Humor is essential for living the good life, said Professor of History Kenneth Calvert at a lecture Sept. 15.
Calvert, who is a former stand-up comic, combined jokes with philosophy in a talk hosted by the Collegiate Scholars Program as a part of its semester lecture series on humor. The title of his talk, “Laugh or Die,” comes from a Finnish movie of the same name, in which German detention camp prisoners performed comedy to stay alive. Like the characters in the movie, Calvert said he sees laughter as something necessary for life.
“If we go through this life depressed and everything is so serious and weighty, we’re living in a prison camp,” Calvert said. “What kind of life is that? We’ve got to laugh about things.”
Calvert said comedy always has to offend someone, but that does not make it harmful.
“We have to laugh at ourselves, we have to laugh at the human condition, we’ve got to laugh at those who think they’re something special,” he said.
Calvert said comedian Don Rickles roasted his audience every show, with the intention of revealing a side of the audience that they might not have seen before. This type of combative comedy was often used to break down social barriers and improve relations between races and groups because it reveals the humanity in everyone, according to Calvert.
“Humor should raise our appreciation for what it is to be alive,” he said.
Calvert distinguished between good and bad comedy. Humor, like art, can be subjective, but can also be objectively awful. “Potty humor” and performers that only drop F-bombs are examples of bad comedy.
“That kind of thing is not humor,” Calvert said. “I think that is degrading to the human person rather than building up a human person.”
Hillsdale sophomore Anna Leman said she enjoyed Calvert’s perspective.
“I think an important thing he talked about was how humor brings humility,” she said. “I know this is something I’ve experienced. My friends like to send a lot of humor sparks into me, and it does keep me humble. What he said was very accurate.”
Thomas Luerhrmann, sophomore, appreciated Dr. Calvert’s distinctions between good and bad humor. “Dr. Calvert began his lecture by remarking how afraid people are of offending others and later stated that humor is bad when it becomes degrading or derisive. I appreciate how he draws this fine but important distinction in humor,” he said.
Calvert also offered comedian recommendations, such as Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Jerry Seinfeld, Foster Brooks, and St. Lawrence —the patron saint of comedians. He recommended students google Steve Martin’s “Athiests Have No Songs,” Monty Python’s “International Philosophy,” and “The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.”
Calvert told several original jokes.
“What was the first lie that a husband ever told a wife?,” Calvert said.“When she asked, ‘Do I look fat in this leaf?’”