Humoring the humor-haters

All semester my honors humor theory class has been tackling the question "What is humor for?" from various angles. Yesterday, though, I pointed out that the question itself implies that humor serves some purpose in human societies, presumably a good one. But what if we're dead wrong?

After all, the world has never lacked for people who believe that humor is frivolous or childish or even downright evil (see Jorge of Burgos in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose). People have rioted and killed over attempts at humor gone awry (see the infamous Mohammed cartoon incident). Young people bullied by classmates' pointed jokes have fought back with real weapons.

Is humor dangerous? Yesterday my students broke up into three groups, each attempting to persuade their classmates to adopt one of the following views:

1. Humor is essential for the survival of the human species.
2. Humor is important but not essential for survival.
3. Humor is dangerous or detrimental to the survival of the species.

I had to admire the way these students threw themselves into the debate, each group presenting a wealth of convincing arguments and evidence to support their assigned positions. In the end we voted, and the class split pretty evenly between positions 1 and 2, with no one voting for position 3. I suppose a student who believes that humor is dangerous is unlikely to register for a class devoted to studying humor theory, but still, it's interesting that they were so easily able to muster arguments for the evils of humor while remaining convinced that we just can't live without it.

At one point in the discussion a student turned to me and asked, "What about you? Has humor helped you get through cancer treatments?"

"Of course," I said. "In fact, this class has played a big part in keeping me sane this semester." Here's an example: yesterday morning I was feeling a little glum over a new side effect (ever heard of "peripheral neuropathy"? You could look it up), but I spent an hour in my colleague's class listening to my honors students do speeches honoring great comedians of the twentieth century (like Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, Jonathan Winters, and Red Skelton, among others) and then an hour in my class listening to those same students presenting brilliant and sometimes funny arguments about the importance of humor, and those two classes provided ample amounts of humor therapy. Humor isn't going to heal my side effects or cancel my cancer, but it sure helps me get through the day, providing necessary distraction from more serious concerns.

Of course, anyone who supports position 3 above would say such distraction is frivolous or childish or downright evil, but fortunately, I'm not one of those people--and neither are my honors students. We laugh in the face of Jorge of Burgos.

And then we keep laughing.