Humor and Politics

Man is a "political animal" Aristotle tells us, (and woman as well, we

should add, though Aristotle doesn't seem to have thought so). Politics is

generally held to involve the exercise of power, the operations of government

and the state, though, of course, elites outside of the government often have a

great deal of influence, if they don't actually hold political power. And

politics (along with sex, and often together with sex) is one of the subjects

most often joked about, most often made the subject of humor. We find

political humor in all media and genres: cartoons, comic strips, jokes, graffiti,

plays, stories, novels, and films.

Why Political Humor is Popular

Alan Dundes has suggested that in America, where there is political

freedom, you find a tendency to joke about sex (in America we do this for a

variety of reasons, such as the influence of the Puritans on our culture and the

sense of guilt they generated about sex) but where you have authoritarian

political regimes, such as the ones that used to exist in Eastern Europe, it is

politics that becomes the dominant subject for humor. The theory is, you

create humor to deal with matters that are troubling you; we in the United

States are troubled by sex, while the people in Eastern Europe (until the fall

of Communism, that is) were troubled by harsh and oppressive political

regimes. People fight repression--sexual and political--with humor, though

humor can also be used to control people, I should add.

M.M. Bakhtin has argued, in The Dialogic Imagination (University

of Texas Press, 1981) that humor is a counterforce to power. He writes:

(1981, 23)

It is precisely laughter that destroys the epic, and in general destroys any

hierarchical (distancing and valorized) distance. As a distanced image a

subject cannot be comical; to be made comical, it must be brought close.

Everything that makes us laugh is close at hand, all comical creativity

works in a zone of maximal proximity.

It is humor that enables us to see politicians for what they are--human beings,

with the same problems we all face, the same strange fixations, the same

desires. Humor strips away illusion and awe, brings politicians close and

prevents magnification by spectacle. It familiarizes political figures and, in

doing so, enables people to judge them more realistically. That is why

dictators, when they take power, kill the comedians.

In the United States, our egalitarian value system probably is at the

heart of our political comedy; we dislike and generally do not accept

authority as valid. But our humorists have been helped a great deal by some

of the people who occupy or have occupied positions of political prominence.

Consider former president Gerald Ford, who always seemed to be bumping

his head on airplanes and about whom it was said, "he can't chew gum and

walk at the same time." Ford is famous for saying "If Lincoln were alive

today, he'd be turning over in his grave."

His place, as a fool or klutz figure, has been taken by Vice-President

Dan Quayle, who has a genius for making errors (as in his famous fiasco at a

spelling bee, where he spelled potato incorrectly) and stupid statements and

has been turned by our comedians into a kind of national object of ridicule.

There is, in fact, a book of Quayle jokes and even a journal devoted to his

exploits (and to ridiculing him) the Quayle Quarterly.

Some typical Quayle jokes are:

Quayle thinks Roe versus Wade are two ways of crossing the Potomac

River in Washington.

Question: What were the two worst years Dan Quayle had?

Answer: The two years he spent in the fourth grade.

There are also a lot of generic insult jokes about his alleged stupidity:

Quayle doesn't have enough buckwheat in his pancakes.

Quayle's elevator doesn't go to the top floor.

Quayle's a few logs shy of a cord.

Quayle doesn't have enough mercury in his thermometer.

All of these jokes deal with deficiencies and allude to Quayle's supposed lack

of intelligence. Most of these are not technically jokes--that is stories with

punch lines--but they are considered humorous remarks, funny insults and

classified as "non-serious" and thus, in the popular mind, at least, as jokes. I

will be using the term "joke" in the broadest sense of the term here--as

something humorous.

Jokes About Eastern European and Russian Governments

In Cracking Jokes, Alan Dundes points out that folklore is a very

useful means of getting at what people really believe about a political regime.

He writes:

There is one source of information about popular attitudes toward politics

in Iron Curtain countries, which may be considered more or less

unimpeachable: folklore. Folklore, which is passed on primarily by word

of mouth, from person to person offers little opportunity for official

censorship to be exercised. (1987, 159-160)

He then lists and explains a number of jokes he collected in Rumania in 1969.

One important theme in these jokes is you should know who you're speaking

to before you say anything that could get you in trouble. Many of the

Rumanian jokes poke fun at the slow pace of life and work ("Our country

pretends to pay us and we pretend to work"), at the inefficiencies of

socialism, and at the Russians.

One of the classic joke cycles in Eastern Europe is about Radio

Erevan, a station in Soviet Armenia. People ask questions of Radio Erevan

and it offers answers. Here are some classic Erevan jokes.

Question to Radio Erevan: Can socialism be established in the

Sahara?

