4 of 4

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

acknowledge that way of seeing, when coming from the person speaking. The joke is a product both of speaker and listener. The same observation becomes good-humoured, dry, insulting, even bitter: depending upon who speaks, how it is said, what is said, and how the audience is willing to take that observation from that specific speaker. (Is it even possible to create true humour that is not at the expense of somebody? The value-neutral pun creates at best a ripple of polite laughter, more often gasps or groans.) I find at least two possibilities determining differences in perception between speaker and listener, and thus difference as to whether something is in fact found humorous by both:

1) descriptive observation vs. valuation of what has been observed

* This is what "they" do
* This is what the joke-teller thinks of what "they" do (value interpretation)

2) insider vs. outsider

* Where both sets of observations are understood to be interpretations: which one is likely to be taken as the gentler, more understanding one? in which one are we more likely to see an explicit or implicit criticism? (For that matter: in which one is explicit criticism more likely to exist?)
* What constitutes core identity traits vs. foibles

This second might suggest why there seems to be a general willingness to accept personal observation more from a member of the "targeted" group than from someone outside that social group: the distinction between a denizen of a small town poking fun at their own small town foibles (and from within, one is assumed to know what are "just" foibles, as someone watching from outside cannot), as opposed to others making fun of those who live in that small town. The insider's joke is an (occasionally rueful) observation, while the outsider's joke can easily come to be taken as implied criticism or mockery or even thinly-veiled insult as given from a self-perceived position of superiority. In sharp contrast, "own group" observations by one firmly part of the targeted group, however darkly satirical those observations, will often be taken as humorous if at all possible: even when those observations were sometimes not intended as humorous in the slightest. Perhaps it is easier for us to reinterpret the uncomfortable into a "third person anonymous" humorous observation (consider the rant, raised to an art form) than to imagine that level of "own group" criticism or self-bitterness ... and thus, implicitly, to focus that sharp a scalpel at ourselves?

Yet while jokes targeting a particular social group by an outsider to that group can quickly become perceived as thinly-veiled insult regardless of intent: not infrequently the intent seems to be precisely that of elevating oneself at the expense of another social group: a zero-sum game of relative worth where one's own value can only be maintained by diminishing the value of others.

But surely, if one is secure in oneself: there is more than enough inherent personal value to go around? and humour need not reside in a desperately clung-to personal superiority?

Learn more about this author, Tenebris.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about The superiority theory and its effect on humor?
We want to hear your view. Write now!