faggot." Obviously, each is very different in how severe it is, but the point is each can incite anger in people. That anger gives them power and makes them taboo. If the word is used more, or it is laughed off, it loses its power.
So a racist joke is offensive. Yes. And a person being degraded by it should be offended by it. I can't argue that one. I will say that getting angry allows the joke to hold power, as opposed to undermining the joke by laughing at how poor it is. Or mocking the comedian for such a pathetic attempt at offending you. In other words, turning it around on the attacker and making them look stupid, or at least leaving yourself to appear unphased.
Your point is most certainly made, though.
Ok. What have I accomplished here? Absolutely nothing. I don't recall claiming to. My goal in writing about comedy was to express some ideas I had. That's it. Does philosophy have a point? It's a process. I just wrote what was on my mind for the sake of it. And naturally it had some holes in it that have been pointed out.
Would you be happier blissfully stupid in the garden of eden for eternity, or would you rather eat from the tree? It is a difference of personality. But I'm going to argue that it doesn't have to be an either-or choice. Either I accept this as it is or I explore it and ruin it. It isn't that way for me.
And what else can you do with that tissue paper? Blow your nose on it. Trace a picture with it. Fold it into origami. If you look at it as more than tissue paper, there are lots of options. Crumpling it is just the start. If you just took it as a sheet of thin paper, none of that would be appreciated, would it?
Post a Comment