Humor Research 4 Davies Christie Jokes and Their Relation To Society 1998 Mouton de Gruyter 1

Jokes and their Relation to Society
W
DE
G
Humor Research 4
Editors
Victor Raskin
Willibald Ruch
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Jokes and their Relation to Society
by
Christie Davies
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York 1998
Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the

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Library of Congress - Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davies, Christie.
Jokes and their relation to society / by Christie Davies.
p. cm. - (Humor research : 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-016104-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Wit and humor - Social aspects. I. Title. II. Series.
PN6149.S62D37 1998
306.4'81-dc21 98-27688
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davies, Christie:
Jokes and their relation to society / by Christie Davies. - Ber-
lin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1998
(Humor research ; 4)
ISBN 3-11-016104-4
© Copyright 1998 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., D-10785 Berlin

All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this
book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mecha-
nical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover Design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin.
Printing: Druckerei Hildebrand, Berlin. - Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin.
Printed in Germany.
For Gwenda, Janetta and in memory of my father, Christy Davies.
Acknowledgements
Jokes and their Relation to Society is a comparative and historical study of

jokes and other forms of humour that has required the advice and assistance
of scholars from many countries. I am particularly strongly conscious of the
help I have received in the translation and interpretation of jokes from very
many languages. In particular, I wish to thank Goh Abe, Stanislav Andreski,
Jason Annets, Mahadev Apte, Zyg Baranski, Arthur Asa Berger, Wladyslaw
Chlopicki, Peter Cook, William Coupe, Pete Crofts, Philip Davies, Emil
Draitser, Alan Dundes, Malcolm Fisher, Vera Gaspariková, André and Liliane
Ghilain, Charles Gruner, Robin Gwyndaf, J. R. Hawthorn, Melvin Helitzer,
Borek Hnizdo, John Hobgood, Bengt Holbek, Colin Holmes, Irving Louis
Horowitz, Randolph Ivy, Christoph Jaffke, Maijatta Jauhianen, Mark, Janet
and Samual Jenkinson, Peter K. Jones, Fardos Khan, Ronald Knowles, Ernest
Krausz, Giselinde Kuipers, Lauri Lehtimaja, Russell Lewis, Richard Lynn,
Des MacHale, David Martin, Irena Matlin, Gerard Matte, Geoffrey Matthews,
Jessica Milner Davis, Lawrence Mintz, Peter Narváez, Mark Neal, Don and
Aileen Nilsen, Clara Ong, Elliott Oring, Martyn Page, Charles Preston, Pirkko-
Lissa Rausmaa, Walter Redfern, Selwyn Roderick, W. M. S. Russell, Ludek
Rychetnik, Richard Scase, Barry Schechter, Charles Schutz, Alexander
Shtromas, Elene Skondra, Paul Smith, Henry D. Spalding, Gerald Thomas,
Eugene Trivizas, Margarita Vassileva, Magne Velure, Tony Walter, Alan
Wardman, Vivian White, Larry Wilde, David and Ruth Williams, Roy Wolfe,
Anat Zajdman and Avner Ziv, for providing me with data, advice, help with
translation, and other valuable assistance. None of them is responsible for the
use I have made of material they provided, and the opinions expressed in this
book are of course entirely my own.
A great deal of the research for this book has been done in archives and
libraries and I would like to express my thanks for their help to the staff of the
libraries and folklore archives of the University of California Berkeley, Uni-
versity College Dublin, the House of Humour and Satire in Gabrovo, Indiana
University, the Université Laval, the Memorial University of Newfoundland
and the Université de Moncton and to the staff of the British Library, the
Bodleian Library, the library of the London School of Economics, the Na-
tional Library of Wales, the Polish-American Museum in Chicago, the
Schmulowitz Collection in San Francisco Public Library, the State Library of
viii Acknowledgements
New South Wales and the libraries of Bombay, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds,
Punjab, and Reading Universities and to the libraries of the University of
Wales at Saint David's Lampeter, and Swansea. I am grateful to the British
Council, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Indian
University Grants Council, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Japanese
Society for Humour and the research board of the University of Reading for
helping to fund the expenses involved in visiting the various libraries and
archives.
Parts of this work have previously been published as journal articles or as
chapters in edited books and I would like to thank the publishers for their
permission to reproduce them here, namely Macmillan for permission to use
my chapter from Chris Powell and George E. C. Paton (eds.), Humour in
Society, Resistance and Control, Basingstoke 1988, Paragon for permission
to use my chapter from Alexander Shtromas and Morton Kaplan (eds.), The
Soviet Union and the Challenge of the Future, volume 3, Ideology, Culture
and Nationalism, New York 1989, Susquehenna University Press for permis-
sion to use my chapter from Patrick Parrinder and Christopher Rolfe (eds.),
H. G. Wells under Revision, Toronto 1990, Sheffield Academic Press for per-
mission to use my chapters from Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith (eds.), A
Nest of Vipers, Sheffield 1990 and from Gillian Bennett (ed.), Spoken in Jest,
Sheffield 1991 and the British Journal of Sociology for permission to reprint
my article "The Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism" from Vol-
ume 43, Issue 3, 1992.1 would also like to thank all the relevant editors for
encouraging and enabling me to write these articles in the first place.
The same thanks must be extended to my present editors Victor Raskin
and Willibald Ruch who invited me to write this book for the Mouton series
in Humor Research and who also read and commented on the manuscript. I
am very conscious of how much I owe these two leaders in humour scholar-
ship for their unstinted help to me over many years. I must also thank Dr.
Anke Beck and Heide Addicks for steering it through the press in Berlin and
Mrs. Enid Richardson for her skilful word processing.
The dedication once again expresses my gratitude to the members of my
family who have sustained me during the time when I was writing this book
and to the memory of my father who encouraged me to take a scholarly inter-
est in humour just as he had earlier taught me to enjoy it.
Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Traditional and modern