Answer from Radio Erevan: Yes, socialism can be introduced into the

Sahara. But after the first five-year plan, the Sahara will have to

import sand.

Question to Radio Erevan: Does the Mafia exist only in Italy?

Answer from Radio Erevan: No, we have the Mafia in Russia, except here

it is called the government.

The Sahara joke pokes fun at the way Socialist five year plans always turn out

to be disasters and the Mafia joke is a revealing glimpse of what the people

really think of the Communist governments.

One of the classic Eastern European jokes involves a riddle.

Question: What is the difference between Capitalism and Communism?

Answer: In capitalism man exploits man, but in Communism it is just the

reverse.

In this joke, the humor of reversal is at work: both Capitalism and

Communism are, it turns out, the same--based on exploitation and

Communism's claim of being superior, from a moral point of view, is

ridiculed. After the demise of the various governments in Eastern Europe, it

was revealed that these governments were corrupt and were run by cynical

opportunists and paranoids who exploited the general public cruelly.

Let me conclude this discussion of Eastern-European jokes with one

that reflects the ironic situation in which these countries found themselves.

At a Communist Party Congress it is announced that Communism has

triumphed all over the world. Even the United States has elected a

Communist as President. The delegates dance in the aisles, cheering like

mad, except for an old man, who sits in the corner with a glum expression

on his face. “Comrade,” asks a delegate. “Why are you not happy?”

“Because,” " says the old man, “I wonder where we are going to buy our

wheat next year.”

This joke deals with the reality behind the five-year plans and glorious

statistics always announced by the East European governments. Without

America, and other Capitalist nations, the joke tells us, Eastern European

Communists countries would starve.

Earl Butz's Ethnic Joke

In 1974, Earl Butz, who was the Secretary of Agriculture, told a joke

that almost led to him being removed from office. When politicians tell

ethnic jokes, they court disaster and often end up being destroyed, politically.

Butz told a joke "off the record" to a number of reporters at a private

breakfast in New York. The joke involves a response to a statement by the

Pope Paul VI about world hunger. After the Pope's statement, the joke,

which is not very funny at all, goes as follows:

After the Pope's remarks, an Italian woman is overheard saying "He no

play-a the game, he no make-a the rules."

This "joke" caused a furor. Catholics and Italian-Americans were outraged.

Butz was called to the White House where he got a severe reprimand and was

forced to issue an apology. Ethnic humor is no longer considered acceptable

in America, especially when it is told by public officials. We can see that

even twenty years ago it was considered distasteful. It is still found in

folklore, but it has been pretty well banished from the airwaves and media.

Ronald Reagan's Bombing Russia Joke

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan was preparing for his weekly radio

broadcast and, according to CBS, said the following, presumably while he

was testing his microphone:

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to announce I just signed legislation

that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

He was just joking and probably never thought his words would be recorded,

but discovered that the rest of the world didn't consider this "joke" humorous

at all. The Polish News Agency PAP commented that Reagan had called the

Polish leadership "a bunch of no good lousy bums" a couple of years earlier,

while testing his microphone. The agency said that while Reagan didn't say

these words formally, he knew they would be spread by news agencies.

The Standard, a London paper called the joke "a serious

embarrassment and Le Monde suggested psychologists would have to decide

whether the statement was "an expression of a repressed desire or the

exorcism of a dreaded phantom." Members of the British Labor Party

described Reagan's remarks as "sick humor." The point, then, is that it is

dangerous for politicians to joke around and very dangerous when that

politician is president of the United States.

George Bush Makes a Joke that Causes Trouble

Politicians face danger when they try to be funny. Consider a

problem that George Bush had when he was campaigning for the 1988

Presidential nomination. After a meeting with NATO diplomats, Bush

learned that a recent Soviet military exercise had been carried out without any

mechanical breakdowns. He then said, thinking he was being amusing:

"Hey, when those mechanics who keep those tanks running run out of work

in the Soviet Union, send them to Detroit, because we could use that kind

of ability."

This occasioned a huge uproar in Michigan and officials of the United

Autoworkers Union said they were outraged and demanded that Bush

apologize. Bush apologized saying "Hey, give me a break. I didn't mean

anything by it." He later admitted he wished he had never said it. "I thought

I was trying to be funny," he said, "and obviously it didn't work very well."

Sometimes, of course, politicians are funny and make very witty

comments, as when Adlai Stevenson campaigned in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"I find St. Paul appealing, he said, "But I find Peale (Norman Vincent

Peale, a religious leader) appalling."

