Censorship for equality

In the very phrase 'blaming the victim' we can begin to perceive the nature of the liberalism that seeks to ban jokes about entire categories of groups who are defined as 'victims' even though they are not victims in any reasonable use of the word, they are merely losers who can be turned into political causes. It is this egalitarian ideology that is the source of the notion that scorn, satire and sarcasm should only be directed upwards. Where individuals work together face-to-face in a single hierarchical organization based on kick and lick management (kick those below, lick those above), then such a proposition has a certain force. Yet I have never met a politically correct academic who refrained from using scorn, satire and sarcasm against students or junior colleagues or secretaries who lacked any power of reply but reserved it for deans and vice-chancellors even if only behind their backs. Likewise I doubt if there exist many broadcasters who observe this simple moral principle. It is, though, a principle that does not and should not apply to society in general and to try to make it do so by treating an impersonal and necessarily unequal social order as if it were analogous with bullying between individuals is muddled and dishonest. Those who uphold it as an ideal but live by mocking those dependant on their favour and laughing at the boss's jokes at the expense of his underlings including themselves are humbugs and lackeys into the bargain. The world is full of them.

An analogy may be made between the arbitrary and unjust view that humour should always be directed upwards and never downwards and the earlier economic preachings of Liberation Theology and 'Bias to the Poor'. In either case egalitarianism is taken to be unchallengeable ideology based on universally accepted precepts. In fact we live in a plural society where many reject and even condemn egalitarianism and it is their right to do so. If a total absence of downwardly directed humour were to exist, it would not be an indication of moral consensus but of the misuse of power in the same sense that very high marginal rates of taxation used to be. Within broadcasting this undemocratic use of power to filter out the downwardly directed humour enjoyed by the broad mass of the population is obvious but there is even a chill factor as far as informal joking is concerned. Fortunately people always resist. When jokes about the stupidity and promiscuity of 'blonde girls' emerged in America they were seen in that country as conforming to the edict that jokes should be directed against a set of people who were envied, beautiful and drawn from the more privileged ethnic groups. Blonde girls were as safe as lawyers. Fortunately for freedom the British version, Essex Girl jokes, reversed this and pinned the jokes on coarse, vulgar, lower-class slappers who spoke mud in yer mouth estuary English.

Voice on phone: "'allo Tracey. This is Dave".
Tracey: "'oo are you".
Dave: "Don't you remember? I 'ad you in the pub car park last night".
Tracey: "Was it The Red Lion, the Turk's Head or the Royal Oak?"

Wayne and Tracey are in a restaurant.
Wayne: "Do you fancy coq au vin?"
Tracey: "Nah. I fink sex in a transit is tacky".

The map of South-Eastern England looks like the back end of a pig. East Anglia and Kent are the two sides of the rump and Essex occupies a very important position indeed ………and so does Canvey Island.

Interestingly the then Bishop of Chelmsford refused to write an introduction to a proposed collection of Essex Girl jokes by a devout Northamptonshire clergyman, not on the grounds of their obscenity but because they were 'demeaning'. Yet it is this very quality that made the success of the Essex Girl jokes a symbol of cultural liberty and a willingness to defy compulsory egalitarianism. Jokes and freedom go together and it is right and fitting that jokes should be directed downwards at the behaviour and qualities of the excluded as well as upwards and that jokes directed upwards should include among their butts those who have and exercise the power to prevent jokes being directed downwards.

The account given here of jokes suppressed and of jokes that survive that suppression is part of a general story of how the ideology of liberal egalitarianism held by those with power over words and symbols has come to pervade our culture to the point where even those who reject it do not publicly question it. Because those who hold it are powerful, they are able to pretend that this contested ideology constitutes the accepted morality of the society. Those who acknowledge and yet sneak round its prohibitions by telling jokes are always on the edge of being censored. If the jokes of those who enjoy this hegemonic cultural power offend those outside their magic circle of concern, they are of no account and jokes about them can be blared forth with impunity. However those whose jokes offend them will find themselves confined to a merely private space whose boundaries the powerful will then seek to constrict. They will deny that they are exercising arbitrary power for are they not doing so in the name of equality? It is time to say to them, 'Enough! We see what you are about. We know that jokes are important to us and of no consequence to anyone else and we will have the jokes we want and on our terms whether you like them or not.'

Author's note

It would be inappropriate to clog up with footnotes a publication of this kind. However, any factual assertions I have made can be checked and confirmed by the reader in my many scholarly works on jokes and humour. The most recent and comprehensive of these is

Christie Davies, The Mirth of Nations, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 2002, ISBN =0-7658-0096-9.

The Author

Professor Christie Davies, who is a graduate of Cambridge University (M.A., PhD.), has taught at several British universities and in Australia. He has been a visiting lecturer in India, where he first began to study jokes on a comparative basis and in the United States. He has also lectured on jokes and humour in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway and Poland. His research on jokes in Canada was funded by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and his research on jokes in California by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. He is the author of four scholarly books on jokes and humour and of a large number of scholarly articles in refereed journals on this same topic. His work on jokes has been translated into Bulgarian, Danish, Hebrew, Japanese and Polish.