The Tyranny of Humour

i don't know how anyone can survive in this world without recognizing the inherent ridiculousness of human existence

personally, i strongly disagree that earnestness and sincerity are close to the bottom on the list of qualities i value in others

Did anyone actually say that this is true for them?

This thread is clearly going to delineate along the usual lines of those for whom humour shows some kind of camaraderie and those for whom it's a slightly presumptuous assumption of intimacy. I'm not going to draw any cultural conclusions, but I tend towards the latter. But I'm also one of those po-faced fules who values sincerity.

This is nonsense though. Sincerity vs humour is a false dichotomy. The idea that ideas of humour split along those lines is another one. You yourself clearly don't view it as a presumptions assumption of intimacy because you use humour around people you don't particularly know all the time, onboard at least. It's only the case if you're talking about a particularly pointed and/or mean humour, cf "banter" culture in the UK (destroy destroy destroy).

sincerity is not the opposite of humor
xpost

otm - it's very strange to me that several people seem to think that it is

Agree... with the false dichotomy bit (xxp)

In terms of humor born of fear, it seems that there are basically two types (aside from the aforementioned 'ineptly going through the motions of a joke' humor) that have become widely: distancing humor as defense mechanism/tension release valve (present in and undercutting every horror movie made these days) and humor that directly addresses sources of blight and sadness (a la The Soup). I'm not a fan of the former.

I think there may be some confusion (possibly on my part) as to whether we're addressing humor ITTA on a cultural level or on a personal level. I hold humor in very high esteem on a personal level (a compatible sense of humor is probably the number one determinant of how compatible I'm likely to be with another person), but I also hold the appropriate demarcation of humor in very high esteem. Culturally, that demarcation seems to be a highly-permeable membrane (and almost unselectively so, at times) anymore because of that fear born of not knowing how to communicate with one another anymore as antiquated social bonds crumble. Instead of directly addressing the problem of Bowling Alone, we crack wise about how we're bowling alone to stave off some heavy existential terror.

Humour is an effective tool but a dark art. One shouldn't wield it unless one knows what they're doing.

This times 10000000 (culturally speaking).

And using humour to amuse yourself primarily?

i think if anything as we've bowled more frequently alone we've gotten less funny, unless you count quoting high-grossing comedies at each other as being funny. a lot of the stuff people are (rightly) complaining about in this thread isn't funny; it's just noise. plenty of people with no sense of humor constantly make jokes.

calling someone who only amuses himself funny is like calling someone who well i'm sure you can finish this

distancing humor as defense mechanism/tension release valve (present in and undercutting every horror movie made these days) and humor that directly addresses sources of blight and sadness (a la The Soup). I'm not a fan of the former.

you might not be a fan of humor as a defense mechanism, but it provides a serious, helpful psychological benefit to many people who are in real need of a defense mechanism. some situations can't be directly dealt with, so "staving off existential terror" is the only possibility.

Thinking about humour at a presumption of familiarity - this is only the case for me when there are power dynamics involved. I don't want my new boss making certain kinds of jokes around me, especially if they're even relatively mild ones at my expense, or that of someone else in the team. But humour in other directions breaks down boundaries, it's a lot harder to get to the level of familiarity without it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyL8sKJJUHU

calling someone who only amuses himself funny is like calling someone who well i'm sure you can finish this

― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:27 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this was supposed to read "calling someone funny who only amuses himself is like calling someone sexy who well i'm sure you can finish this", obviously i am not the authority on jokes that i thought

calling someone who only amuses himself funny is like calling someone who well i'm sure you can finish this

Don't think anyone said that, but being funny without amusing yourself sounds interesting

it really is worth reading the whole thing, but in bergson's conclusion he says:

Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.

Shall we be told that the motive, at all events, may be a good one, that we often punish because we love, and that laughter, by checking the outer manifestations of certain failings, thus causes the person laughed at to correct these failings and thereby improve himself inwardly?

Much might be said on this point. As a general rule, and speaking roughly, laughter doubtless exercises a useful function. Indeed, the whole of our analysis points to this fact. But it does not therefore follow that laughter always hits the mark or is invariably inspired by sentiments of kindness or even of justice.

