Politics, Humor and the Counterculture: Laughter in the Age of Decay

By Vwadek P. Marciniak

Introduction

Perhaps some readers will consider a sense of humor a minor or unimportant attribute as we weigh the qualifications of those who govern the country—war, death, and taxes and all that. Frankly, I would put humor on a par with honesty, and it would seem, that both are national deficits with our current leadership—along with the budget deficits, of course.

The basic outline of this idea was developed when I taught the course, Contemporary Humanities as an elective at Michigan State University. For the couple of decades of this course I—with the help of students and friends—put together a enough tape to fill, with editorial commentary, some eight to ten one-hour classes as a finale for the course. Among the more interesting aspects of this experience was that none of my students had ever heard of Ken Nordine or Lenny
Bruce and even if an occasional student knew of FST, they did not understand the depth and breadth of their artistically driven electric theatre.

Some of the terms used here, even with explanations, may appear rather odd and thus a few comments may be helpful.

The word real is troubling since so many people and organizations play massive games with it especially in contrast with reality. In this work the real will imply something fixed as in the real moment. Reality, on the other hand, is perceived to be a more a matter of motion as in the reality of our experiences.

Ego is what we are born with and is the driving force from birth onward and can be seen in the demand for food and changing of diapers. When a few years older we note a two- or three-year-old will make noise for attention which is a characteristic of the exercise of the ego. In an adult, the ego seeks outside reassurance for validity: “See my new car, aren’t you impressed?” You can substitute new suit, or new dress, or new job or home, or whatever. The point is that when living by one’s ego one constantly needs reassurance.

There is the other side of the coin however where as one matures they can begin to develop a sense of an interior self and thus an exterior individuality where what others may think of you really does not matter since it is you alone who is your best friend.

There is another more pristine problem that must at least be mentioned for the more thoughtful reader. Our history, i.e., history of the United States and the West, is in the throws of a massive transformation that creates serious problems for understanding the present. History has been and still is written from the point of our being in the modern world. However, a closer look at the immediate past (from approximately 1890 until today) clearly reveals massive changes in what we mean when we speak of our own world. The modern world was born about 500 years ago and has reached such a maturation that the very term modernity can be misleading if not confusing when looking at this new millennium’s characteristics.

It therefore follows that one other term used throughout, that of postmodernity, must be put into context. This recent and confusing term has not yet been brought to bear beyond it being applied to an era that we normally refer to as modernity. This is a phenomenon of history that does not have deep roots. It is something very few comprehend. Hopefully it will be made more clear in meaning as this essay evolves. More importantly, clarity should arrive with future scholars taking into account this massive change. As an introduction, another scholar who accepts the concept has noted that “If ‘postmodern’ has any proper meaning at all, it should mean an advance to a new and rising sense of historicity.” After all “…the end of the modern age carries within it an oceanic, though as yet hardly conscious, rise of a new meaning of history, of a historical consciousness.” Another well established and respected scholar “…the English ‘idealist’ historian and thinker R.C. Collingwood (sometimes referred to as a prophet of postmodernism)…wrote that history is nothing but the history of ideas.” While this essay is about the contemporary world of 3 humor, it is of necessity, also one regarding ideas.

Abuse and hypocrisy unfortunately reside in so many corners of the culture of rich and poor and proves to be such an intolerable condition that we have attempted to live with hoping it may not destroy us. It is this condition that makes for a new humor never quite seen before our own era. The power to go on and beyond the travail of the modern world is a unique and even positive force that can be used in nurturing and expanding humanistic qualities whenever and wherever possible. The (postmodern) humorists discussed here precisely exercise their insights beyond the traditional mass forms of comedy which only dull our long range and expansive senses. They are capable of integrating both our senses and our understanding.
Learning to step back and honestly confront where we actually are may be rare but because of that it is also precious. It is this mental ability that is explored in this essay, for humor here is a slap in the face of our pretentious lives in order to catch the attention of those capable of an expanding self discovery.

There are those rare people raised in a culture that find somehow there is something better for them and their progeny: The Germans as well the Jews who saw what the beginnings of Hitler in the early 30s would mean and pulled out of that culture to live elsewhere. Many Japanese moved to this land before the war broke out again for the same sense of something better existing elsewhere. And we can suggest that the “hipsters” here in the late 40s and 50s also dropped out and moved on both intellectually and psychologically. The future belongs to those with enough imagination and willingness to move on. The counterculture was in many ways a witness of this phenomena in our own backyard.

The idea of decay in the title is not as extreme as some might think considering that it has been noted that “The sixties, which began in liberal consensus over the Cold War and civil rights, became a struggle between two apocalyptic politics that each saw the other as hellbent on the country’s annihilation.” Needless to say, Nixon and the extreme 4 right-wing won and the United “Snakes” of America was born.

As to what happened to humor in this world of ours is answered with another question as to what happened to the U.S.A.? This can be traced to the common knowledge that something has gone very wrong: “Nearly three-quarters of Americans think U.S. society faces a ‘leadership crisis,’ according to a report by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government late last year. It tracked a loss of faith in the people who lead business, churches, schools and the media as well as federal, state and local government.”

This is a work about the presence of singularity, authenticity and a humorous sense of self so that when your disbelief is suspended, all that could never be can now become. Only the limits of your imagination can inhibit.

These are humorists, thinkers, philosphers and poets who can aid you in your personal and cultural trips where there is only one ticket from beginning to end—may you use yours wisely.