© UNESCO/M. E. Orellana Benado
M. E. Orellana Benado (Chile).

“There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it,” Cicero argued. Chilean philosopher M. E. Orellana Benado for his part postulates that humour “has more to do with the diversity of ways in which we live (that is to say, with our identities), than with the way we reason and think (that is to say with our nature as human beings).”

Compare the rhetorical impact of the following claims:

1. “Prof. Dr. B. might be the greatest philosopher alive today, but she lacks a sense of humour”

and,

2. “Prof. Dr. O. might be the greatest thief alive today, but he has a sharp sense of humour”.

Lacking a sense of humour diminishes the value of a person’s achievements, whereas its possession rescues the humanity even of those whose behaviour is despicable. In this article I propose to discuss the role of humour, the humanity of humour as I prefer to call it.

The birth of Greek philosophy was completed when a field of reflection and debate appeared in which authority arguments where not allowed [i.e. ad baculum arguments in which authority takes the place of reasoning]. This is what is meant by Socrates humorous claim: “Only one thing I know, and that is that I know nothing”. The Oracle had said that he was the wisest of men. But when his fellow Athenians came to him with this piece of news, Socrates forced them to realize that they still had to make up their own minds. The coming of age of European university philosophy is marked by Kant´s equivalent claim in “Was ist Aufklärung?” when he sums up the Enlightenment in the maxim: Sapere aude! Dare to think (for yourself)!

Humour permeates humanity. More, humour is both the most penetrating of our theoretical capacities and the most human of our practical abilities. By “theoretical” I mean capacities directed to the contemplation or perception of the world; by “practical” I mean those that allow us to manipulate it or to bring it into existence. Our human world is essentially incongruous. This is why it helps us in our survival to be able to extract the comic aspect of the incongruous as well as to perceive the comic when we face it. But, why is the human world incongruous?

The reason is as simple as it is unavoidable. Things human need to be approached in two opposite ways. According to a luminous and basic truth: All human beings are equal. Different grounds have been offered for this abstract postulate: that we all are God’s creatures; that we are all free; that we all have the same nature and are thus liable to suffer and, to cut short the list, that we have the same human rights.

But concrete experience shows an approach based on another luminous truth, ironically formulated by George Orwell as “some are more equal than others”. The grounds advanced for this vary: only we belong to the true religion or, indeed, to no religion; to this or that country, gender, social class, political party or, to this or that profession, and so the list goes on.

We need to speak of ourselves as having different identities or lifestyles. The concept of prejudice is closely linked to that of identity or, if you prefer, lifestyle. There is no identity without its foundation of prejudices. In the case of personal identity, each individual human being is only equal to him or herself. All cultures rightly signal the birth and death of their members in a special fashion. Every time a new human being is born something unique has come into existence. And each time one of us dies something unique has gone out of it.

Among other things, human equality means that we are all liable to suffer. This is where Black Humour enters the stage, in its two forms. One manifests itself when we laugh at incongruities related to our own suffering so as to distance ourselves from it. This human capacity has been widely documented. Even in Nazi extermination camps, some prisoners joked about their predicament. The other form of Black Humour involves laughing to come close to the suffering of others. Such was the case, for example, with the jokes about anthropophagy made by Chileans in 1973 when, over two months after their plane crashed in the Andes, a few surviving members of a Uruguayan rugby team were found. Chileans were laughing with the young survivors, and not laughing at the victims of such a horrible experience. Black Humour reflects human equality, under which lurks the reality of human suffering.

Exit Black Humour, and enter its counterpart: Prejudiced Humour. The interaction between different human identities often presents as ridiculous the peculiar practices of different lifestyles. Take Schopenhauer’s story about the “White Man” and the “Red Indian”. Upon seeing him leave food on his ancestor’s grave, the former asks whether the tribe expects the deceased to return from death and eat it. After smiling silently for an instant, the “Red Indian” replies: “Sure, the same day your ancestors will return from death to look at the beautiful flowers your tribe puts on their graves”. By laughing with Prejudiced Humour at alien practices we keep a distance from human identities or lifestyles different from our own.

Rational argument only becomes possible between those who, to an extent, share the same sense of humour; that is to say, agreement on what is worth taking seriously and what only deserves a laugh. But what is serious and what is comic has more to do with the diversity of ways in which we live (that is to say, with our identities), than with the way we reason and think (that is to say with our nature as human beings). Perhaps this is what Cicero suggested when he claimed that “there is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it.”

M. E. Orellana Benado, Associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Chile.

© UNESCO/Aleksandar Džoni-Šopov
Some are more equal than others.

© UNESCO/Aleksandar Džoni-Šopov
Ridiculous or just different?