125. Negative Humor Damages Relationships

It can be a tragic mistake to even participate in it passively - by appreciating the joke with our laughter. Sure, negative humor is fun in all caps, who wouldn't enjoy it? It perks up an otherwise tedious and bland working life. It makes things less demanding. It's a perfect comic relief.

But is it really? Negative humor is often done on somebody's expense. "Why do you walk like a penguin?" "Look at how he speaks, he quacks like a duck." These are just soft examples but all are unwarranted personal attacks.

Words, these are just words, we say. But words have a certain power. There are words, no matter how funny, that strike somebody's vulnerable chord, words that trigger bad memories - and with them, all the attendant pain and embarrassment. We cannot be too scrupulous with words.

All of us have that vulnerable part in our psyche. That's why even when negative humor is self-deprecating, it is capable of damaging ourselves, unless we are strong enough and humble enough to take anything. Generally, though, we cannot pretend we're invincible to such put-downs. All of us - even those who assume a tough façade, has that inner onion skin waiting to be shattered.

It would be a good thing if a putdown engenders humility. That would keep our feet on the ground. That would keep us human. But isn't our mortality more than enough? What if the joke triggers our innermost insecurities or any of the struggles we've been fighting inside ourselves? The consequences are disastrous. There is such a thing as a bad joke.

It's prudent to refrain from participating in such jokes. It's advisable not to be an author of such jokes.
And we should equally demand not to be its subject. Everyone has the right to be encouraged, affirmed, inspired.

A Christian writer, Mark Kinzer, has written a classic, 'Taming the Tongue,' where he says that our tongue is like the rudder of a boat. It's just a little piece of a seemingly harmless muscle but it is capable of bringing down a personal reputation or an entire civilization. Like a rudder, the tongue can guide us to the safety of the shore or to the mouth of certain destruction.

This doesn't translate to a workplace that's dead serious, to the point of lugubrious, either. It's a myth, nay a lie, that negativity has a monopoly of what is fun. Dare to try harmless, non-malicious jokes instead and see how the workplace perks up just like before - minus the guilt. Harmless jokes never capitalize on other people's weakness. Best of all, they are free from negative backlash. They never damage relationships, they only nurture them.

Let's exorcise the workplace from the demon of excoriating humor. It's certainly hard to change overnight something we've been doing since birth, but it's a good thing to try some positive change. If we may paraphrase a line attributed to Goethe, "Watch your words…they become your destiny."

7.6.2003