Fooltowns:
Local, regional and ethnic jokes about stupidity 11
Chapter
From the3Milesians to the Milesians: The Irish-Pontian joke,
its history and its absence in China and Japan 27
Chapter 4
The Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism 43
Chapter 5
Stupidity and rationality: Jokes from the iron cage 63
Chapter 6
Humour for the future and a future for humour 85
Chapter 7
Ethnic jokes about alcohol: A study of the humour of ambivalence 101
Chapter 8
"Nasty" legends, "sick" humour and ethnic jokes about stupidity 137
Chapter fun
Making 9 of work:
Humour as sociology in the humorous writings of H. G. Wells 151
Chapter 10: Conclusion 165
Notes 193
References 205
Index 229
χ Contents
List of tables
Table 1. Stupid and canny jokes by country

(Chapter 1) pp. 2-3
Table 2. Ethnic jokes about stupidity and alcohol

(Chapter 7) p. 108
Table 3. Opposed sets of ethnic jokes

(Chapter 10) p. 188
Table 4. Irish and Polish jokes about drinking

(Notes to chapter 7) p. 201
Table 5. Irish and Polish jokes about stupidity

(Notes to chapter 7) p. 201
Chapter 1
Introduction
The central theme that runs through each of the essays that constitute the
chapters that follow is that the most common scripts (Raskin 1985) on which
ethnic and many other kinds of jokes and humour are based make the butts of
the jokes appear either stupid or canny, the Scots word canny being a conven-
ient way of suggesting that (for the purpose of the jokes) a group is crafty and
stingy (Davies 1990a). The reasons for this seem to lie in the nature of work
in modem societies, which threatens everyone with two opposed kinds of
failure.
First, there is always present the threat that one will fail to master some
aspect of the world of work and be regarded as stupid in consequence, par-
ticularly at a time of rapid technical and commercial change. The second
mode of failure and the one that awaits the canny is that one will be so ab-
sorbed with working, calculating and making money, as to lose out on the
pleasures of life and to forfeit the trust and esteem of others by being too
clever and too calculating.
In general, the stupidity jokes are pinned on a familiar group, one similar
to the joke-tellers but who live at the periphery of the joke-teller's country or
culture. The people at the centre are thus laughing at what appears to them to
be a slightly strange version of themselves; almost as if they were to see
themselves in a distorting mirror at a fair ground. The butts of stupidity jokes
are not a distant or alien group. This centre-periphery relationship may take a
geographical, economic, linguistic or even religious form (Davies 1990a: 40-
83). Sometimes the two groups may be hostile or in a state of conflict, some-
times they live as amicable neighbours and sometimes they are indifferent to
one another, as may be deduced from a perusal of the cases listed in Table 1.
The jokes are essentially the same in all three cases and cannot be related
easily to the presence or absence of conflict or hostility. It has been shown in
the earlier studies (Davies 1990a: 84-101) and is shown again here that it is
futile to search for an explanation of stupidity jokes in terms of inter-group
conflict or tensions. The key explanation of these jokes is always the centre-
edge relationships of the jokers and the butts of their jokes.
2 Introduction
Table 1. Stupid and canny jokes by country
Country where stupid Identity of stupid Identity of the canny

and canny jokes are told groups in the jokes group in the joke
United States Poles (and others locally Scots, Jews, New

e.g. Italians Portuguese) England Yankees.
Canada (Central and Newfoundlanders Scots, Jews, Nova

Maritime Canada incl. ("Newfies") Scotians
Ontario and Quebec)
Canada (West) Ukrainians, Icelanders Scots, Jews
Mexico Yucatecos (from Yucatan) Regiomontanos

(citizens of Monterrey)
Columbia Pastusos (from Pasto

in Nariño) Paisas (from Antioquia)
England Irish
Scots, Jews
Wales Irish
Cardis (from Cardigan-
shire/Ceredigion),
Scots, Jews
Scotland Irish Aberdonians
(from Aberdeen), Jews
Ireland Kerrymen Scots, Jews
France Belgians, French Auvergnats (from the

Swiss (Ouin-Ouin) Auvergne) Scots, Jews
Netherlands Belgians, Limburgers Scots, Jews
Germany Ostfrieslanders Swabians, Scots, Jews
Southern Italians Milanese, Genovese,

Florentines, Scots,
Italy
Jews, Levantinis.
Fribourgers from Genevois, Balois (from

Fribourg/Freiburg Geneva and Bâle/Basel),
Switzerland
Jews
People from Lepe Aragonese, Catalans

in Andalucía
Spain
Introduction 3
Country where stupid Identity of stupid Identity of the canny

and canny jokes are told groups in the jokes group in the joke
Finland Karelians Laihians (from

Laihia), Scots
Bulgaria Sopi (peasants from the Gabrovonians (from

hinterland of Sofia) Gabrovo), Armenians
Greece Pontians
Armenians
(Black Sea Greeks)
Russia Ukrainians, Chukchees

Jews
India Sikhs (Sardarjis) Gujaratis, Sindis
Pakistan Sikhs (Sardarjis) Hindus, especially

Gujaratis
Iran Rashtis (Azéris Armenians, people from

from Rasht) Isfahan or Tabriz
Nigeria Hausas Ibos
South Africa Afrikaners Scots, Jews

(van der Merwe)
Australia Irish, Tasmanians Scots, Jews
New Zealand Irish, Maoris (North Scots, Jews, Dutch

Island), West Coasters
(South Island)
In addition, stupidity jokes are told about Carinthians and Burgenlanders in

