Window on the world Kenneth Bird
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The National Association of educational broadcasters in cooperation with the British
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Information Services presents a window on the world a tape recorded series
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of talks by eminent British citizens. This week our speaker is Mr. Kenneth
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bird former editor in chief of Punch who was cartoon under the pen name for
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Gaz has achieved international fame is the subject humor
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director of the ridiculous.
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Here now is Mr. Kenneth bird.
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The last time I spoke to you all in this series was about two in the
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home a few years ago. I then spoke to you from New
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York. But this time I am at home in London within the sound of Big
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Ben which you've just heard and which I've listened to for 17
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years in the editorial office a bunch
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this time.
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I should like to talk for a few minutes on the subject of humor.
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Now this is supposed to be the age of the specialist.
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There's a sort of idea that the sum total of human knowledge is growing
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so rapidly that only a specialist can cope with it
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and the ordinary man has got to content himself with knowing more and
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more about less and less. Now as a matter of fact
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of course whenever a new bit of knowledge is added It
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must take the place of an old bit of knowledge which it
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proves to be wrong. And so really it isn't the sum
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total of human knowledge increases. It's the sum total
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of human specialists. Humor of course
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has suffered from this tyranny of the specialist like everything else
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a tradition has been built up that only a specialist is
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competent to study humor at all and that even a specialist
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couldn't explain it in words that an ordinary man could understand
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the ordinary man is still allowed to laugh at things of course but he
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must not try to understand why he laughs at them.
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Now personally I'm not a specialist.
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I'm not a trained psychologist. I just make my living out of it.
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And so there's nothing to stop me telling you that I think
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that humor is much simpler and much easier to understand
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than it's always made out to be.
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I don't believe that the sense of humor is some mysterious or
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superior sense that one man possesses and another one thinks
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he's got and hasn't. I think everyone's got one.
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Even if he doesn't always let himself use it and I
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don't believe I thought that humor is intended to be used
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only in lighter moments something something to be stuck on like
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a false nose. If human is going to be any use it
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must be most use when we need it most and not when we
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need it least.
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Tragedy isn't higher and finer and more respectable than
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comedy. Well it certainly seems to sell the newspapers better
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but that isn't because it's higher and finer and more respectable
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and it isn't higher and finer to cry than it is to love.
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In fact I'm quite sure myself that Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew
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has saved more wives from being smothered by their husbands than ever
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of yellow hairs. Then again I don't believe that
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humor must always contain cruelty
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humor is essentially humane and kindly and it
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helps and all to help to unite us all together.
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And if it's cruel then I don't believe it's human. People
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don't laugh at other people's misfortunes not just because their
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misfortunes. It just isn't twice as funny to fall out of a
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window on the 10th floor than it is to fall out of one on the fifth.
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It isn't really anything funny about falling over a banana skin.
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Not even if you break an egg in the process. But I know this
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is the point. If you fall over a button on the skin while
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wanting your wife to look very very carefully then it is
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funny. That is to say it isn't the furling over the banal on a
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scale that we laugh at but the behavior that led up to it.
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The business of humor in fact is to act as a kindly
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corrective kindly corrective of ridiculous behavior.
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We all agree that people oughtn't to fork over banana
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skins especially on the crowded sidewalk. If they
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do they get down in among other people's feet and they make a general
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nuisance of themselves and so however many banana skins may
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be lying on the sidewalk. All of us should pick our
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way very carefully between them. Now it's
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hardly practical or even fair to put people in
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prison for falling over banana skins.
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And so it is that humans greater force of ridicule
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which happens to be one of the strongest attendance. For
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all its gentleness is used instead and
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so humor is a sort of kindly policeman keeping an eye on the
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ridiculousness is of human behavior and that is probably
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why it's so widely thought to be a national characteristic
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with a different brand for every country. The
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real fact is of course that human behavior which is
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human as raw material is the same in every country.
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But of course it's influenced by the country's position and its climate
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by its politics by fashion and a host of other things so
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that while Hillmer itself is the same everywhere
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its expression varies from place to place and from time
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to time a central African laughs at a man in a fur
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coat and an Eskimo laughs. But a man without one.
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Now each of them thinks that the other's got no sense of humor. But all the time
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they're really laughing at the same joke.
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Now there are many people who seem to make a habit and even
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a minute of being unable to understand the humor of another
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nation.
