In recent years there are more and more voices against comedians and humor dealing with complex and controversial topics. How should we think about these demands? Should our humor deal with the many difficult and divisive topics in society, or should we try to have our honor be more polite and tame?
It is clear to me that from a social science perspective we should ask comedians to deal even more with the difficult and controversial topics society is struggling with. Why? Because in general one of the characteristics of human nature is that we shy away from thinking, and we shy extra hard, even run away, from thinking about difficult and complex topics. Comedians and humor make thinking about difficult and painful topics possible, and they even make this thinking process somewhat rewarding in the form of the laughter we get while thinking with our comedian guides. So, should we ask comedians to stop joking about painful topics? We should not. In fact we should ask them to deal even more with these topics and in the process help us all think better and harder.