5.2: Why Moral Failure Leads to Comic Failure

Comic moralism is the view that morally problematic content in a joke decreases the funniness of the joke. It will be assumed for the sake of the argument that jokes can have immoral content and we will ignore the resultant ethical questions about whether it is morally right or wrong to tell such ethically problematic jokes. The claim here is that even if you have no problem delivering these sorts of jokes, you shouldn’t tell them – not for moral reasons, but for artistic ones. They are less effective jokes.

Humor is a particular type of art form, it is “teleological.” The word “teleology” comes from the Greek words “telos” which means aim or goal. Something is teleological if it has something it is seeking to accomplish.

Some art is teleological and some art is not. Non-teleological art is creative work for its own sake. Consider miniatures, that is, tiny replicas of large-scale objects, like doll furniture. There was a movement wherein artists created incredibly intricate copies of ornate furniture using all the actual materials but they would be three inches high. The talent and patience required was incredible. These pieces are stunning. But there is no purpose beyond themselves that they serve.

Think of art as creating relationships. In the case of non-teleological art, the only important relationship is between (1) the artist and (2) the artwork. Whether you see it, whether you are impressed by it, whether you like it is irrelevant. The goal was simply for the artist to make it. Non-teleological art has a two-place relationship at its heart.

Teleological art is intended by the artist to do something, to be a tool for some goal beyond the work. That goal could be of one of two types: external or internal. External teleological art is art that is meant to give rise to an impulse in the viewer to act in the world. Pete Seeger’s folk songs, for example, were intended to inspire political activity that would benefit workers, the poor, world peace, and the environment. He wrote and performed his songs with the intention of creating in his audience a feeling that would then be translated into action beyond the concert venue.

In the case of external teleological art, the relationship is four-part (like Pete Seeger’s harmonies). There is (1) the artist who created (2) the artwork that is then 161 viewed by (3) the viewer who is then inspired to change (4) some element of the wider world. The fourth element in the relation is the externality.

Internal teleological art is art that has a goal, but the goal is simply to create some sort of response within the viewer. Consider a horror film. The goal is to scare the viewer. It is teleological – if you are not scared by the horror film then it failed for not achieving its goal. But while it is teleological, the goal has nothing to do with the broader world beyond the engagement of the viewer with the artwork. That fright is not meant to lead you to do anything after you are done watching. The telos is not external to the viewer, but internal. As such, internal teleological art has only a three-place relationship at its core: (1) The artist creates (2) the artwork to give rise to some affective state within (3) the viewer.

Jokes are internal teleological works of art. There is a goal to telling a joke, but it is not something beyond (1) the teller, (2) the joke and (3) the audience. The goal of telling a joke is a particular affective state of the audience, comic amusement. Maybe that comic amusement generates a laugh, maybe a smirk, if it is a bad pun an eye roll, if it is a really bad pun a slap upside the head. But the point of the joke is to generate within the listener a particular emotional state.

What is fascinating about comic amusement is its complexity. It is generated in a two-step cognitive process. First you have to get a joke, then you have to appreciate it. Both of these are cognitive acts. Both require neurological processing. But they are distinct. You can do the first without doing the second.

This is not universally true for internal teleological art forms. In the case of the horror film, we also have an internal teleological artform, but the scare is (usually) a one-step neurological process. The music slowly swells, the character creeps slowly toward the curtain, pulls it back nervously to see nothing behind it, they (and you) let out a deep breath and relax. They turn around to see THE KILLER IS RIGHT BEHIND THEM WITH HIS KNIFE READY TO STRIKE! You scream, your heart races, your breathing stops and then quickens. It all happens in an instant. It is a one-step mental process that gives rise to this immediate reaction. Yes, there are psychological thrillers that function more like jokes with a two-step process to give rise to a deep sort of fear, but the standard shock-based horror effect is a one-step process (despite the significant psychological priming it takes to set it up well).

Jokes, however, have a two-step process: getting the joke and appreciating the joke. A joke that fails to meet the first goal is what comedians call a joke that “does not land,” that is, it goes over the audience’s head. Have you ever said something jokingly and the person you said it to didn’t even realize it was a joke? That is a failed joke of the first kind.

A failed joke of the second kind is a joke that lands, but does not succeed in generating comic amusement. “No, I get the joke. It just isn’t funny.”

Failed jokes should be distinguished from bad jokes because the term “bad joke” has a different meaning when we use it in conversation. Dad jokes are corny, clean, pun based jokes. By virtue of their corniness they are bad, but they can be effective, especially when delivered at an unexpected time. Kids, in spite of themselves, smirk at the joke while saying, “Daaaaaad.” Alternatively, many a comedian has been highly successful by pretending to be an incompetent comedian and getting us to laugh at flawed jokes (poorly constructed or intentionally badly delivered). These are bad jokes, but they are still successful jokes because they created comic amusement in their audience. We are not interested in such bad jokes, we are only concerned with the distinction between successful jokes and failed jokes.

So, to take stock of where we are, jokes are works of art. Further, they are teleological works of art, they have a goal. That goal is an internal goal, that is, it involves an emotional state of the audience and need not go any further. That emotional state is complex in having two parts – landing and appreciation. A joke is successful if and only if the teller tells the joke, the audience hears the joke, gets the joke, and appreciates the joke thereby ending up in a state of comic amusement.