Austria, about the citizens of Aarhus and about Norwegians in Denmark, about
Finns and Norwegians in Sweden, about Bosnians and Albanians in the former
Jugoslavia, about Slovaks in the Czech lands, about Uzbeks in Tadzhikistan,
about Kurds in Iraq, about Kurdish Jews and Moroccan Jews in Israel, about
the L a z ( f r o m Trebizond) in Turkey, about Nubians and Sa'idis (Southerners)
in Egypt, about Tunisians in Algeria.
Clearly we have here the material for an analysis based on international
comparisons. The stupidity jokes are almost universal and j o k e s about canny
people are also very widespread, although concentrated in several countries
4 Introduction
on a particular well-known group such as the Scots, rather than each country
having its own local version as in the jokes about stupidity.
The modern ethnic jokes about stupidity are more numerous than those
told in the past and in general better constructed, but they are nonetheless
very similar to the older genre of jokes about fooltowns. This similarity is
examined in Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 looks at the history of fooltowns
renowned in the past for their comic stupidity and compares them with more
modern stupidity jokes which may be pinned on a town, such as Lepe in
Andalucía in Spain, Aarhus in Denmark or Rasht in Iran, on the people from
a region or a county such as the jokes about the Laz in Turkey, the Lancastri-
ans in England, or the Kerrymen in Ireland, on the people of a province such
as Newfoundland, on an ethnic minority such as Polish-Americans or on a
nation such as the peoples of Belgium or Ireland. In general it may be said
that the similarities between the stupidity jokes operating at different levels
(i.e. town/region/ethnic group/nation) are more important than the differences
between them. This is not surprising since the differences between the cat-
egories are often the result of the arbitrary outcomes of yesterday's politics.
Until 1922 southern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom and Northern
Ireland still is. Belgium has only been an independent country since 1830,
having previously been part of France and the Netherlands and having also
been ruled by the Spanish and the Austrians. It may well in the future split
into two units, a Flemish-speaking Flanders and a French-speaking Wallonia.
As the research that lead to the writing of this book was being carried out,
both Jugoslavia and Bosnia split into fragments. It may well be that the vio-
lent conflicts in Bosnia have a shared origin with the Jugoslav ethnic jokes of
the 1960s and 1970s about stupid Bosnians. The conflict in Bosnia as com-
pared with the quiet secession from Jugoslavia of Slovenia and Macedonia
has been a consequence of the mixed ethnic and religious composition of the
province, which contains Orthodox Serbs, Roman Catholic Croatians and
Muslims, some of whom may be the descendants of Christian heretics. Each
group has tried to carve out a sector for itself by driving out the others in a
vicious persecution that has become known as ethnic cleansing. Before the
most recent carving up of Jugoslavia the Bosnians would have been made up
of an intermingling of all three groups who share a more or less common
language, which is why they were the butt of stupidity jokes told by both
Serbs and Croatians, since the Bosnians would have appeared to them as a
distorted mixed-up version of themselves, rather as the Belgians are the butt
of stupidity jokes in both France and the Netherlands. A further and entirely
peaceful parallel would be the way in which both French and German-speak-
Introduction 5
ing Swiss tell stupidity jokes about people from the canton of Fribourg/Freiburg
(Herdi 1979: 56-57; Ringo-Ringo 1978: 86), a mixed language canton where
one third of the population speaks French and the other two thirds Swiss-
German (Bonjour, Offler and Potter 1952: 304; Schweizerische Volkszählung
1980).
Such peoples constitute a Transitional Wavering People known by the
acronymn TWP [the W is pronounced like the 'oo' in took] or even a Transi-
tional Wavering People and Seemingly Inderminate Nation known by the
acronym TWPSIN. Their uncertain geographical position in a political order
of jostling nation states or ethnic groups seeking to be nations both renders
them likely to be the butt of jokes about stupidity (which is a matter of no
importance) and also in certain cases a centre of conflict (which is disastrous
for the people who live there). Belgium and Bosnia have long been the cock-
pits of Europe. If politicians of all kinds had studied the ethnic jokes of the
region, they might have behaved with more caution where Bosnia was con-
cerned. The Jugoslavian stupidity jokes were not an indication of an existing
conflict but provided a warning that Bosnia lay on a political fracture line,
where it was not possible easily to parcel out territory in an equitable and
acceptable way. The trouble with justice is that there is never enough of it to
go round. 1 Had the political and military leaders of the Serbs, Croatians and
Muslims and their backers from outside acted in a more circumspect fashion
and been more willing to compromise, the fighting might have been avoided.
Wars are made by politicians and generals who command organizations de-
signed for that purpose. They are in that respect quite different from jokes, or
prices arrived at in a free market, or conversations, which are a form of spon-
taneous order resulting from the unplanned interaction of individuals. An ar-
tillery barrage and ethnic jokes are about as unlike as any two social phenom-
ena can be; yet if we pay attention to the latter it could in some cases lead us
to take precautions which would enable us to avoid the former.
What can be said with certainty is that the pre-existing Jugoslav jokes
about stupid Bosnians played no significant part in creating or exacerbating
the present conflicts; the conflicts had been rumbling since the last years of
that ailing curiosity, the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim, Asian colonial empire,
many of whose subjects were European Christians. Within the twentieth cen-
tury Jugoslavia has been prevented by the Austrians and Hungarians, created
by the French, destroyed by the Germans and precariously held together by
fear of the Russians. The fall of the Soviet Empire took away the Jugoslav
fear of a Russian invasion via its Warsaw pact allies and left the different
ethnic groups and semi-nations that constituted Jugoslavia free to fight among
6 Introduction
themselves. Politics is about politics, i.e. the behaviour of those who hold
power and can command the use of organised force. The telling of ethnic
jokes did not and could not have been a causal factor in the Jugoslav conflict
but jokes are a source of information as in the following Jugoslav joke from
the 1960s:
Two African students met in their home-town. One was a graduate of the Uni-
versity of Belgrade [in Serbia] and the other of Zagreb University [in Croatia].
They began to quarrel over some trivial issue. Finally, one shouted at the other,
"Go fuck your Serbian Mother".
The other replied: "Huh, go fuck your Croatian mother".
At the time (late 1960s) the official line put out by the Jugoslav government
claimed that there was no internal ethnic dissension in Jugoslavia, but the
British army was already training its officers with a war-game called "Death
of Tito," in which each of the republics that made up the federal state of
Jugoslavia had its own player in the game. They were concerned, lest World
War III, like World War I, should begin in Sarajevo, sparked off by a local
dispute, and they wanted to be prepared for it. The joke quoted above, far
from rendering an inter-ethnic Serb-Croat dispute more likely, shows a cer-
tain awareness of dangerous tensions on the part of those who shared it. Had
the politicians and military men shown a similar degree of amused detach-
ment, the recent fighting might have been avoided. I have discussed the case
of the Jugoslav jokes at some length, not because they are of any great impor-
tance for the study of humour, but in order to dismiss the politically correct
view that there is something damaging and reprehensible about the telling of
ethnic jokes. War is waged by blood and iron, not by jokes
In Chapter 3 the coincidence that the word Milesian applies both to the
Irish who are the butt of modern British jokes about stupidity and to the citi-
zens of Miletus, about whom the ancient Greeks told much the same kind of
jokes, is also used to explore and emphasize the continuities between ancient
and modern humour. In thriving commercial cities such as Athens there was
clearly already scope for stupidity jokes to be told by those at the centre of
Greek civilizations about those who lived at its edge. Even though the ancient
Greeks knew nothing of the rapid technical innovation that has shaped the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it can be argued that they were an alert,
widely-travelled, trading and questioning people who were thus able to tell
"modern" jokes about stupidity. Alternatively, the view may be taken that
today's stupidity jokes are thousands of years old and universal and that the
Introduction 1
growth of modern industrial societies has merely given them a boost.

