Humor Against the State
by Russell Madden

Humor is a tricky proposition. What may evoke a belly laugh in one person may elicit a blank stare in another, a grimace from a third, and indignant anger from a fourth. Much of the appeal of humor arises from a shared context that links the author of a joke or cartoon with the person reading or hearing the attempt at humor. When the artist and audience approach a topic from similar perspectives - are in synch - their congruent values or attitudes towards life or that elusive thing we call a "sense of humor" enable them to share a smile or chuckle or guffaw.

Paradoxically, though, the best humor emerges from a "violation of expectations," i.e., we are initially led in one direction by the joke teller. The punch line then veers sharply from the conclusion we expected and deposits us at a destination we did foresee.

Since most people enjoy laughter, humor is a sought after and widely enjoyed commodity. Consider how many sitcoms grace (or pollute) the airwaves. From the obvious slapstick of the Three Stooges to the subtler wordplay of a Jerry Seinfeld, the spectrum of humor caters to a variety of tastes and levels of sophistication.

Yet despite the fun and goofiness often associated with it, humor can be a serious business.

Laughter usually means laughing at something or someone. If you are the one on the receiving end of a witty barb, you might be less than enthused to endorse humor as a positive good. Yet the fact that humor has an object forms the basis for, the source of its strength and potential power beyond simple amusement.

With its foundation in twisted and skewed expectations, humor can be a useful tool in encouraging its consumers to question their previously unexamined ideas and beliefs. Since so many folks uncritically and subconsciously absorb their political and moral stands from parents and friends, from schools and media, they often react first and (don't) think later.

Humor can challenge those who have failed at introspection to see issues and problems from a new perspective. As such, humor can be profoundly disorienting...and equally threatening to fragile self-concepts. Viewing the world through new lenses requires a period of unsettling adjustment. To be effective, then, a humorist must keep his audience off-balance; leave them reeling. Inducing comfort is most emphatically not the goal of good humor.

Humor can be an instrument for social change. Coupled as it is with the positive reinforcement of laughter, humor's subversive qualities are often not recognized by those who are its immediate target....until too late. Before they even realize what is happening, the laughers may begin seeing their culture in a way that bodes ill for those who have counted so long on mindless acceptance of the status quo.

While humor comes in many forms, some types work better than others at puncturing the pretensions of our statist brethren. Parody, satire, mockery, sarcasm; each has its place in the quiver of humor's weaponry when confronting a society where the choice is often between laughing at the absurdity surrounding us or crying in despair at the evil threatening to ruin us.

As Ayn Rand said:

"Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at... Therefore, humor is a destructive element - which is quite all right, but its value and its morality depend on what it is that you are laughing at. If what you are laughing at is the evil in the world (provided that you take it seriously, but occasionally you permit yourself to laugh at it), that's fine." (Ayn Rand, quoted in The Ayn Rand Lexicon, p. 207.)

For those who have or are suffering beneath the hobnail boots of the State, the notion that its coercive power is metaphysically unimportant sounds ludicrous. When the State targets you, its sweet attentions can be as all-consuming as the flames of a crematory fire.

What Rand meant here, though, was that the only power evil has in the order of things is the power to destroy; it is without value; it is anti-life; it is the absence of what is required for existence. Taken to its parasitic limits, evil would perish from lack of "fuel." Evil cannot continue on its own sans those productive souls whose blood it metaphorically drinks.

When I make fun of statists and collectivists, the very act of attacking them implicitly acknowledges that dealing with such evil is a serious business. After all, it's my life I'm ultimately concerned with. As the foundation for any and all of my values, my life is something I take very seriously, indeed. I would not waste my time, my effort, my energies on what I do not take seriously.

Trying to destroy evil then is the flip side of actively seeking values. Given the unfortunate reality of the times in which we live, both activities are necessary. When so many people confuse destructive behavior with productive actions, humor is one way I endeavor to alert them to their errors...especially when their ruinous goals ensnare me in their calamitous disasters.

Some people object to the use of humor when dealing with philosophical, political, and ethical issues. They say they would rather hear solid arguments backed with evidence and citations and the whole nine-yards of academic discourse. They complain that they are "turned off" when a commentator makes fun of or mocks his opponents or their ideas.

Well, dispassionate academic arguments certainly have their place. Heaven knows I've crafted more than my share. After all, when confronted by a skeptical audience, a person should be able to provide the why's and wherefores to back up his claims.

But those who so vociferously denounce any use of humor as invalid mistakenly assume it is less "serious" than a rigorous argument.

Not so.

As Rand pointed out, seeking to destroy the destroyers is serious business. Good satire or parody requires intimate knowledge of both what is being attacked and the premises necessary for launching such an assault. Done in ignorance or through the use of half-grasped concepts, humor will ring hollow and fail to convey the proper perspective. A blunt arrow may do more harm than no arrow, at all.

As Rand said:

"Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice." (Rand, "Bootleg Romanticism," in The Romantic Manifesto, p. 133.)

When I seek to undercut the positions of statists and collectivists, of irrationalists and altruists, I do so knowing full well what my enemy believes and why. I find disguised endorsements of slavery and unwarranted death, of theft and murder unspeakably reprehensible, and those who so remorselessly and knowingly try to impose such abominations on innocent neighbors to be contemptible and unworthy as human beings.

I agree completely with Rand when she said that "...a [legitimate] satire does not share the values of that which it denounces; it denounces by means and in the context of an opposite set of values." (Rand, ibid., p. 138.)

This is why I am baffled and amazed when some readers vilify my humorous essays and charge me with the opposite of what I value. I suspect that when I take the advocates of destructive ideas at their word and simply follow through on the logical implications of their stances that those evasive folks who pretend to themselves that they are standard-bearers for reason and freedom and individualism glimpse flickering images of their real selves...and violently react to the truth their minds refuse fully to recognize.

I have long admired the piercing words of my role models. Jonathan Swift. Mark Twain. Ambrose Bierce. Lenny Bruce. Dave Barry. Homer Simpson... Each challenged the evil of his day. Each provoked laughter and outrage. Each helped twit those who believed it their right to crowd the rest of us into their narrow cells.

I will use any (ethical) means I can to slow down the juggernaut that is the welfare-warfare State. Pride, not remorse is what I feel when I wield a humorous spear to impale the busybodies and tyrants, large and small, who seek to impose their imperious wills upon the rest of us. I can only hope that in my own modest way I can be as big an obstacle to their illicit demands as they have been to my legitimate goals of freedom, morality, and peace.

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