One of the classic witty comments made by a politician was made by

Churchill. A woman sitting next to him was exasperated by his chatter and

didn't like his politics. "If you were my husband," she said, "I'd put poison in

your coffee." "Madame," Churchill replied. "If I were your husband, I'd

drink it."

Humor and Political Cultures: Four Ways of Laughing

Aaron Wildavsky has suggested that in democratic societies you find

four political cultures. He explains how these cultures arise in an essay

"Conditions for Pluralist Democracy Or: Cultural Pluralism Means More than

One Political Culture in a Country." (Mimeographed, May 1982) He writes:

What matters to people is how they should live with other people. The

great questions of social life are "Who am I?" (to what group do I belong)

and "What should I do?" (Are there many or few prescriptions I am

expected to obey?) Groups are strong or weak according to whether they

have boundaries separating them from others. Decisions are taken either

for the group as a whole (strong boundaries) or for individuals or families

(weak boundaries). Prescriptions are few or many indicating that the

individual internalizes a large or a small number of behavioral norms to

which he or she is bound. (1982, 7)

Drawing upon the work of Mary Douglas, with whom Wildavsky has

collaborated, he combines boundaries and prescriptions and comes us with

four political cultures:

1. Fatalists: Weak Boundaries, Many Prescriptions

2. Competitive Individualists: Weak Boundaries, Few Prescriptions

3. Hierarchical Elitists: Strong Boundaries, Many Prescriptions

4. Egalitarians: Strong Boundaries, Few Prescriptions

Each of these political cultures has certain attributes that Wildavsky

spells out in this paper and in a number of his other works. For example,

Elitists believe in stratification, but have a sense of noblesse oblige for those

below them. Competitive individualists believe in the market and take risks,

stressing the importance of personal initiative for personal gain. The

Egalitarians stress that people are equal in terms of their needs and

continually criticize both the elitists and the individualists for not doing

enough for the fatalists, who have more or less opted out of the economic

system and believe that luck is the determining factor in life. (This

description is highly reductionistic, I might point out. For a fuller elaboration

of Wildavsky's views, see his essay "Choosing Preferences by Constructing

Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation," reprinted in A.

Berger, ed., Political Culture and Public Opinion, Transaction Publishers,

1989.)

Communication theory tells us that groups tend to seek out material

(television shows, plays, films, and we can add humorous material) that

reinforces their view of things and supports and validates their belief system.

And they tend to avoid material that would cause dissonance and attack or

cause them to question their beliefs.

The situation is complicated, because people in a given political

culture sometimes change, for a variety of reasons, so there is movement and

in these cases, people in one political culture might seek out (not necessarily

consciously) material that would justify their moving to a different political

culture. Sometimes, of course, they find themselves being moved, for

example, by economic forces that might push a competitive individualist, for

example, into a fatalist political culture.

Let us assume, for simplicity's sake, that we have our four political

cultures and that everyone (in America or wherever) belongs to one of them.

Individualists, Elitists, Egalitarians and Fatalists, according to

communication theory, would be seeking out or responding most favorably to

jokes and other humor that justify their position and avoiding humor that

attacks or questions it.

Thus jokes, it could be argued, always have a political dimension to

them even though they may not deal with politics, per se. That is, the subject

may not be political but the value system or attitudes expressed in the joke

would, in principle, connect with or reinforce the beliefs of one of our four

political cultures and not do so for the other three political cultures. If a joke

deflates authority, it would be egalitarian; if it pokes fun at "lower elements"

it would be elitist; if it ridicules egalitarians (Marxists, socialists, social

workers, Communists, do-gooders, etc.), it would be elitist; and if it shows

that society is irrational and based on chance and luck, it would be fatalist.

People of all political persuasions might laugh at a joke because they

get (at the unconscious level, so the Freudians argue) a guilt-free expression

of aggression. Or they find an incongruity, as the incongruity theorists ague.

But the joke would most fully resonate, so the theory described goes, with

only one group of people--those whose political culture it supports or is

congruous with. And it would disturb another group of people, those who are

members of a political culture that is opposed to the political culture

supported by the joke.

All of this, of course, occurs at the unconscious level, for the most

part. People, as a rule, do not consciously put up filters through which they

"strain" jokes and humor--though in some cases, as in the case cultures that

honor and revere mothers-in-law, people do not find mother-in-law jokes

funny. That, at least was my experience a number of years ago when I

participated in a course on humor that had students from many countries. A

Japanese student told me "we don't find mother-in-law jokes funny." He also

didn't find any of the cartoons in an issue of The New Yorker I showed him

funny, which shows the degree to which culture and allusions shape our sense

of humor. It doesn't always work that way, however. Some Catholic

comedians make a career of poking fun of the Catholic Church, but it is

generally deemed acceptable for members of some group to ridicule members

of their own group.

