The Philosophy of Humor (And the Humor of Philosophy)

 

A skeleton walks into a bar.  It says, “Give me a beer and a mop.”

That’s my idea of a great joke.  It’s short.  The first line creates a vivid image. Then with nothing further you get the punchline.  It takes most people a couple of seconds to get it; the clearer the initial image, the sooner one starts laughing.  Or groaning.

But some people hate this joke.  Not subtle.  Not cerebral.  No one has yet told me it is offensive to skeletons, but that’s just a matter of time.

Here is another of my favorites.

A man walks into a deserted bar.  That’s fine with him; he wants to be alone.  He asks the bar tender to give him a whiskey and leave him alone.  Things are going fine, but then he hears a voice.

“Nice Tie!”

He looks around.  He doesn’t see anyone.  Maybe he is imagining things.

“Nice Sports Jacket!”

Now the man is annoyed.  He calls the bartender. 

  “Are you some kind of ventriloquist?”  

“No, not at all.  Why do you ask?”

“I hear voices.”

“That’s strange.  What do they say?”

“Nice tie.  Nice sports jacket.”

“Oh…,” the bartender says, slapping his head…

“That’s the peanuts; they’re complimentary.”

A lot of people really hate that joke.  It’s long, almost a shaggy dog joke.  And it’s a pun, what many consider the lowest form of humor.  I love puns, and it’s one of my favorites.   If you think puns are terrible, just print them out and tear them up!  Ha Ha.

I want to see if we can get a blog going about humor.  If you contribute, you have to come up with a good joke or a deep thought or both.  Well, not  that good, and not that deep.  Just enough to keep the discussion going.  What makes a joke funny? Good? Deep? 

Edgy jokes are OK, but nothing very offensive.  

Homework assignment.  Kant tells one joke in his corpus, as far as I know.  Can you find it?  Hint: it’s related to the topic he is philosophizing about.