One of the leading and genuine calibrations of the culture of a people may be found in the humor/comedy that characterizes that culture. The humor itself needs analysis, together with the communicators and audiences of that humor. All three factors are important for evaluation. Humor, if we have it, may be a revealing evidence of the condition of our thought life, of our morality, of our sophistication. Sophistication includes a great many factors from our educational orientation to consideration of the sensitivities and values of others. Humor is important to good relationships even though it has, in quality, declined in public consideration during recent decades. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-3) At this writing matters have become raunchy in public humor so that even secular critics are stunned by the lack of perception and good taste. Wedding toasts, as one example, have become low brow for many banquets. A secular writer stated: Leave your vulgarities and insecurities at home. He pointed out that the bad toasts focus not only on sex jokes, but loses idealism that ought to be reflected upon two persons launching their future together. Further, he noted: They’re not coming only from men. One lady played on how dysfunctional the couple may become in intimacy. Wedding counselors are wondering about how to keep it clean. One said: I don’t see it getting any better. Some of what passes for humor is only joking for sniggers. The laughs become rancid for listeners respectful of wholesome life – proper human sanctity.
Illustrations can be multiplied. We were meant to laugh, to detect surprise in a statement, to balance the paradoxical and contradictory experiences in life. Humor, rightly understood, releases some pressures of life, life always under clouds of this or that. (Proverbs 14:13) The humor of a tribe or society, when the humor is healthy, makes the human condition less weighty and threatening. Kings of the middle ages had their fools. These jesters became popular – a popularity mixed with pity. Shakespeare helped in understanding them. The jester, with his humor, reflected truth in some part. His primary use was to relieve life pressure in the court. Hamlet reflected seriously on the matter in an early scene of the drama of tragedy.
One can feel real humor experiences of the Bible. Jesse had presented seven sons to Samuel for anointing to kingship. Samuel passed on all of them, creating pauses in his procedures. What did Samuel do? He said to Jesse: Are these all your sons? How did he say it? With seven, did he expect more? The situation was festive. (I would guess that Samuel knew how many there were.) A crowd was there waiting to sit down to a feast. (Ecclesiastes 10:19). Given my temperament, I might have said to Jesse, with some aplomb: Got any more boys? (Laughter) Yep, got one more, but he is tending sheep. (More laughter) If appropriate exchange, the tensions of long delay would alleviate. When young David entered, all present knew that: This is he. Humor in our lives ought to be looked for, found in life experiences. We ought to permit it to grow out of what we are, and can become. It ought to help us not to take ourselves too seriously (importantly). Humor is not the plant, but it is a flower. It will fade, and the plant will remain. There has been left an aroma, a color, a perception and an exhilarating paradox for living. Laughing at oneself is a dissolver of misunderstanding, of impossible expectations – to relief. Even so there are those who refuse humor, and the person of humor. We protect them. They have refused a friend. But persons have right to choose their friends for life. Our concern is to use humor for life’s proper decoration, perhaps to meaning. What we laugh at does have meaning – for us and those who evaluate us. Rightful humor is evidence of values rightfully respected. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020