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With most nations of course it doesn't matter very much because
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if one doesn't understand a man's language well one can't possibly
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know if one understands his humor or not. But it
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is important as between the citizens of the United States
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and of Great Britain who do understand each other's language well
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enough and see each other's periodicals and newspapers
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but they both seem very often to take a strange pride
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in failing to understand the other's humor and in consequence
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in presuming that they haven't got any. Now this
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inability to understand each other's humor can be
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absolutely genuine and real. But because it's
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hardly ever spread evenly over all forms of humor
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for the same people who complain that they can't understand the humor
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in the other nation's periodicals and newspapers will quite
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frequently enjoy the humor in the other nations plays and movies and
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radio and the human of plays and movie and
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radio. The only difference from that of the printed
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page in that it goes very much quicker. And it gives one no
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chance to think about it and so it really ought to be
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very much less understandable and not more.
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Genuine misunderstanding of one another's humor
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usually arises from ignorance of the conditions dealt with.
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All of the terms employed on something like that the subject that's
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treated may be too topical or too local for the
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stranger to know about it. The man in Boston may be
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just as much at a loss to understand a New York joke
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as the man in London the Bostonian
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However presumes perfectly correctly that the subject is
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purely New York and that it probably refers to some new
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subway regulation or something that he hasn't heard of.
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But the Londoner is convinced that it is because there is some
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great gulf fixed but tween American humor and British.
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This is a great pity because it results in
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considerable loss on both sides. For if one
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doesn't expect to understand the joke one probably won't understand it
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anyway. Or if one does understand it one will
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understand it so grudgingly and with so many
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reservations that the point will be lost anyhow.
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Well. Well so far we've only talked about humor
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as a Connector of the ridiculous as a kind of a corrective
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as a kindly policeman in fact. But of course that isn't all
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of it. If that one human only job
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then as we all get more perfect there will be
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less and less ridiculousness to laugh at
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until finally when we get to heaven and there's
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no ridiculousness to laugh at at all no one will be
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laughing. And that really would be about as funny as anything.
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And so the sense of humor can't be only corrective.
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I think really it's very like other senses except that its roots go
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deep and its branches go higher. The man but the
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finest sense of taste isn't the man who knows most about bad food.
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He's the man who knows most about good food and in consequence can avoid
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bad food. The man of the finest sense of smell isn't a man who
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knows most about bad smells. He's the man who knows most about good
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smells and can appreciate them and in consequence if you
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like can't avoid bad smells. The job of the census is to
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let us enjoy the best as well as avoid the West.
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And I think it's the same with the sense of humor I think.
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That the sense of humor is the sense by which we
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enjoy the sublime and avoid the ridiculous. In fact it's
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the sense by which we enjoy the sublime and in consequence avoid the
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ridiculous.
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I think humans rather like the song of birds at its
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lowest and most utilitarian. It's like the harsh questioning and
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honking of the bird on the shoal who makes a loud noise
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just to tell his friends where he is and what sort of a time he's having.
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And we all know that sort of humorist although it hasn't got much to do with the point.
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Then when humor gets a little higher I think it's like the song of the
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bird of the woods who sings pop into charm his mate and
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partly because he enjoys singing. Until at its
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highest I think it's just an expression of Shia joy in
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itself. It's like this some of them. Which
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for no apparently useful purpose Rices plan and hide
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until it finally goes right out of sight somewhere.
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Well. As the Book of Job says the morning stars sing
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together and all the sons of God shout for joy
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which is just about as good a description I think of the loft of
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sheer delight as anyone could see.
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You have been listening to Mr. Kenneth bird former editor in chief of punch and
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internationally known cartoonist speaking on the subject humor director of the
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ridiculous. Listen next week when window on the world will present Mr.
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Patrick Reed author of the bestselling story of called it and men of Colditz.
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His subject prisoners of Colditz this has been a tape
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recorded presentation of the National Association of educational broadcasters in
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cooperation with the British Information Services. This is
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the NOAA E.B. Radio Network.
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This program has been transcribed using automated software tools, made possible through a collaboration between the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Pop Up Archive. Please note that no automated transcription is perfect nor is it intended to replace human transcription labor. If you would like to contribute corrections to this transcript, please contact MITH at mith@umd.edu.