A further boost has been given to specifically ethnic jokes by the rise of
the modern nation-state which has provided its citizens with a national and
ethnic, as distinct from a local loyalty. Since stupidity jokes are told about a
group similar to the joke-tellers, then this change is likely to lead to a corre-
sponding shift in the butt of ethnic jokes from being about a neighbouring
town or village like the joke-tellers' own town or village, to being about a dif-
ferent but similar nation or ethnic group. What the jokers see themselves as
being also determines what kind of group they will perceive as being like a
distorted version of themselves and thus suited to be the butt of jokes about
stupidity. Towns laugh at towns and countries laugh at countries.
In Chapter 4 the jokes about those "canny" groups who, like the Scots,
have a Calvinist background will be examined in the light of Max Weber's
notable thesis The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber's work
on bureaucracy will likewise be used to analyse both a wide range of stupid-
ity jokes and a broad spectrum of jokes that can be opposed to them, jokes
that mock the over-diligent and the over-obedient as well as the excessively
canny. Chapter 5 has accordingly been given the title "Stupidity and ration-
ality: Jokes from the iron cage". In this chapter, and in the chapter which
follows (Chapter 6: "Humour for the future and a future for humour") empha-
sis is placed on the political jokes from the formerly communist countries of
Eastern Europe and in particular on the way jokes were created that exposed
the irrational aspect of the politicised bureaucracies that dominated those so-
cieties. In many cases the stupidity jokes that were told in these countries,
when they were under communist rule, about politicians, apparatchiks and
the militia, are identical or very similar to the ethnic jokes told about stupidity
in the rest of the world. This coincidence is not accidental and poses some
interesting sociological problems that need to be resolved.
There are many ethnic jokes about the consumption of alcohol, which is
not surprising given that alcohol is both the main legal euphoriant drug in
Western societies and a source of serious social problems. In particular it
conflicts with the work ethic of modern industrial societies which requires
sobriety, diligence, reliability and regularity. Given the ambivalent attitudes
to alcohol held in many societies, it seems likely that there should exist a
similar dichotomy in ethnic jokes about alcohol to that outlined earlier re-
garding the contrasting ethnic jokes about the stupid and the canny. Indeed, a
careful examination of ethnic jokes about alcohol does reveal a contrast be-
tween ethnic jokes about over-enthusiastic drinkers on the one hand and eth-
nic jokes about those who live in societies where one part of the society at
8 Introduction
least takes a strongly negative and puritanical attitude towards the drinking of
alcohol. It is important also to note the jokes that could exist but don't; there
are very few alcohol jokes about ethnic groups such as the Jews who drink in
moderation. Also there is no simple one to one relationship between the kind
of ethnic jokes about alcohol consumption that get pinned on a group and the
ethnic jokes about the stupid and the canny. Rather there is a complex series
of relationships between these two kinds of ethnic jokes and the purpose of
Chapter 7 is to elucidate these relationships.
In Chapters 8 and 9 the analysis of jokes which has been the basis of the
previous chapters is taken one stage further and applied to other humorous
items; first modern urban legends which have recently been extensively stud-
ied, particularly by folklorists, and secondly the humorous novels of a par-
ticular writer, H. G. Wells. Urban legends have often been treated as a com-
pletely separate genre from jokes but in fact there is often a considerable
similarity between the two, both in content and in structure. Indeed, it is dif-
ficult in some cases to tell whether a tale is a joke that is known to be a mere
invention and intended to make people laugh or a modern urban legend that
purports to be a true account of the experience of a friend of a friend and is
intended to shock. Jokes and urban legends are overlapping sets and this is
particularly true in the case of (a) ethnic jokes about stupidity and (b) sick
jokes; both kinds of jokes tend to end in disaster, which in turn is a key ele-
ment in many of today's "nasty" modern legends and particularly those that
involve advanced technology. In principle it ought to be possible to analyse
them together.
Jokes are numerous and have no author, which makes it possible to use
them to compare one culture with another, by noting which jokes are constant
across cultures and which are peculiar to some cultures and missing from
others. The joke that isn't told, though in principle it could be, such as the
absence of American or British jokes about the Japanese in World War II, is
also a highly significant phenomenon. The absence of jokes about the Japa-
nese is hardly compatible with the view that jokes are primarily vehicles for
expressing hostility. Likewise it is significant that the British and the French
do not include dirtiness in the traits they ascribe to the butts of their stupidity
jokes (the Irish and the Belgians respectively) despite examples of parallel
jokes being available to them in the American jokes about Poles and the bilin-
gual (in English and French) Canadian jokes about Newfoundlanders, both of
which treat dirtiness as just one more aspect of stupidity. Given that in serious
discourse "dirty" has a stronger negative connotation than "stupid" (e.g. dirty
bugger is stronger than silly bugger), a believer in the hostility theory of humour
Introduction 9
should infer that the Americans and Canadians feel more hostile towards the
Poles and Newfoundlanders than the British and French do towards the Irish
and Belgians respectively. Unfortunately, for the proponents of this theory
there is no independent evidence at all to show that this is the case, so the
theory is falsified.
It is clearly much more difficult to apply this kind of method to longer,
authored, humorous works such as a novel. However, if the ethnic jokes about
the stupid and the canny are, as has been suggested here, related to the pres-
sures of work in a modern society, then the generalizations derived from the
analysis of these jokes should have some application to comedies whose core
is the way individuals experience work in a modem society. The comic nov-
els of H. G. Wells fall into this category, which is why they have been chosen
for analysis here. Although Wells' comedies deal with work as it was experi-
enced by the lower middle classes in Britain in the years before the First
World War, they still have a relevance to the way work impinges on people
today. A fortunate few may be able to retreat into a post-modern world where
hobbies and obsessions rule, but for most people work is both an important
aspect of their lives and one that is very much plugged into a harsh modern
reality; their working lives are shaped by the market-place and bureaucracy,
just as they were when H. G. Wells was writing at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century. It is a measure of Wells' genius that he could write comedies
about the tedium of work, the frustration of crushed creativity and the horrors
of unemployment and bankruptcy in a way that is both cheerful and funny.
Both those who fail to fit in with the work ethic of their society and those who
have been totally taken over by it, both the stupid and the canny, appear promi-
nently in Wells' comedies.
Wells' comedies can be seen as criticisms of the capitalist society of his
