It is clinically proven that humor is a vital function, not only in the structure of society but also in the structure of body and mind.
Making light of a challenging subject allows us to process, address, look at, and understand it within a safe framework. Laughter is a physiologically healing act — it produces endorphins in the brain, helps restore endocrine balance, tones muscle, helps us process trauma, improves our immune system, activates mirror neurons, and connects us with those we share it with.
In short, one could say that humor and laughter are as crucial for our well-being as love and connectedness.
From a sociological standpoint, humor historically served as the safest avenue of delivering truth. Court jesters informed kings of popular sentiments, exposed social narratives and norms amongst different classes, and characterized cultural nuances of neighboring countries and people.
Through humor, we are informed about the collective psyche and, thus, linked to one another as a community. We can resolve conflicts and discuss charged and hard-to-address topics through humor. Without this avenue of communication, many truths are either left unspoken or left to be unveiled when frustrations reach a boiling point, thus becoming volatile.
Often, individuals with difficult life stories display a greater sense of humor. We use humor to overcome and heal from emotionally challenging experiences. It also universalizes our struggles and increases empathy.
The Western world has faced no real existential risk since the end of the Second World War, and one could argue that at the end of the 20th century, the West became complacent and comfortably numb in its sense of safety and predictable stability.
Now, political correctness is a prevailing goal in the culture, and we find ourselves living in a world where no one and nothing can be made fun of or criticized, even in jest. Comedians are forced to incessantly apologize for their jokes.
We are collectively gaslighted into accepting physical norms that are either objectively unsightly due to being unhealthy, unnatural, or in some way drastically augmented. We are shamed for assigning any generalization or characteristic to any group of people.
We are a culture so steeped in guilt for privilege that we have put ourselves in self-inflicted bondage against humor and are slowly, as a result, losing touch with reality.
I would argue that the acute outcome of the above-mentioned bondage is excessive substance abuse, cultural volatility, political schism, and dilution of truths to the point of creating a post-modern madhouse for a culture.
Without humor, we cannot negotiate differences, compromise, and work through conflicts and opposing interests; we are thus frustrated, disconnected, and seeking an outlet. In the name of safe communion, we have become a culture of alcoholics, mitigating a chronic state of social anxiety.
We are bored with one another because we cannot be truthful and, hence, limited in the level of intimacy we can achieve while staying appropriately pleasant and inoffensive. Underneath this veil of conformity, however, we have grown increasingly angry and frustrated.
Truths have an uncanny way of surfacing. Our social media feeds are exploding with scandals and conflicts, presenting a picture of an overindulgent society that has cultivated a covert norm of acceptable monsters. We simply don’t like each other very much because we no longer laugh together.
Isn’t it time we face the absurdity of the human condition and remind ourselves that we are all fools in the same boat, sailing the seas of life without a compass? spt
Comments