It is also possible, I might add, that since jokes are often rather

complex, with a number of different humorous techniques going on, people

from different political cultures might find different parts of a given joke

humorous. And what applies to jokes also applies, of course, to all forms of

humor.

What follows are four examples of humor, each of which would

appeal primarily, I would suggest, to one of the four political cultures. These

jokes, remember, need not be about politics and politicians, though jokes

about them would have a more direct and obvious relation to one of the four

political cultures. A joke that appeals to a member of one political culture

could make fun of any of the other three political cultures.

Elitist Humor

In Russia, they tell ethnic jokes about a minority people in the far

north, the Chukchi people who are similar to Eskimos, that are analogous to

the Polish jokes told in America.

A Chukchi goes to a store to buy a television set. The clerk tells him that

color sets are available. "Fine," says the Chukchi, "I'll have a yellow one."

This joke ridicules the intelligence of the Chukchi man, who mistakes what

the clerk says and thinks "color" television applies to the color of the sets.

This joke and Polish jokes like it, which ridicule a group for being stupid, has

an elitist cast to it. The Chukchi are supposedly dumb and when we laugh at

them for being so, it is from a position "above" them, so to speak.

I might add the some theorists argue that all humor is based on

feelings of superiority, and Hobbes, one of the greatest political theorists,

argued in The Leviathan:

The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a

sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the

infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.

According to Hobbes' theory, all humor is based on superiority and the

feeling of "sudden glory" we get when something happens that enables us to

elevate ourselves above others, or the way we once were.

Egalitarian Humor

Jokes told by egalitarians would poke fun at elites or competitive

individualists, both of whom are criticized by egalitarians. Thus, jokes about

powerful business or political figures, jokes about aristocrats, jokes about

movie stars and celebrities, and jokes about entrepreneurial types would all be

examples of egalitarian humor. This joke has been told about Reagan and

also about Justice O'Connor and the members of the Supreme Court.

President Reagan and Nancy go to a restaurant for lunch. The waiter asks

Nancy Reagan for her order first. "I'll have grilled salmon and a cup of

coffee," she says. "What about the vegetable?" asks the waiter. "He'll

have the same thing."

This joke alludes to Reagan's age and supposed lack of vitality--he used to

fall asleep at Cabinet meetings and was famous for taking naps and not

putting in much of a day at the White House.

Individualist Humor

Jokes appealing to competitive individualists would poke fun at

elitists, egalitarians or fatalists or would support the values of the

individualists at the expense of others.

Two businessmen were attending a meeting at a mountain resort and were

roommates in the same cabin. One evening they heard some scratching

outside the door. One went over to look, came back, and started putting on

his running shoes. "What's going on?" asks his roommate. "There's a giant

bear outside, who looks so hungry that he's going to smash his way into this

cabin." "Well," says the other man, "why put on sneakers? You can't

outrun a bear." "That's true," says the man, "but all I need to do is outrun

you."

Here we see the values of competitive individualism highlighted and

reinforced; the first man can run faster than his roommate and so, logic tells

us, will escape the bear. You don't have to be able to outrun a bear as long as

you have someone else that you can outrun when being chased by a bear.

The following joke pokes fun at elites (military, in this case) and is

based on the technique of allusion:

A Washington hot dog vendor comes home one evening with more than a

thousand dollars. "How did you earn that much money?" asks his wife.

"Selling hot dogs for a hundred times their regular price," says the vendor.

"Who'd be crazy enough to pay that much money?" responds his wife.

"Lots of people," says the vendor. They all work at the Pentagon."

This joke alludes to the infamous procurement practices of the Pentagon,

which involved paying thousands of dollars for certain tools that were

obtainable for just a few dollars at hardware stores. The hero is a small time

entrepreneur who takes advantage of elites at the Pentagon, who are, so the

joke suggests, used to paying fifty or a hundred times what anything is worth.

Fatalist Humor

Fatalist humor would involve jokes that show how important luck or

chance is in the scheme of things, or which ridicule elites, individualists and

egalitarians by showing that they are foolish or have their status due to

connections, accidents of birth and things like that.

A social worker sees a bum and tries to convince him to go to work. "Why

should I work?" asks the bum. "To make some money," replies the social

worker. "What will I do with the money?" asks the bum. "You will

become independent and when you make enough money, you won't have to

work any more." "But I don't work now," said the bum.

Here the person at the bottom of the ladder triumphs. What sense does it

make going to work so you can have leisure time when you already have

leisure time, as a bum? Of course you don't have money and can't buy things

and have a luxurious leisure time, but the joke avoids these matters by

focusing strictly on the matter of free time.