own time and indeed he makes these criticisms in a much more explicit way
in his other writings. In his comedies he portrays capitalism as an economic
system which endlessly squeezes people to obtain more out of less and which
forces individuals to compete with one another until the stupid and the canny
have been relentlessly sorted out. In the process it destroys the social world
which characterises those who get labelled stupid in the jokes, a world of
stability, tradition, inertia and strong personal ties. Wells' canny characters
are equally the victims of such a society for they lead narrow specialised lives
obsessed with financial or bureaucratic matters, as indeed was indicated by
Max Weber writing at much the same time as H. G. Wells.
Capitalism, with its many faults, is the worst of all economic systems,
except for all the others. In particular capitalism has proved superior to the
10 Introduction
former socialist economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where
work was far more tedious and oppressive again than in capitalist societies
and the economic rewards considerably less. If the ethnic jokes about the
stupid and the canny can be perceived as expressing the discontents of a capi-
talist society, then the political jokes of the former socialist countries may
well have expressed the far greater discontents of the socialist system. At the
same time it must be realised that this interpretation of jokes, which by their
very nature are ambiguous, is an arbitrary one and individual East European
joke-tellers may have found many other meanings in their jokes.
The jokes from Eastern Europe are a reminder to the reader of H. G. Wells'
humorous novels that these comedies are set in England prior to the First
World War and that Wells' explicit and implicit social criticism now seems
dated, both because of the rise and fall of the socialist alternative since that
time and because the liberal, capitalist societies of the West have evolved in
unexpected directions, solved old problems and encountered new ones. De-
spite this, Wells' humour is timeless in the sense that, say, the humour of
Cervantes or Rabelais or Swift or Hasek is timeless; it is not necessary to
grasp all the contemporary references in their work to appreciate the humour.
Also the core of Wells' comedies, the mockery of work, is still valid in a
world that remains harshly modern and the reader can still recognize and
laugh with the plight of his inept lower-middle class small heroes. Also as
with the ethnic jokes about the canny, we can easily laugh at Wells' materially
successful characters, who enforce the oppressive work ethic of their society,
yet are also clearly trapped by it themselves.
Chapter 2
Fooltowns: Traditional and modern
Local, regional and ethnic jokes about stupidity
Fooltowns: Centre versus periphery, urban versus rural
Jokes about stupidity have always been pinned on peoples of, or from, a par-
ticular village, town, region or nation. The jokes told today in Egypt about the
simplicity of the Nubians from the far south are based on a comic script about
Nubians that is thousands of years old.1 The Nubians then, as now, lived on
the southern periphery of Egyptian civilization, a group of distant rustic
provincials, neither entirely foreign nor wholly Egyptian. 2 The ancient ori-
gins of ethnic jokes of this type was noted at least as long ago as 1622 when
Thomas Fuller ([1662] 1811, 2: 206) noted (see p. 32) that such jokes were
told about the Phrygians, Abderites and Boeotians in the ancient world.
The Boeotians, like so many other butts of ethnic jokes about stupidity,
were the rustic peasant neighbours of a great urban metropolis (Andrewes
1971: 94). Athens was a commercial city and one of the centres of Greek
civilization, whilst their neighbours were "a whole class of free and inde-
pendent farmers operating on a small scale in Boetia around 700 BC"
(Andrewes 1971: 101). These ancient jokes of the city dwellers of Athens
about the predominantly pastoral and agricultural Boeotians survive, even
today, in the adjective "Boeotian", meaning an illiterate rustic, and so do the
jokes about Abdera, which have given us the terms "abderite" and "abderitic"
for a foolish simple-minded person ( Brewer's Dictionary 1981: 137; Grambs
1986: 27; von Wieland 1861).
Many of the jokes the classical world told about allegedly stupid commu-
nities such as Cumae or Abdera have been written down and recorded. Such
cities and regions were often seen as ambiguous; the peoples mocked by the
ancient Greeks, for instance, often lived in Greek cities at the edge of Greek
civilization or were surrounded, and in consequence influenced and penetrated
by, the incomprehensibly babbling and thus, by extension, uncultured ba-ba-
barians ( Brewer's Dictionary 1981: 80).1 Many of the ancient jokes about
their stupidity have survived to the present day:
12 Fooltowns: Traditional and modern
The father of a man of Cumae having died at Alexandria, the son dutifully
took the body to the embalmers. When he returned at the appointed time to
fetch it away, there happened to be a number of bodies in the same place, so he
was asked if his father had any peculiarity by which his body might be recog-
nized and the wittol replied, "he had a cough". (Clouston 1888: 15)
A man of Abdera was trying to hang himself but the rope broke and he cut his
head. He went to the doctor to have it patched up and then returned and hanged
himself. (Ferguson 1968: 96)
Jokes about foolish communities were later to be found all over Europe. Just
as today, every country has its own ethnic jokes about stupidity (see pp. 2-3),
so in the past every region had a foolish town or village whose "stupidity"
formed the basis of many jests and anecdotes — for example, Gotham and
Austwick in England; Risca and Abercregan in Wales; Gordon and Assynt in
Scotland; Schilde, Domna, Fiinsing, Mundinga and Teterow in Germany; Mols
and Agger in Denmark; Kampen in Holland; Dinant and Malleghem in Bel-
gium; Saint-Maixent in France; Belmont in Switzerland; Selpice, Vazec,
Zahoriah, Prelouch and Nova Lhota in the former Czechoslovakia; Ràtót in
Hungary; Beira in Portugal; Lepe in Spain; and Pitsilia in Cyprus. 4 In some
countries there were a number of such foolish communities that became the
butt of jokes: indeed as many as forty-five have been noted in England alone
(Briggs 1970: Part A, 2, 1-5; Briggs 1977: 51-55). The reputation of a com-
munity for comic stupidity might well last for hundreds of years. Alfred
Stapleton (1900: 9; see also 9-11, 47-48) has traced the tales of the foolish
men of Gotham back to a fifteenth-century manuscript and notes that "we
have an extent of four and a half centuries during which we know the reputa-
tion of the village has been current. Beyond this, as in other cases, we can
safely assume the tradition had been current long anterior to the earliest re-
corded notice."
It seems likely that jokes about stupidity were attached to local communi-
ties in the past for much the same reasons as they are tied to ethnic minorities
and neighbouring nations today. An undesirable quality is rendered comic
and exported to another group who live on the edge of the joke-tellers' social
universe. When people define who they are in terms of their membership of a
local community, then they will tell jokes about the stupidity of the people of
some other local community, defining who they are not in terms of a social
unit similar to the one which gives them their basic identity. In traditional
societies, where people derive one of their most important social identities
from their membership of a local community, the jokes are told about the
Centre versus periphery, urban versus rural 13
members of a group that is recognizably similar and who, to the joke-tellers

