Now according to Simon Critchley using the last form of humour is at its root a philosophical act. This because it involves reflection upon the self, the other and the world. He cited self-ridicule as an example of this. I would say, self ridicule could also be a form of self-directed superiority humour. Which, as Critchley added, can also be a means of establishing your authority: I am so powerfull that I can make jokes about myself. In the incongruity variety self ridicule shows that you feel comfortable enough to show weaknesses or be more vulnerable. But these are of course two sides of the same coin, as they mainly differ in nuance and intention.

After the interview we talked a few minutes about humour and knowledge management. Having fun and laughing is said to be useful for enhancing creativity, and facilitating the correct atmosphere for dialogue, by KM pros. Would humour in this case be a facilitator, a catalyst, or also a method in itself?

First off, humour helps bring forward the informal structures in more formal settings. Self ridicule as said above can help bringing down authority and hierarchical structures. Also the relief kind can help solve tense situations in discussions and debates (as a step up to dialogue?). But the incongruity type of humour is also an expression of creativity itself. It takes creativity after all to put a situation in a different light. And that is what the desired effect of creativity is: looking at situations from another angle, in another context, in order to discover new and alternative roads forward. It’s the need to jump ahead, when evolutionary progress is exhausted. Irrationality as a means to help rationality forward. It’s the classic boundary that scientific progress encounters and has to overcome time and again.

Permalink
(posted by Ton Zijlstra at April 6, 2003 01:07 PM)