On taking a joke

[hrj]

shalmestere dropped a cryptic thank you to me for a comment I'd made on someone else's journal on the topic of inter-kingdom anthropology, jokes (especially about stereotypes), and the Problem Of Humor. So rather than either leave people wondering or have them try to hunt down the original post, I thought I'd file off some serial numbers, re-contextualize it, and repeat it here.

The original issue had to do with an in-joke that was originally intended to poke fun at a particular stereotypical West Kingdom attitude, but seemed to be being taken by some instead as a sincere belief in that attitude, which attitude some found offensive. (Or maybe some people were finding the poking fun offensive. It can be hard to tell.) Since the general run of comments seemed to be along the lines of "If they're offended they need to get over themselves -- it's just a joke," I of course had to take a contrary position. The following was my comment (with some of the specifics turned more generic):

I'll put in my two cents that, given that [the motto on the artifact] accurately reflects a common (although not universal) Western attitude, if one simply understands the offense as being taken to the attitude rather than the [artifact], then it is both understandable and outside one's control. Yes, the motto is a "joke" -- but like most good jokes (like my West Kingdom lightbulb joke, if I may include it in the category of "good") it rests on a foundation of truth.

It's rarely useful to tell someone "You have no business being offended -- can't you take a joke?" Derogatory humor has a long history of being used to communicate and promulgate social attitudes while maintaining plausible deniability on the part of the promulgator. Not a reason to eliminate the humor -- but a reason for the promulgator to accept responsibility for the underlying message as well as the superficial humor. If someone were offended at my "this is the bulb that has always been in this socket" punchline, I'd be delighted to shift into a serious discussion of the corporate culture that inspired the joke, and I'd be perfectly willing to own up that it was intended as a derogatory jab at the attitude being portrayed in the joke. I wouldn't try to laugh it off with a "F**k 'em if they can't take a joke." It isn't just a joke -- it was always intended to function in parallel as serious social commentary.

Dismissing a joke as meaningless undermines the obervation and insight that made it funny in the first place. And the same things that make it funny can, in a different context, make it offensive. That contrast can be useful if it's used as an opening for exploring the underlying observations and insight, rather than being the literary equivalent of leaving a banana peel on the sidewalk.