look like themselves as seen in a distorting mirror. Just as we laugh at the
reflections of ourselves we see in a hall of curved mirrors, so too we laugh at
jokes about the stupidity of our nearest neighbours.
The members of a joke-telling and joke-sharing group enjoy a "sudden
burst of glory" as the stupidity of the others is unveiled and their own superi-
ority is briefly confirmed. We should not mistake the glee of the winners in
this successful piece of playful aggression for real hostility. In the past it was
often the people of the next village, township or parish who were seen as
rivals, a group known to be essentially similar to one's own and yet also held
to be inferior, though perhaps only by location.5 If the sense of superiority to
one's rival is or was buttressed by the recognized advantages that a commu-
nity on the main routes of transport and trade has over a more remote commu-
nity at the periphery, or that an urban centre has over its rural hinterland, then
jokes about the alleged stupidity of the latter are likely to emerge. The once-
famous jokes about the village of Gotham in England certainly seem to re-
flect its position as a relatively isolated village seen in contrast to the busy
market and manufacturing town of the "smiths" of Nottingham. In more re-
cent times jokes have been told in Port Talbot in Glamorgan in Wales about
the alleged stupidity of the people of Abercregan, a mining village at the head
of a "dead-end" valley, close to the industrial town of Port Talbot, which is a
port, a major steel- and tinplate-manufacturing town and on the main road-
and rail-routes from Wales to London.
Similarly, in the busy manufacturing, market and university town of Read-
ing in England, people in their eighties still remember the time when jokes
"akin to present day Irish jokes" or American Polish jokes were told about the
people of the village of Tadley. Roger Searing (1984) wrote of his boyhood
excursions by bicycle from Reading to Tadley in the 1920s that they never
lingered in Tadley, for the "wild lads of Tadley seemed as foreign to us as Red
Indians or Hottentots... we didn't wait to find a solution to the mysterious
tales we had heard of this strange village". The jokes of the 1920s seem to
stem from the (then) remoteness of the village, whose people worked as log-
cutters and wore distinctive "pattens", a kind of wooden clog for walking
through the muddy woods around Tadley (a comic occupational badge equiva-
lent to the present day jokes about the rubber boots, known as "wellies" of
Irish labourers on English building sites or the long rubber boots worn by
Newfoundland fisherman). They made hurdles, fencing, pegs and besom
brooms from the local wood. The last of these gave rise to local jokes about
the "Tadley witch".
In the 1920s the tendency for Tadley to be the butt of local wags was
reinforced by the skill of touring professional comedians acting as "switchers"
of jokes. Roger Searing (1984) wrote:
There must have been a member of staff at the Palace Theatre in Reading in
the '20s who was consulted by all of the comedians for advice on local joke
material and he must have had a particular relationship with Tadley. There
was frequent referencefromthe stage to "Tadley-God-help-us", "Tadley Treacle
Mines", "The Tadley Witch", jokes concerning Tadley akin to present day
Irish jokes.
From local to ethnic jokes
The decline of Tadley jokes and other similar jokes and their replacement by
Irish jokes in Britain is in part due to the creation of national media networks,
with a corresponding decline in the vitality of the local theatres and music
halls where the touring comedians performed. Comedians now tend to tell
jokes which latch on to ethnic scripts and joke-conventions which are widely
understood, and to abandon comic references which only have a very local
and restricted meaning. Economies of scale have likewise led to the replace-
ment of local joke-books by nationally available books of ethnic jokes.
A more deep-rooted reason for the switch to ethnic jokes is the decay of
people's sense of being primarily members of a local community, and its
replacement by ethnic nationalism as the basis of their identity (Smith 1981 :
69-71). People's sense of what they are not has also become ethnic. Accord-
ingly, comic stupidity has to be exported into the domain of another ethnic
group rather than that of another local community. Also, the expansion of the
urban world into rural areas has forced once-remote villages to become part
of an integrated economy of increasingly mobile people (Pähl 1968: 269-
277). Tadley jokes are no longer told and would have no meaning for the
younger citizens of Reading, for Tadley is now a commuter village and many
of the people who live there are scientists and technicians in the nearby Atomic
Weapons Research Establishment set up at Aldermaston in 1951. Jokes from
Reading now export stupidity safely to Ireland; it would hardly do to locate it
in atomic Aldermaston. In Britain, as in many other countries, ethnic jokes
about stupidity have largely replaced those about foolish communities. To-
day even the jokes about Gotham are almost forgotten. When the village was
From local to ethnic jokes 15
damaged by a tornado in 1984, the reports in the British press did not so much
as mention its former fame.
One piece of indirect evidence that the change from local to ethnic jokes
about stupidity has been the result of the rise of national and ethnic loyalties
at the expense of local ones is that jokes about "stupid" towns and villages
have survived best in countries where the sense of national identity is rela-
tively weak and local ties are very strong. Thus in Italy there are jokes about
the individual quirks and characteristics of the people of almost every city
and province, though it is significant that stupidity, when not pinned on
Southern Italians in general or on the Carabinieri is sometimes assigned to
the citizens of Cuneo, a town set on a wedge of land between two rivers at the
very edge of Italy, close to the border with France at the foot of the Alpes
Maritimes. Local, as distinct from ethnic or national, jokes are even more
prevalent in Syria and Lebanon. In both countries many jokes are still told
about the inhabitants of two towns, Horns and Hama, who are reputedly al-
ways quarrelling with each other and are renowned for their alleged stupidity.
The two towns both lie on the river Asi (Orontes), and the jokes often depict
them as engaged in endless disputes concerning the best way to divide up the
river between them. In one such joke:
Finally they decided upon a place to draw the line and they put a rope across
the river to mark it. One evening while some people from Horns were passing
in the area of this line of demarcation, they heard some noise by the river.
Upon checking, they found some people from Hama taking buckets of water
from the Horns side and putting them in the Hama side. So the people from
Horns got really mad and took the buckets away and started removing water
from the Hama side and putting it back in the Horns side. (UCBFA, Lebanese
file. Collected by Nan Elliott 1970) 6
Other jokes contrast the canny people of the capital cities Beirut and Damas-
cus with the simplicity of provincials from towns such as Aleppo:
A young Aleppan wants to go to Beirut and an older Aleppan is giving his

