In trying to stay focused on writing for my book project “Humor and the Common Good” I am thinking that this Substack is a good opportunity and motivator to keep me writing. Staring down a book deadline has a way of sometimes making me a procrastinator. Heavy emphasis on the pro. With that in mind, I think every third or so post will be dedicated to some idea or other that I am working through for my book. While the book is meant to be a philosophy book for philosophers, humor scholars, and other academics, I want the material not to be too abstruse (hat tip to Le bon David) so that others outside of the ivory tower can get something out of it.
The current chapter I am working on is a sort of history of how various thinkers, intellectual and faith traditions, have thought about or valued laughter. As you might imagine, opinions vary. Not just between the traditions, but also within. You have philosophers such as Aristotle that recognize and appreciate the value of laughter (buffoons vs. boors) while his teacher, Plato, had a negative view of laughter. Christianity has a love hate relationship with laughter as depicted by the fictional character, Jorge from book and movie “The Name of the Rose” who hated laughter as a sin against God. Other Christians, such as non-fictional author and Jesuit Priest James Martin who wrote “Between Heaven and Mirth,” find laughter and humor to be essential for faith.
We see a similar tension in the Buddhist tradition where there varying depictions of the Buddha. Buddhist iconography depict him in a couple ways. The first is seated with a subtly portrayed smile—a barely present grin. This “knowing” smile is supposed to show how the enlightened demonstrate humor properly. Not with a raucous laugh or grotesque and contorted smile, but subtle grin, a nod to the amusement, but one that avoids giving over fully to an uncontrolled laugh. This shows his wisdom, seeing the humor around, but not succumbing to the danger of overzealous laughter.
This contrasts with the happy and portly Buddha (Budia) who clearly enjoys both food and laughter to a good extent. This Buddha is not constrained in the same, possibly ascetic, way that our grinning Buddha is. Needless to say, there’s a good bit of disagreement on how one should value laughter and humor regardless of tradition. And while I am sure there are more, and I encourage anyone who has seen these varying portrayals to comment on the post so I can track the references down, the above is enough to show the tension.
What does any of this have to do with Cicero and civic duty? It turns out that Cicero, an intellectual inspiration for me since high school, is one of those who values humor and laughter. And not just for the obvious reasons. Cicero finds humor and laughter to be something more than a rhetorical device effective for helping one win an argument. According to Charles Guerin (2017), Cicero mixes the sociality and mirth of humor as part of the virtues that help us be more civically engaged. For Romans, especially the “nobility,” it was important to be someone who behaved in ways that focused on civic engagement. Guerin points out that there’s no real “duty” to be funny, mirthful, or laugh when one is engaged in one’s civic duty, but that humor and laughter are important to helping us successfully complete those duties. I agree and it’s why I am writing the book on humor and the common good.
One of the basic insights that drives my book comes from a thought I had about the political polarization that we see in the current system of US politics. I found it hard to imagine anyone from the left and right sitting together and sharing a laugh or a joke. More often when I asked people to imagine what I tried, they often thought that if there was laughter, it would be the laughter of ridicule of one toward the other. I found it next to impossible to believe that they might see the other as someone with whom they could laugh. If Cicero and Guerin are right, if laughter and mirth and the sharing of them are largely gone from our political discourse, or even in the pre-political chatter we have with one another, then we’re not going to be effective in performing our civic duties. This doesn’t paint an optimistic picture.
Cicero’s insight was that humor and laughter, sharing those with people who are engaged in doing their civic duty was important to helping us achieve the civic goods, the common goods, that our duty compels us to reach. As anyone who’s ever tried to have and maintain a public debate, or reach communal consensus knows, these things are hard. They’re mentally and emotionally exhausting even in the best of cases. Cicero knew that being able to share a laugh, have a joke here and there, to appreciate wit, as part of our social interactions, made the performing of our civic duties easier and more effective. Partly because we’re sharing that journey with someone we’ve also shared a laugh, shared in mirth.
So this post isn’t simply a draft for part of my chapter, I wanted to end with what might be a practical takeaway. This takeaway isn’t particularly original and I’ve said it elsewhere (you knew I had to mention my book right?!). If we’re going to engage with one another, be engaged, it can’t be an always serious task, or series of tasks. The old chestnut “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” illustrates this well. If there aren’t going to be places where we laugh, find mirth, and share humor, we’re making things more difficult for us. The extreme outcome of this is the ridiculous levels of enmity and hostility we see in our political discussions. I am not saying that having a few laughs will end all this. Far from it. But if we take a step and begin to see people from different political “sides” as not enemies, but people engaging in their civic duty, ones who share with us a worry and drive to engage in the wider community, and possibly share a laugh, then we’re one step away from the rancor we see. It’s not the full solution, but it’s a step—an important and crucial step.