"You mean they can't joke?" - Donald Trump's reaction to reporters, asking if he had something to say about Catholics who might be offended by the AI-generated image, posted on his various official social media the president, the new pope of the new pope, a few days ago, in choosing a rather different American for the job. "You're not talking about Catholics, you're talking about fake news media. Catholics love it."
In fact, Catholics don't like it. New York State Catholic Bishop Posted on X. “There is nothing clever or interesting about this image.”
Other things Trump claims to have joked about recently include his promise to end the Ukrainian war on the first day of his presidency and plans to run for a third term. The official X account of the White House also released a “joke” about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a deportation from the wrong El Salvadors who returned Trump refused to promote, as the Supreme Court ordered. All the funny, you'll agree.
Is Trump once Interestingly, I learned from many incidents that argued him. However, the purpose of the latest round of "jokes" is not really entertainment. No, it's just Trollingintend to provoke, get attention, and figure out how far the president can push luck. Of course, this is not about causing the most delicious repressive tension release: real, full laughter.
And we may all be able to do more. According to a 2023 Sky poll, we are in a national “laughter deficit”: 42% of Britons don’t remember the last time they laughed out loud, 69% said “a lot less laughed these days.”
Is that true? Should that be true? It is the case that in a world where we may never have such goodness, and never had such anxiety inducement, should laughter be considered inappropriate? Is succumbing to laughter not satisfying the severity of the moment?
For an answer, we might quote one of my favorite mottos (Mis), Oscar Wilde's "Life is very important, it's too important to talk about it seriously."
Populist politicians both make laughter a clever spreading tension and a confusing device: they can cover up the veil of cruelty, authoritarianism, or total chaos and incompetence (or, yes). However, we cannot regard laughter (one of the pleasures of life) as laughter, and our rare moments disappoint us and allow our humanity and vulnerability to be seen as problems. Being keenly aware of the preciousness of life does not mean to be absurd.
Good comedy is hard to get in the face of political sensitivity and verbal propaganda over the past few years. On TV, either there is a "dark comedy" - more likely to let you jump off a cliff than laugh out loud from a chair - or saccharin sweet schmaltz. So, no wonder a new comedy format (neither intentionally offensive nor politically correct) proves so popular: watching people endure the delicate torture they are working on no laugh. Amazon's LOL: The last laugh It turns out to be globally popular: about 28 national versions have been made so far. This impulse becomes irresistible when you shouldn't laugh.
exist The cultural history of laughter,,,,, Abilio Almeida, a researcher at Minho University, detailed the way laughter is heard and related to the nearly two thousand years of sin and ignorance in Western thought. In the 20th century, Almeida demonstrated this change under the influence of 19th century thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Darwin.
We should stick to this change: ruthlessness and affluence are not always the best antidote to scandal and authoritarianism. Some of the most interesting people I know are the most thoughtful. As Almeida said, “There is often a big gap between those who really think (usually laugh a lot) and those who just want to have a thinker, so there is little laughing.”
All of us should know now how good it is to our laughter: it relieves stress, increases our immune system, relieves pain and unites us. As the late Pope Francis wrote in a beautiful December post, “We do go downhill slopes when it’s hard to cry seriously or laugh enthusiastically. We are anesthetized, and the anesthetized adults are not good for themselves.”
jemima.kelly@ft.com