Compare And Contrast Critchley And Khazan

Comedians often times use their right to freedom of speech in an attempt to break down social topics that are considered taboo in order to change the way we think and feel. Simon Critchley, a philosophy professor, explains this idea in his article “Did You Hear the One About the Philosopher Writing a Book on Humor” that aims to prove that one of humor’s purposes is to use it to break social constructs and change the ideology a person once thought or felt was correct. On the other hand, O’Hara, a journalist, uses the experiences of different people to showcase the effect that jokes have on the way a person thinks. Similarly, Khazan, a writer for The Atlantic, also makes the same claims that O’Hara makes in her article “The Dark Psychology of
The authors all pointed out that humor has a positive or beneficial effect on a person’s feeling or change of view. However, Critchley and Khazan also pointed out a possible downside to the effect humor can have in a person’s way of thinking. Both Critchley and Khazan use the same theory made by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. They use his idea of making fun of someone else as a way to boost one’s ego. As Critchley states, “…comic scapegoating corresponds to what Hobbes means in suggesting that laughter is a feeling of sudden glory where I find another person ridiculous and laugh at their expense. Such humor is not laughter at power, but the powerful laughing at the powerless.” (Critchley 127). With this quote Critchley points to his idea of reactionary humor. Reactionary humor is a type of humor that doesn’t aim to make any sort of social change rather to “simply serve to reinforce social consensus” (127), in other words, stereotyping. Stereotyping is there mainly to reinforce certain beliefs people have. Here, there was a general consensus between the authors in that humor also has a negative effect on a person’s perspective. It affects the way both sides of the joke think. The side laughing at another group gets a false sense of superiority and causes them to think they are better than another group. On the other hand, the side being made fun of start to feel belittled. Their idea of self-worth starts to dwindle and they start to feel unhappy with themselves. Consequently, both groups are possibly similar however due to this reactionary humor both sides of the joke end up having their perspectives