We need to focus on success and failure in the second part of the processes. Once the audience gets the joke, what is it to find yourself in a state of comic amusement?

The first thing to notice is that comic amusement is a totalizing emotional state. When you are really laughing hard at something, that is the only thing you can think about. Full-on hilarity takes over your body and your mind completely. You double over, your sides hurt, you can’t catch your breath, as much as you try to stop laughing, you can’t. And just when you think you have yourself settled down and under control, it starts again and off you go. Laughter forces everything else out of your mind for the period of amusement.

This is why we take someone who is in pain (physical or emotional) and try to cheer them up by making them laugh. If you can get the person laughing, then, at least for the brief moment when they are laughing, they stop feeling the pain. Henri Bergson, in his classic book On Laughter, says that comic amusement creates “a temporary anesthesia of the heart.”

But it is hard to get someone in pain to laugh, certainly harder than it is to get a person not in pain to laugh. And the easiest thing is to get people already laughing to keep laughing. If you are around friends, you are relaxed and laughs come easily. Comedy clubs have opening acts for their main attraction because if the earlier comic already has you chuckling, the headliner will have an easier time making you guffaw. The two-drink minimum at these clubs help, too. Alcohol relaxes you and lowers inhibitions (like laughing loudly in public) and increases the likelihood of comic amusement.

But the person in pain has to overcome the pain to get to where they are capable of laughter. If, say, someone is mourning the loss of a loved one, their mind will be so focused on the grief, their memories, and the loss that the ability to totalize their emotional state with something humorous will be extremely difficult.

In cases like this, there is a competition between affective states. The person is in an emotional tug-of-war. Grief and comic amusement are both totalizing emotional states and so the person can only be in one at a time. They may alternate. This is what often happens at a funeral when endearingly funny stories are told about the departed. For a brief moment we are joyful transporting ourselves mentally back to that time the funny thing happened. It allows us to escape our sadness for that moment. But when the moment is over, the sorrow returns. With grief and comic amusement it is one or the other, not both.

Moral indignation is another totalizing emotional state. When we see something that is truly ethically problematic – not some minor, using the wrong fork on your saladtype breach of etiquette, but a really morally despicable act – it has an effect on us mentally and physically. There is outrage. There is the desire to have it stopped. There is the urge to see if the victims can be helped. There is a yearning for revenge against the perpetrator in the name of justice. All sorts of cognitive elements bounce off of each other, as the body reflects the state. Your heart rate increases, blood flow makes your 164 cheeks and the back of your neck flush, eyes open widely. We react to immoral acts in a totalizing way.

Sometimes we just pretend. We feign moral outrage when something challenges a political view we hold, or when we want others around us to think we agree with them, or want them to think us as high-horse moral authorities. But these are not the cases we are talking about. We are dealing with the reaction when confronting authentically morally problematic actions. These have an effect on us, not because we choose to act as if we are offended, but because we really are. And in these cases, we should be. When you see something immoral, you ought to be upset by it.

And again, that upset is totalizing. It demands our full attention. It dominates our emotional being.

So, what happens when we put the Mentos of immorality in the Diet Coke of humor, that is, what if there is morally reprehensible content in a joke? It may well pass the first test and land. The audience may understand that it was a joke. But in trying to appreciate the joke, the mind will focus on the immoral content. The tug-of-war is on. The joke is demanding full control of the mind because the comic amusement it is trying to create is totalizing. On the other hand, the mind will find itself focusing on the harm and injustice associated with the immoral content. The moral disgust will demand the resources of the full mind as it, too, is a totalizing emotional state. The comic amusement and moral disgust will refuse to compromise, they cannot share the mind. Their nature is totalization.

There are three possibilities. Either one of them wins or it is a tie. If the moral indignation wins, then the joke is deemed inappropriate and dismissed. If it is a tie, then just like the funeral story, there will be alternation between the two and comic amusement will only get half of its time, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of the joke. If the comic amusement wins, then the utterance is deemed a successful joke, but emerges like a heavyweight champion boxer who just won a title bout: bruised, bloody, with a swollen eye. The joke may be recognized as funny, but because of the tug-of-war it used up much of its energy that it was going to use generating laughs. So, no matter which of the three it is, the joke has lost some of its artistic capital, the immoral content had the effect of rendering the joke either unfunny or less funny.

It is important to note two things about this conclusion. First, note that this is not an all or nothing proposition. The claim is not that immoral jokes can never be funny at all. The claim is that the immoral content necessarily decreases the joke’s effectiveness. An immoral joke may or may not be funny, but it is less funny for being immoral. The ethically troublesome content acts like an anchor, a drag that drains at least some (and sometimes all) of the artistic/emotional energy out of the joke.

Second, comic moralism is not the ethical view that you should not laugh at jokes with immoral content. Remember that comic moralism is an aesthetic view, not a moral one. It is a question of the joke’s effectiveness. The joke had a job to do, an artistic job, and the only thing we are concerned with in this argument is how well it does that job, not whether it is a morally acceptable tool to use in doing the job. It may not be, but that is a different question for a different philosophical discussion.

What has been argued for here is that immoral content in a joke diminishes the jokes funniness. That is what is called “comic immoralism” and it is true.

Bibliography

Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. New York: Macmillen, 1914.