EthicsWalk addresses
spiritual care as an ethical enterprise.
It explores why relationships between
spiritual care providers and those
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examines what that protection entails. PlainViews invites
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Toxic Humor
“The Imus virus”,[1] an insidious social infection, is much in the news. Characterized by toxic humor, it infiltrates educational and religious institutions, health care facilities, and most work places, as well as the media, the last which the others blame for the virus’ presence in their midst. The resistance, by otherwise sensible souls, to examination and inoculation of their own environments against infestation is an ethically perplexing aspect of the virus.
Humor, according to Webster’s, “implies an ability to perceive the ludicrous, the comical and the absurd in human life and to express these, usually without bitterness.”[2] The definition ought to give pause to anyone who assumes a routine role for humor in an educational program or work place. One person’s perception of “ludicrous” or “absurd” may be another person’s lived reality.
Shock jocks like Imus mine the proclivity for turning another’s demographic profile, social stratum, economic status or personal attributes into toxic humor. When people in positions of power or influence mistake degradation for comedy, the wound spreads wider than the immediate audience. Following Imus’ characterization of the Rutgers women, a Brooklyn police sergeant reportedly used the same words during roll call.[3] No one goes to school or work with the expectation of being comedic fodder for rapper-imitators.
Most people appreciate good jokes, communal laughter, and times of shared bemusement at life’s quirks, but the class clown can morph easily into the office bully. Astute teachers and supervisors should be asking: what’s missing in this person’s life, what is he or she not receiving from this environment? And, when humor is toxic, it must be stopped.
To begin a dialogue about healthy humor, the following guideline is proposed. Please submit additions that clarify how we can engage education and work place humor delightfully rather than hurtfully.
A Rudimentary Guide to Work Place Humor
1) Like the person(s) to whom and about whom you are speaking well enough to know and care about their sensibilities.
2) If it’s not language you would use with your mother or child, don’t use it at work.
3) Direct irony only towards yourself or your own situation.
4) Never use sarcasm (intent and impact are often wounding).
5) Most spiritual care providers are neither rappers nor street folk. Don’t adopt the language or attitude of either in the work place.
6) Stories or “jokes” in which the subjects or objects are people of different racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or sexual orientation than you, are never appropriate in the work place, no matter how well you think you know the listener(s). Racist, sexist, ageist, and homophobic comments are never appropriate, clever, or funny anywhere.
7) Stories or “jokes” targeting physical or mental conditions are never appropriate anywhere.
8) Stories or “jokes” about patients or students are never appropriate without their express permission for the particular occasion.
9) Stories or “jokes” about your colleagues should be saved for retirement “roasts,” and then told with loving discretion. What you consider “funny” may not be to the colleague.
10) Remember: the measure of appropriateness is the impact on others, not your intent.
Footnotes:
[1] New York Attorney Bonita Zelman’s phrase as quoted by Bob Herbert in “Words as Weapons,” The New York Times Op-Ed section, Monday, April 23, 2007.
[2] Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1971.
[3] Id. “Words as Weapons.”
Anne Underwood has an undergraduate
degree in religious studies, a
master’s degree in rural sociology
and a mid-life law degree obtained
after working over a decade as
a college administrator. She has
mediated for the Maine family courts
since 1983. Currently she serves
as an advisor to the ethics commissions
of ACPE, APC, the CCAR (Central
Conference of American Rabbis),
and NAJC, and consults with a variety
of Protestant faith communities
on issues of power, fair process,
and congregational conflict management.
Her articles on mediation and restorative
justice have appeared in the ACPE
News, The APC News and on the ACPE
web site. Articles on clergy accountability
and judicatory processes are published
by the Alban Institute and The
Journal on Religion and Abuse.
A
chapter, “Clergy Sexual Misconduct:
A Justice Issue,” appears in Body
and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality
as Justice-Love
, Marvin Ellison
and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, editors,
The Pilgrim Press, 2003.
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