Seriously Funny: Uncovering the Sacred Roots of Humor

When a late-night comic and the Pope start saying the same thing, you listen. Read on to discover what their surprising agreement reveals about the connection between resilience and grace.

For years now, I’ve studied the ingredients that enhance a person’s resilience, but until a few weeks ago, it never really occurred to me to specifically study the role of humor in building the resilience muscle. This, despite the fact that humor has worked as a personal floatation device for me during the most difficult times of my life. I guess it didn’t occur to take silliness seriously.  

“Socrates, Himself, Was Permanently Pissed” (Philosopher’s Drinking Song, Monty Python).

Looking through the literature on laughter and humor, it would appear that I’m not alone. There’s a strange silence on the topic when it comes to philosophers and theologians through the ages. Neither Plato nor Aristotle trusted it. Plato warned of its disruptive potential in a well-ordered society. Despite the fact that he used humor (e.g. “God, grant me chastity…tomorrow.”), Saint Augustine didn’t trust it either. Like his philosophical forbears, he saw humor as tied to our animal natures, and therefore, unworthy of serious reflection.         

What’s a Freudian Slip? When you say one thing and you mean your mother.

Centuries later, the followers of Sigmund Freud, would embrace the role of humor in mental health for exactly the same reasons that philosophers and theologians looked down on it. The early Twentieth Century researcher, Sylvia Bliss, nicely summed up the psychoanalytic view of humor’s role in our lives. According to psychoanalysis, in the long history of human evolution, our species developed culture and civilization fairly late in the game. According to this perspective, culture imposes a kind of anally retentive, Miss Manners, on all of us. With its taboos and unwritten rules, civilization has a way of repressing our inner, spontaneous, and instinct-driven, Robin Williams. So whether the humor is physical, or more sophisticated, laughter provides a release valve to let our instinctual, inner-Robin Williams out. In other words, without humor, the spontaneous animal part of us would be overly repressed—harming our individual and collective mental health. Humor is an essential part of humanity’s equilibrium precisely because it honors the irrationality of us. 

How many popes does it take to change a lightbulb? Change? What’s change?  

Pope John XXIII’s bedtime prayer, “God, it’s your church, I’m going to bed.” Clearly, past popes have used humor and joked around. To my knowledge, no pope has ever elevated humor the way that Pope Francis did in the last year of his life. Last December he published a reflection on it. Six months later, he gathered 100 comedians for an audience at the Vatican.   

In that December article, among other things, he said that humor has a way of spontaneously untangling self-importance, allowing adults to more easily “become like little children” (Matthew 18:3). According to Francis, you’ll know when you’re in the company of a fully developed spiritual person when you can see evidence that they can “laugh passionately,” and “cry seriously.” Humor creatively makes space for empathy.  

In his June audience, he described the important role that humorists play in a well-functioning society. Among other things, humorists provide an antidote to narcissism, a catalyst for community, and a tool to deflate those who would abuse power. He made a subtle, but important point that I’ll paraphrase here. A comedian’s job is to thread a needle—to use their powers to humble without humiliating. 

Conan O'Brien, courtesy of TBS

How many comedians does it take to change a light bulb? It’s hard to tell, because no one has actually ever seen them do anything.

For US comedians, the highest award you can receive was named after America’s most famous humorist, “The Mark Twain Prize.” This year, it was bestowed on one of the 100 comedians that the Pope had gathered last June: the Irish Catholic boy from Boston, Conan O’Brien. Rather than use the national stage for another comedy bit, he prophetically used the lens of Mark Twain’s career to speak to our time. Like Pope Francis, he provided a serious reflection on the important role of comedy in the maintenance of a just and resilient society. His words were important, and so I quote them here at length. See if you can hear the echoes of the words Pope Francis spoke to him last June. See what stands out for you.

Twain’s enduring power springs from his principles, principles that shaped his comedy….Twain made fun of bullies…he punched up, not down, and he deeply empathized with the weak. Twain was allergic to hypocrisy and hated racism. Twain empathized with the powerless in America: former slaves struggling during Reconstruction, Chinese laborers in California, and European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. Above all, Twain was a patriot in the best sense of the word. He loved America, but knew it was deeply flawed.

Some of you may be thinking, “What does this have to do with comedy?” Everything!  The comedy I have loved all my life is a comedy that is self-critical, deflating, and dedicated to the proposition that we are all flawed, absurd, and wallowing in the mud together. Twain is funny and important today because his comedy is a hilarious celebration of our fears, our ineptitude, and the glorious mess of being human. When we celebrate Twain, and truly see him for what he was, we acknowledge our commonality, and we move just a little closer together.

So I accept this award in the spirit of humility, stupidity, inanity, irrelevance, fear, self-doubt, and profound unceasing silliness.

Conclusion

Listening to Conan O’Brien, Pope Francis, and to some extent, the neo-Freudian, Sylvia Bliss, I’m reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote just after the worst part of the Twentieth Century had passed. Being human “is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.” It seems to me that his quote could serve as an important mission statement for each and every comic who wants to leave the world better than (s)he found it.  

The second creation story in Genesis (2:7) gets at the same insight. In it, the author describes the peculiar alchemy that makes up each and every human being: divine breath and the clay of the earth. It is precisely that ennobling/humbling mixture of us that is the source of that most human of qualities—humor. It is also the goal toward which ennobling, resilience-enhancing humor takes us.

Dialogue: These questions are provided for discussion over a cup of coffee, or for your own personal reflection. As always, any reaction you might wish to share with the SMC community in the “Comment” section of this blog would be welcomed!

• What stood out for you in this article, and why?

• Within the same year, both Pope Francis and Conan O’Brien addressed the need to empathize with the poor, “punching up” at the powerful or haughty, and not “punching down” at the powerless. What current trends do you suppose they were responding to with these comments? Another way to ask that question: Why do you think the time is right to reflect on the essential role of comedy and laughter in our world?

• This article paraphrased Pope Francis’s view about a spiritual approach to humor. “A comedian’s job is to thread a needle—to use their powers to humble without humiliating.” Can you name several comedians, living or not, that you think have succeeded at threading that needle? Would you be willing to share some of those names in “The Comment” section of this blog?

• Just for fun, can you think of something a comedian did or said that can still make you laugh when you think of it?

• Who in your life regularly tickles your funny bone? How often do you get together with that person? In these challenging times, could you make it a point to do that more often?

Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.