advice: "Beirut is a city of crooks and when you buy anything always bargain
the price down half." The young Aleppan listens and goes to Beirut and goes
into a shop and asks for a pair of pants. And the shopkeeper says: "This costs
100 Lebanese liras."
So the Aleppan says: "Aha you can't fool me — 50."
They are bargaining. The shop-keeper says: "Well I'll make it 80."
So the Aleppan says: "I'll only pay 40."

They bargain, and the shop-keeper says 70 and the Aleppan 35. And it contin-
ues. Finally the shop-keeper is intrigued by the guy and says: "I'll give you
the pants for free."
Then the Aleppan says: "I'll take half the pants!" (UCBFA, Lebanese file) 7
Jacqueline Ferraro who collected this joke added:
When I asked Seteney [her informant, a Jordanian who heard the joke in Bei-
rut, Lebanon] about the fact that their jokes were ascribed to individuals from
a particular city, she commented on the strong city attachment that people in
the Middle East feel. Historically there was a large empire there and people
felt they belonged to their city or village rather than anything else.
Foreign rule by the Turks and the French — which in each case only came to
an end as a result of British military intervention — arbitrary frontiers and, in
the case of Lebanon, communal strife, not merely between Christians, Mus-
lims and Druze but between different sects, has inhibited the growth of any
kind of secure national identity in the Levant (see Longrigg 1958: 2-24,123,
244, 358, 369). Local ties and local jokes continue to prevail.
Today, in many countries in which the inhabitants of towns or districts are
depicted as either foolish or canny, the small community referred to in the
jokes may simply symbolize a larger region or a deeper ethnic division. Thus
Persian jokes about people from the north-western provincial town of Rasht
in Iran refer to a linguistic minority who live on the borders between Iran on
the one hand and Turkey and Azerbaijan on the other. Similarly, Danish jokes
about the people of the town of Aarhus (which is very close to Mois, a remote
rural settlement that was traditionally the butt for Danish jokes about stupid-
ity) may well refer to Jutes in general, for Aarhus is the capital of Jutland, one
of the three major seagirt subdivisions of Denmark (Holbek 1975: 327-349).
Guatemalan jokes about Guitecos, the people of the "Indian" town of Guite
east of Guatamala City, are probably ethnic jokes about Indians as distinct
from the people of Spanish descent or culture who live in the capital (Toledo
1965: 82-85,93-138).The former are labelled foolish (and the latter canny?)
in jokes like the one below:
Two Guitecos arrived at Guatemala City and wanted to take to their town the
National Palace because they thought it was beautiful and they did not have
an equal in their town. They then put down their suitcases on the ground and
began to push the building. After two hours they saw that their suitcases were
The social roots of regional and local jokes 17
not there and one said: "Already we've gone far, because we cannot see the
suitcases." (UCBFA, Guatemala file)
The social roots of regional and local jokes
Although ethnic jokes have replaced jokes about smaller communities or

