Dr. Phil Kronk: Truth is at the root of what we find funny

In last week's column, we looked at comedians — the men and women who make us laugh.

But why do we laugh at a joke?

The discipline of Psychology has given us many reasons why people make us laugh at a joke.

The ancient court jester, like many comedians today, was able to tell the "truth" — make fun of the powerful king and his authority — and live to tell another joke.

Psychological research has found that stand-up comedians have personality characteristics that mirror important human values and relevant social questions. Among them are an attitude that denies that things are as bad as they seem, a preoccupation with good and bad as well as virtue and evil, a fascination with size (‘power' issues such as short and small) and sensitivity to the dimensions of up and down (the classic slip-on-a-banana-peel sight gag.)

The comedian does not just perform in front of an audience. He is in a relationship with the audience.

And he has something to say.

Comedians are able to make fun of conventional ideas, customs and social structures.

Some do this in a non-threatening and gentle fashion. My favorite example of this style was Will Rogers. He once noticed that "people will never laugh at anything that is not based on the truth."

Rogers often focused on politics and politicians, whose lives he noted were always being interrupted by an election.

Other stand-up comedians also examine social norms and customs…but in an angry fashion.

This tradition goes back to Lenny Bruce, through George Carlin to Lewis Black today.

The use of anger brings the joke level up one more notch.

However, if the audience can identify with the comedian's angry topics (for example, taxes, Big Government, politics), the audience will not be threatened by the angry tone of the jokes.

Will Rogers also made humorous observations about human nature.

Rogers once noted that there were three kinds of men: "The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

Some of you may feel some discomfort from that last joke, as it involves urination, a bodily process.

Which brings us to another category of jokes — one that brings up content that can be uncomfortable.

These jokes involve taboo or forbidden subjects, such as sex, death, religion or other politically incorrect topics, including "dirty jokes."

Some of us can tolerate such humor better than others.

I can tolerate Russell Brand to a point, until his creativity is overwhelmed by his pathological narcissism. I can enjoy Bill Maher's political observations until he goes too far with his hatred of religion.

Freud saw humor as a way to relieve mental tension, decrease anxiety, express our angry feelings and indirectly manage hostility.

This same mental tension comes out by slips of the tongue, which people can find to be humorous.

An example of this is the sentence at the beginning of this column when I thought of non-threatening "gentle" humor, but initially ‘accidently' typed "gentile" humor.

The ‘comedian' in my unconscious was able to successfully evade my 26 years of psychoanalysis on the couch and many years of living in a city without a good deli.

Comedy brings us both entertainment and emotional relief.

Comedy, however, is more than an enjoyment of the manipulation of ideas and language. (Groucho's famous line: "This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How it got in my pajamas I'll never know.")

Comedy today has a very serious side. Witness the recent murderous reaction to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

A recent article in the New York Times wondered if "…maybe comedy has become the way we argue about matters that are too painful, awkward to explore in other ways."

In the coming months we will see the public, you and me, "vacillate between piety and rage" with the coming political primaries and presidential elections.

We will need jokes and a sense of humor to survive.

I hope the court jester is well rested.

Philip Kronk, M.S., Ph.D. is a child and adult clinical psychologist and a child and adult clinical neuropsychologist. With degrees in Clinical Psychology and Clinical Psychopharmacology, Dr. Kronk has evaluated and treated children, adolescent and adults for forty years. He writes a weekly, Friday online column for the Knoxville News Sentinel's website, knoxnews.com. Dr. Kronk can be reached at (865) 330-3633.

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