A Radical Hypothesis about the Origin of the Political Joke

Gregor Benton, an anthropologist, has written an essay, "The Origins

of the Political Joke" that appears in Humour and Society: Resistance and

Control, edited by Chris Powell and George Paton. Benton argues that

political jokes "are a powerful transmitter of the popular mood in societies

where this mood can find no officially sanctioned outlet." (Powell, 1988, 33)

In bourgeois democracies these jokes tend to be bloodless, he suggests, since

people have the vote and don't need political humor to ease tensions.

But these jokes, which are "the chief form of orally-transmitted folk

wisdom today" (1988, 35) flourish in dictatorships. The jokes are a response

to the tensions of living in total societies, since dictators seek to control every

aspect of life in the societies where they are in power. Benton quotes George

Orwell who wrote that "every joke is a tiny revolution" and that "you cannot

be memorably funny without at some point raising topics which the rich, the

powerful and the complacent would prefer to see left alone." (1988, 40)

He then discusses Jewish jokes and suggests that "discrimination and

persecution, and how to cope with them, are the subject of innumerable

traditional Jewish jokes," which, he adds, take on a number of different

forms. What is important is that these forms are also found in the typical

political joke so the Jewish joke stands as a kind of prototype of the political

joke. Benton writes:

Three main sorts of discrimination feature in the political joke:

discrimination by a minority, the Party, against the non-Party majority;

discrimination by majorities against minorities (e.g. Russians against

Uzbeks or Czechs against Slovaks); and discrimination by a strong nation

(the Soviet Union) against weaker ones (Eastern Europe and China). In the

last two categories, both victims and victimizers put their feelings into joke

form. This results in two different sorts of joke corresponding to judische

Witze (jokes told by Jews) and Judenwitze (jokes told about Jews). (1988,

44.)

This suggests that there is a connection between the Jewish joke and political

jokes and Benton offers a number of Jewish jokes and political jokes that

show how strong the relationship is.

He offers one political joke that is a modification of one from the

ghettos.

An advert in a Bucharest newspaper: "Swap high level of ideological

training for geographically favourable location." (The original Jewish joke

was: "Swap several centuries of history for a little geography." More

recently the East Germans have taken it over. "Swap comfortable four-

room flat for small hole in the wall.")

He also points out that in Radio Erevan jokes, the questions are traditionally

asked with a Jewish accent and answered with an Armenian one.

His conclusion is that the political joke has the same function that the

Jewish joke had--it helps relieve people of tension and helps keep them

stable. It cushions the blows and creates "sweet illusions of revenge," but its

impact is only as long as the laugh it produces. More than jokes--namely

organized opposition--are needed to deal with political problems and

dictatorial states.

I would agree, but I think political humor (especially jokes, which

spread like wildfire) does play a role in mobilizing public sentiment and, by

diminishing those in power and making them subject of laughter, facilitates

resistance and even political revolution.

The regimes in Eastern Europe, which seemed so strong, turned out

to be hollow vessels that were knocked over with incredible ease. I would

argue that the humor in Eastern Europe helped set the stage for the

revolutions that followed, once it was clear that Russia had changed and that

the regimes in Eastern Europe would not be kept in place by Russian tanks

and soldiers.

Humor may not seem to have much political impact, but I would

argue that it is often a subversive force of considerable significance. It is

used as a means of resistance by those living under authoritarian regimes and,

at the same time, unites people against the governing power structure and

gives them a common sense of identity. It also destroys their sense of

obligation to the regime that is controlling them, so that when an opportunity

comes to overthrow the regime, there will be a common desire to do so.

Politicians in democratic societies sometimes tell jokes that cause

them great problems; they cannot seem to resist the temptation to become

standup comedians, for some reason. Or politicians become (as in the case

of Quayle) the subject of comedians jokes in the talk shows, which is

generally an indicator that they are at or near the end of their careers. Finally,

let me make a distinction between political humor, which is humor that deals

with politicians and parties and ideological matters and humor that appeals

most directly to one of the four dominant political cultures in America. In

certain respects, then, we can argue that all humor has a political dimension

to it.

References:

Bakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination. Michael Holquist, ed.

Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 1981.

Dundes, Alan. Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles and

Stereotypes. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. 1987.

Powell, Chris and George E.C. Paton, eds., Humour in Society: Resistance

and Control. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Wildavsky, Aaron. Conditions for Pluralist Democracy or Cultural

Pluralism Means More Than One Political Culture in a Country.

Mimeographed Monograph. Political Science Department and Survey

Research Center, University of California, Berkeley. May, 1982.