To be certain of always hitting the mark, it would have to proceed from an act of reflection. Now, laughter is simply the result of a mechanism set up in us by nature or, what is almost the same thing, by our long acquaintance with social life. It goes off spontaneously and returns tit for tat. It has no time to look where it hits. Laughter punishes certain failings somewhat as disease punishes certain forms of excess, striking down some who are innocent and sparing some who are guilty, aiming at a general result and incapable of dealing separately with each individual case. And so it is with everything that comes to pass by natural means instead of happening by conscious reflection. An average of justice may show itself in the total result, though the details, taken separately, often point to anything but justice.

Hah, this is sort of what I was getting at in the other thread

well that's a big question i think. humour seems to have a self-protective function as much as a reaching out function, and of course there's whole sections of humour designed to hurt or belittle. but now more than ever i feel like "being funny" is in some way at the heart of social discourse.

Well yeah, what you protect and what you belittle are part of your social "signature" - laughter is just a measure function over it. The quickest I've ever made a friend was by watching a multi-person comedy show with someone and seeing what they laughed at and what they didn't.

I'm actually quite funny IRL in the right settings, but rarely bother to try on ILX. and then when I'm writing reviews etc I find myself making humorous bits, but I doubt they're really funny, especially once they go out to public. Problem is once you've stared at, proofed and redrafted, what was once an amusing idea tends to have lost any impact whatsoever, so it's impossible to know whether someone reading for the first time would find it light-hearted and fun or stilted and embarrassing.

So take out the jokes then? Well it's not that simple - often humour can work as a structural device - it's easier to "show" rather than "tell" with humour. It can be a useful way of making a point or moving commentary along without resorting to bland matter-of-factness.

xpost to n/a

Yeah, but again we're in that hazy territory where I don't know exacly whether we're discussing humor as a tool of interpersonal communication here or humor as it's used on a broader cultural level. On an interpersonal level, pressure release humor is highly valuable in the moment.

There is "I can joke about this because it's not important to me", and "I can joke about this because it is important to me" and in my experience most people really really can tell the difference very quickly.

Earnestness/sincerity are perfectly fine in many ways, but as personality traits aren't they v close to the bottom of the list of 'positives' you'd ideally be looking for in ppl you've to spend time with?

Absolutely not and under no circumstances - the best people have things that they very definitely have no sense of humour about (in public at least)

Don't think anyone said that, but being funny without amusing yourself sounds interesting

― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:31 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah i wasn't accusing anyone here of saying that, just talking about humor as retreat/insulation vs. humor as engagement/understanding; they are technically similar but not really the same thing or of the same value at all.

some people are funny without amusing themselves! they're good at letting you see inside a mind that is sufficiently different from yours to be unexpected and exciting for you but has never really been so for them. altruists of humor!

and some people you're just laughing at, obv

Also there's a difference between sincerity and self-importance.

See also: "Can't you take a joke?" as a tool of absolute cunts.

I don't know exacly whether we're discussing humor as a tool of interpersonal communication here or humor as it's used on a broader cultural level.

I don't think there's a difference TBH!

Like, the entire function of humor is bound up with connecting the individual to the broader culture. (It's similar to gossip in this respect)

the problem i have with most humour i encounter is how LAZY it is, it's entirely dependent on clichés and archetypes and reducing things to easy, recognisable targets when you can't be bothered to engage - and often it's just space filler, an attempt at the most basic type of "bonding" that's more about the joker trying to score half a brownie point with his or her perceived peers than about the subject of the "joke"

i guess, insofar as i like any humour, it's the really dry, incisive type borne of an insider's actual knowledge - the kind of witty comparison or turn of phrase that makes me think the person making it knows their shit, rather than drawing on received wisdom for an easy laugh. marina hyde excels at this!

i do not know how to be funny, let alone in a "light" way, and this has been the subject of wrangles with several editors in my time (I DO NOT DO JOKES), but insofar as i can be humorous in writing, it's only ever when i don't really care about my subject or don't particularly care about being accurate, which says a lot. if i love something i can't joke about it!

also no professional comic i have ever encountered has made me laugh, or indeed made me do anything except purse my lips in really intense disapproval to disguise my RAGE at their temerity

It's quite illuminating to see the people whose first thought about humour is as a barbed weapon with someone at the butt of it.

i didn't realize there was a humor epidemic in the UK?

am i the only person not feeling the "tyranny of humor" around me?

