The Right to Joke 

There is, increasingly, a climate that regards some jokes as promoting unacceptable political or social attitudes and that such jokes should thus be subject to censorship. Jokes, it is held, are disguised forms of aggression. They are not. Jokes, it is argued, are powerful. They are not. Jokes have never brought about any significant social or political change. Jokes, it is said, may if unchecked have dire social and political consequences. Nonsense. They do not. Jokes are, as the pompous would put it, ephemeral and epiphenomenal. Those who suppress them achieve nothing other than a display of their own power to oppress and control. Their arguments are demonstrably false and indeed silly. It is time they stopped treading on our jokes.

Jokes are both very important and completely unimportant.

The importance of jokes

Jokes are important because they are one of the few independent items of popular culture that exist. They are created by the people for the people and they are of the people. In the main they are not invented by scriptwriters or comedians, for these professionals are dependant on collecting and massaging jokes that are already in circulation. Jokes emerge first as chance witticisms or wise cracks made within a group, often in a particular context. Someone takes this proto-joke away, detaches it from its original setting and shapes it into a joke, either in the form of a short narrative or a riddle. There is usually a sudden, surprising and often shocking ending, the punch line. A good joke-teller hears the joke, polishes it further, fits it into a recognized pattern and another well-made joke goes into circulation. Jokes are one of the few ways in which ordinary people can use words creatively, whether as initiators of the proto-joke, as clever shapers and switchers or as raconteurs known for their skill in telling a comic story, for their timing and their genial misleading of an audience. The traditional village storyteller is extinct, wiped out by the competition of equally banal and repetitive soap operas but the slick urban joker thrives. Indeed the modern technology of the Internet and email and ever-cheapening international phone calls has multiplied the volume of jokes and increased the speed of their circulation. Within minutes of receiving a joke from Chicago a recipient in Britain can send it on to appreciative friends in Malaysia or Hungary or Newfoundland, almost as if they were all sitting in the same café exchanging jests. Jokes are intensely pleasurable which is why people invest so much time and ingenuity in giving, sharing and receiving them. Jokes are important.

The unimportance of jokes

Yet jokes are also unimportant. They have no significant material consequences. Vigorous political rhetoric, a stirring sermon, a persuasive advertisement, a well-placed lie, a piece of malicious gossip are all uses of words that are infinitely more powerful than jokes. When jokes are used in the pursuit of particular ends they are merely ancillary. They are added to the main message to make it more interesting, appealing and entertaining; they do not achieve anything that could not be attained in other non-humorous ways. Wit is not a weapon; it is merely the artistic decoration on the scabbard. Jokes are neither tiny revolutions nor an important safety valve for keeping the discontented passive. Jokes are not important.