Monday, June 13, 2022

The Subjects Of Jokes

Almost as far back as I can remember, I have always heard jokes about murder, ranging from the standard sarcastic comments about wanting to kill someone to more general joking about unjust killing.  This is actually a norm across everyday life in conversations among friends and humor in entertainment.  Out of various subjective preferences, this kind of joking might be accepted among many people who would internally or externally react in a very hostile way to jokes about some other act like sexual assault.  Some actions, beliefs, and attitudes are far more destructive than others, and murder ends suffering rather than prolong it, but one thing being worse than another thing like murder still does not shape everything about every person's sense of humor or else there would be no variations.

In other words, some things might trigger a sense of moral revulsion more than others in some individuals no matter how comparatively trivial or important the issue involved in the joke is.  Of course, moral feelings, or conscience, are subjective and have nothing to do with whether or not moral obligations exist or what they are.  What this subjectivity of conscience and subjectivity in perceiving things to be funny manifests in is people arbitrarily objecting to some humor as immoral while enjoying or excusing other attempts at humor based around treating a sinful thing as comedic.  The truth is, however, that there is nothing Biblically objectionable to making jokes about anything at all as long as no one believes anything false or endorses anything sinful.

An unexpected laugh or an intentional participation in a style of humor that involves jokes about sinful activities is not actually sinful on its own apart from meeting these requirements.  Just like how an action being immoral does not mean it is immoral to portray or watch it in a film, it does not logically follow from an action (or attitude or motive) being immoral that it is automatically evil or stupid to joke about it.  In light of this, it is the intention of a person--the worldview that they are expressing--in telling a joke that would truly dictate its moral standing.  Even the Bible tells people to not add to its commands in Deuteronomy 4:2 while never condemning an entire genre of humor or saying any particular subject is something to never joke about.

Suicide, sexism, murder and even potentially worse things like rape or prolonged torture are not subjects it is wicked to joke about as long as it is just that--joking.  It is when hypocrisy such as thinking it is alright to joke about some stupid stereotype of men or women (and all of them are stupid) but not for the other gender, the fallacies of moral emotivism/relativism (thinking it is alright to joke about whatever one perceives to be acceptable simply because one perceives it that way), or a genuine philosophical misunderstanding of a topic arise that a specific joke becomes problematic.  This is still not because of the base joke itself.  Subjectively finding something funny or offensive is irrelevant.

No one has betrayed Christian morality by expectedly or unexpectedly laughing at a joke that either refers to some sinful thing or uses it merely for comedic purpose with no true belief in anything evil or false, and neither has the person who voiced the joke--unless they have some irrational belief about the subject matter or believe that something which is immoral is amoral or good.  These are the only moral lines that one could derive from Biblical ethics.  All else is personal preference that has nothing to do with the nature of comedy or moral concepts which are both coherent and not assumed.  Some jokes will offend some people no matter what they wish was the case about themselves.  Even so, the only reason to avoid joking about the subjects in question around them is for their sake, not for some inherently obligatory moral reason.

No comments:

Post a Comment