Did anyone actually say that this is true for them?

― wolf kabob (ENBB), Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:17 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

was a response to this:

Earnestness/sincerity are perfectly fine in many ways, but as personality traits aren't they v close to the bottom of the list of 'positives' you'd ideally be looking for in ppl you've to spend time with?

― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Thursday, March 1, 2012 6:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

also no professional comic i have ever encountered has made me laugh, or indeed made me do anything except purse my lips in really intense disapproval to disguise my RAGE at their temerity

See, that is amusing to me

i'm surprised the word "banter" hasn't cropped up itt yet #LADS

Esp. RAGE in capitals

it cropped up upthread iirc someone said "banter culture"

What does it mean?

lex, we've only met briefly a couple of times so i don't know, but do you consider yourself to be funny/have a sense in day-to-day life, or is this only a policy in yours and others' media?

though weirdly i don't have much of an issue with banter IRL, as opposed to as a cultural phenomenon (maybe because no one i hang out with engages in ~banter~ except a few people i went to university with, who i see like once every 6 months, it's quite fun being a slightly different person in those times)

also, yes, of course, humor v sincerity is a "false dichotomy" if we take the opposition as complete and absolute. it is, nevertheless, a useful means of opposing two different and at times seemingly opposing tendencies in human communication.

Except Lex you use humour all the time in everyday conversation with people and laugh when people make jokes in the pub, and you like a lot of artists for whom humour is an integral part of their appeal.*

*Unless 'How Many Licks' is an earnest academic study of cunnilingus, which I'm not ruling out.

xps i like to laugh, i have many friends who are good at witty bons mots, and occasionally i think of one myself, they are kind of different to wider cultural humour though

Except Lex you use humour all the time in everyday conversation with people

i don't mean to i didn't mean it it wasn't my fault

i didn't realize there was a humor epidemic in the UK?

am i the only person not feeling the "tyranny of humor" around me?

― the late great, Thursday, March 1, 2012 10:50 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No.

Contend - yeah, I saw that later. Sorry.

I think of "banter" in the Corden usage as the point at which straight-up bullying pretends to be mild teasing between people on a level playing field. See also Just A Bit Of Fun.

also, banter as homosocial bonding strategy among (certain kinds of?) str8 men to avoid having to ~talk about anything~. it's usually quite self-aware, in fact hyper-self-aware.

the late great - no, I don't really get this either. if someone's trying to be funny, i hardly find it to be an affront to the senses - if it makes me laugh, jolly good; if it doesn't, i politely ignore it and move on. this goes for IRL, writing and TV/film. What I don't like is when you get "comedies" that seem to avoid humour altogether - I'm thinking Scrubs or You, Me & Dupree or something equally heinous where you're suddenly under the realisation that there are NO JOKES, just comedic pacing and delivery. That fucks me off. The latest Noel Fielding is a rare but recent example of something that actively makes me cringe at its humour.

That show is possibly the worst thing I have ever seen.

It belongs both here and on this thread:

NOT FUNNY.

This is a great thread idea. It's legitimately fascinating to me to read everyone's different takes on the function of humor.

the problem i have with most humour i encounter is how LAZY it is, it's entirely dependent on clichés and archetypes and reducing things to easy, recognisable targets when you can't be bothered to engage - and often it's just space filler, an attempt at the most basic type of "bonding" that's more about the joker trying to score half a brownie point with his or her perceived peers than about the subject of the "joke"

― lex pretend, Thursday, March 1, 2012 3:48 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

While I think this applies to a lot of the humour I hate too, I will actually stick up somewhat for the operation of tropes as social intercourse. Being pretty socially maladjusted in myself, sometimes in an awkward situation it can be good to fall back on a clichéd method of interaction, because it allows everyone involved to know where they stand, and can provide an entry point into a more meaningful interaction later. I think I allow humour to provide this more because I can kind of do it, whereas I loathe small talk used for this purpose because I am *terrible* at it.