© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Human Action Table of Contents
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We all know that the basis for humor is often serious, even tragic. Why would humans in tragic or life-threatening situations turn to humor? It's better than the alternative, despair. In grim situations, a concentration camp for example, humor can act as a Shock to keep human feeling and values alive. Humor keeps the human survival mechanism going. Humor leaps out from expected norms and often challenges us to think.

Of course humor, like most creative impulses, can become perverted, static and automatic. Now and then, a television situation comedy is brilliant. Jackie Gleason's “Honeymooners” from the 1950s is a perfect example. But once the situation is defined and the clichés have been created, the humor often comes to lack its basic value as a Shock. Most successful sit-coms degenerate into pale imitations of themselves. And many more sit-coms begin as pale imitations of other sit-coms. It's no wonder the canned laughter is often necessary. Stultifying predictability replaces stimulating surprise, and the laughs become automatic.

Humor in its proper place can cause human beings to suspend emotional judgment. With the emotional barriers down for a moment, the communicator can get straight through with the message. Often humor is used this way in self-communication. Surely you can think of difficult situations you got through because you were able to see the humorous side of things.

Self-effacing humor, making fun of yourself, gives you the positive benefit of not being too critical and judgmental about yourself. I have personally seen major motivational speakers—household names—use self-effacing humor to build a bridge with their audiences. Norman Vincent Peale used it. I've seen Zig Ziglar and Dr. Robert Schuller use it. But I'll never forget when I saw Art Linkletter use it. Mr. Linkletter was introduced in front of a large audience. Instead of coming on stage using the steps at the side of the stage, he climbed up to the center of the stage, rolled over on his belly, got on his hands and knees, pushed himself up to full height, dusted off his fully-buttoned double breasted suit, and moved to the microphone to speak. By acting like a ten year old boy (he was over 70 at the time), he spread warmth and delight to over two thousand listeners. The audience had expected great dignity. He gave it to them in his speech, but he started it all with a Trope.

Humor gets through. A few chapters back when we were describing the ordered, changeless, mechanistic, static world of the refined animal in us, wasn't there something basically un-funny about it? Creative humor is the opposite of this unhappy condition. Humor humanizes us. It gives us, by definition, more than just grim survival.

Exercise: Humor

Take serious, even tragic situations from your own life or today's news and squeeze some humor out of them. Bad taste is all right here if you keep it to yourself. The point is to enlarge your creative perspective and provoke your thought processes by using humor. This exercise is particularly effective if you do it with a friend or close relative.