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Our Private Laughter: The American Way of Cynicism and Optimism
| Article
# : |
19973 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1992 |
3,185 Words |
| Author
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Joseph Boskin
Joseph Boskin is professor of history and director of the
Urban Studies and Public Policy Program at Boston University.
He is currently writing a book, Rebellious Laughter, to be
published by Oxford University Press. |
As the eighties, surely one of the most contradictory decades of the century, receded triumphantly into history, the future seemed ours to control. A new era of peace and the dividends of democratic triumph were at hand. Though many pointed anxiously to flawed economic and racial conditions, most were bullish. Now that the headiness of the Reagan era is past, however, social and economic alarms resound, and our inner cities are being devastated by explosions of violence.
Why so sudden a turn of national mood? Certainly, the economy plunged with a surprising suddenness. A sense of personal vulnerability is pervasive throughout our society. Other significant factors are the deterioration of family and domestic life; the sorry state of our streets, bridges, schools and public services; and our mounting pollution problems and environmental fears. The list does not end here, but neither did it begin as the nineties dawned. As we all know, the problems that confront us are not new and have persisted over the decades.
Yet there is another reason that helps explain this almost-traumatic attitudinal shift. We have not been paying attention, as the teacher used to say: We have not been listening to our humor.
By humor I am not referring to the endless outpourings of stand-up comics, sit-down talk show hosts, television sitcoms or comedy films and dramas. All of these can, and often do, reflect the culture writ large. I refer instead to a national seismograph that registers the slightest shifts of society's most intimate moods: namely, the private laughter of people.
Within the cubicles of our culture--in the gym, dining hall, and classroom; in buses, subways, and car pools; in stores, secretarial pools, and managerial offices; over telephones, faxes, and duplicating machines; between friends, businessmen, and relatives--there can be heard the disillusioned laughter of folk from every walk of life, region, and ethnic background. Folk humor responds to large events and small happenings. It encourages a laughter that has always existed in American society and that once held higher value than it is now publicly accorded. The Farmer's Almanac and many journals and newspapers, for example, used to carry such humor. Yet, like the ancient storyteller who has been rendered obsolete by radio and television, folk humor has been deemed insignificant because of the status of comics in clubs, films, and television shows.
Because this laughter was
...
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