The cream of the crop of stand-up comedians are very good at finding humour in most everyday situations and providing us with laughter and relaxation. Just how are they able to execute this seemingly simple exercise on a consistently regular basis?
Comedians employ the technique of de-construction when it comes to examining any situation or occasion. It is a slow and deliberate process, almost like peeling an onion one skin at a time, and can often lead the examiner into very dark spaces. Every layer is thoroughly reviewed with a watchmaker’s precision, as fault lines are sought to be converted into humour. It is a very demanding business and the pretenders are often purged very early in their attempts to make a career out of it.
Currently, Trevor Noah is one of the best in the business. Born in South Africa, of mixed parentage, he moved to the USA in 2011 to further his career, and today, acts as the host of the hugely popular, The Daily Show, a satirical comedy news programmme on Comedy Central. Last Friday night he delivered a passionate eighteen minute speech on the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the looting of Target.
Noah’s articulate de-construction of the festering tensions was entirely without humour and presented in a rather calm and eloquent manner. Making full use of his excellent comic timing, Noah, linked the activities of the past week to that of a giant wave washing over a series of dominoes against the backdrop of the coronavirus. Amy Cooper calling the cops fully well knowing what their interpretation of her call would be, the murder of George Floyd by someone whose job is ‘To serve and protect,’ and the instant condemnations across the country by all strata of society.
“What is society?” Noah questioned, as he commenced the de-construction. He proposed that it is a contract among people who agree to live by a set of rules. He noted that the contract was failing because the contract was not being honoured by those who enforce the contract, and those at the top who are expected to lead by example were not doing so.
Noah, whose early upbringing in South Africa was during the last days of apartheid, waylaid into the people questioning the manner of the protests. “This is not the right way to protest.” He duly pointed out that it is a protest and there is really no right way to protest per se. The question they should be asking is not, “What good does it do?, but rather, What good does it not do?”
Noah, making effective use of the pause, then referred, to the principle of legitimacy from Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath. Noah didn’t nail the quote verbatim, but here it is;
“When people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters – first and foremost—how they behave. This is called the “principle of legitimacy,” and legitimacy is based on three things. First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice – that if they speak up, they will be heard. Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today. And third, the authority has to be fair. It can’t treat one group differently from another.”
Noah’s summation to those Americans denouncing the looting of stores was plenty of food for thought.
“Think about that unease that you felt watching that Target being looted,” Noah said. “Try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day. Because that’s fundamentally what’s happening in America: Police in America are looting black bodies.
“Ask yourself how you would feel if you were these persons who see society ripping up the contract every single day they thought they had signed with society?”
How would one de-construct the current tension festering here? This election has clearly brought it to the surface for one and all to finally acknowledge in the open. The prolonged myopic use of the one card option as presented by the two powers that be is no longer viable. The masses have had enough at being manipulated and played off of each other every five years. A third option must be sought.
