I’ve always thought this was an apt place to begin a discussion of comedy. “The purposes of jokes can be easily reviewed. Where a joke is not an aim in itself—that is, where it is not an innocent one—there are only two purposes that it may serve, and these two can themselves be subsumed under a single heading. It is either a hostile joke (serving the purpose of aggressiveness, satire, or defence) or an obscene joke (serving the purpose of exposure).” Freud, Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious (1905)

Perhaps because the book on jokes was published prior to his “discovery” (via Sabina Spielrein) of a “death instinct,” Freud tells the reader he will focus primarily on jokes of exposure. But one could argue there is a dimension of pleasure in hostile jokes; pleasure in aggression, in the destruction of the other (the object of the joke’s aggression).

Hostile jokes have been a staple for a variety of stand-up comedians (Murphy, Chappelle, Dangerfield, Rickles, Rivers, and many others). There is something pleasurable to the comedian and audience about these jokes; why else repeat them (comedian) or subject oneself to them (audience). And the fact that this is a collective experience of pleasure raises the question of what is really going on between the performer and the audience in these settings.

What has changed (somewhat) is a growing sensibility that a subset of hostile jokes are no longer pleasurable (certainly to the extent that the “displeasure” of the object of the jokes is acknowledged). This may have to do with what Richard Rorty identified as one of the achievements of the U.S. “cultural left,” the decreased “amount of sadism in our society.” (Rorty, Achieving Our Country, 1998, 80-81). Drawing from the odd couple of Freud and Rorty, I would argue that the problem with today’s hostile comedy is less a matter of free speech versus censorship (“cancellation”), but more the reality that a growing segment of U.S. society no longer takes pleasure in a range of aggressive jokes. They are now “offensive” because they are perceived as distasteful (and “taste” is a difficult judgment to pin down).

Stand-up comedy has always lived on the edge of danger (which is the thrill of it), risking the offense of ordinary people and powerful people, and therefore official censorship. The claim of “cancelling” today is not really about actual censorship (Chappelle continues to be platformed and well paid), it is a recognition/fear on the part of comedians that more people than before don’t find their jokes to be funny.