Post-Comedy

Not so long ago, comedy and laughter were a shared experience of relief, as Freud famously argued. At their best, ribbing, roasting, piss-taking and insulting were the foundation of a kind of universal culture from which friendship, camaraderie and solidarity could emerge. Now, comedy is characterized by edgy humour and misplaced jokes that provoke personal and social anxiety, causing divisive cultural warfare in the media and among people. Our comedy is fraught with tension like never before, and so too is our social life. We often hear the claim that no one can take a joke anymore.  But what if we really can’t take jokes anymore? This book argues that the spirit of comedy is the first step in the building of society, but that it has been lost in the era of divisive identity politics. Comedy flares up debates about censorship and cancellation, keeping us divided from one other. This goes against the true universalist spirit of comedy, which is becoming a thing of the past and must be recovered.

Introduction: The Tension of Comedy A Reactionary and a Liberal walk into a bar… The Ideology of Laughing Freely Didactic or Retroactive Laughter The Form of Jokes Despicable Jokes and the Ideology of Exception Anxiety and Laughter Sneezing Corpses Satire and Satiation from Brexit to Trump ‘24 Memes and Group Psychology Keks and LOLs: Playground Humour Milk Pouring and Trolling: Perverse, Psychotic, Neurotic Activist or Fetishist Dancing Laughter and Clowns from St Vitus to TikTok Conclusion: Jokes, Masters and Orgasms