groups, the latter often survive locally, and the ethnic jokes that prevail across
a nation or even internationally still get adapted for local use. In the United
States, for instance, the ubiquitous Polish jokes are adapted locally, not only
as ethnic jokes about the Portuguese in San Francisco, the Italians in New
Jersey, the Norwegians in the Dakotas, the Finns in Northern Michigan and
so on, but also as jokes about the inhabitants of particular American states or
the students and alumni of particular universities, such as Texas A and M (the
"Aggies"), Virginia Tech (the Hokies) or Carolina State." In Britain, the stand-
ard pair of ethnic jokes about the "stupid" and the "canny", which today are
usually told about the Irish and the Scots respectively, have a local equivalent
in the north of England, where jokes about "canny" Yorkshiremen and "stu-
pid" Lancastrians have a long history and indeed have outlived the shires that
gave rise to them. 9 Local people may well still identify themselves with one
of the two great northern rivals, Lancashire and Yorkshire, or even with the
now obsolete "Ridings" into which Yorkshire was once divided. They cer-
tainly did in the past as can be seen from their jokes in both the twentieth
(Spencer 1938: 247-248) and the nineteenth centuries:
The late Lord Mansfield told the following anecdote about himself from the
bench: He had turned off his coachman for certain acts of peculation, not
uncommon in this class of person. The fellow begged his lordship to give him
a character. "What kind of character can I give you?" said his lordship. "Oh
my lord, any character your lordship chooses to give me I shall most thank-
fully receive." His lordship accordingly sat down and wrote as follows: "The
bearer, JOHN has served me three years in the capacity of coachman,
He is an able driver and a very sober man. I discharged him because he cheated
me. (signed) MANSFIELD." John thanked his lordship and walked off. A few
mornings afterwards when his lordship was going through his lobby to step
into his coach for Westminster Hall, a man in a very handsome livery made
him a low bow. To his surprise he recognized his late coachman. "Why, John",
said his lordship,"you seem to have got an excellent place; how could you
manage this with the character I gave you?" "Oh my lord", said John, "it was
an exceedingly good character and I am come to return you thanks for it. My
new master on reading it, said he observed your lordship recommended me as

an able driver and a sober man." "These", said he, "are just the qualities I want
in a coachman. I observe his lordship adds that he discharged you because you
cheated him." "Hark you, sirrah", said he, "I'm a Yorkshireman, I'll defy you
to cheat mei" (Howe 1891: 52-53)
Mary Sidebottom was busy baking one evening, whilst Albert Edward, her
husband, looked on. "Here", she said, "ah'll find thee summat to do. Here's a
bob, slip deawn to t'stores an' fotch me a pound o'currants". "Aw reet", said
Albert Edward, and putting on his cap, was leaving the room when his wife
called him back. "Here's another bob", she said, "tha might as weel get a
pound o' raisins too". Albert Edward toddled off, but not having returned after
two hours his wife decided it was time to see what had happened. The store
was only at the bottom of the street, so putting on her shawl she went in search
of the missing husband.
Arriving at the stores she saw Albert Edward standing in front of the shop.
"Wheer dosta think tha's bin?" she shouted. "An' what art a doin' stondin' in
front o't' shop fur?"
Then to pile on the agony added: "Tha'rt a gawmless fool". Albert Edward
looked relieved, and holding out both hands, each containing a shilling, he
said: "Bi gum, lass, ah'm fain th'as coom, ah dunnot know which bob is fur
currants, an' which is fur raisins." (Joell 1944: 34-35)
Two Lancashire businessmen discussing a Yorkshireman who had recently

joined their firm. "He's not a bad bloke", said one, "but have you noticed how
he always lets one of us pick up the bill when we have a meal together?"
"Aye", said the other. "He's got an impediment in his reach."
(Crompton 1970a: 24)
Buying her Sunday joint, the Yorkshirewoman noticed a large bone in the
meat as the butcher put it on the scales. "I'm not 'avin' that", she said angrily.
"You're givin' me a big piece o'bone."
"Nay I'm not, lass", replied the butcher. "Tha's payin' for it."
(Crompton 1970b: 26)
British jokes about "canny" Yorkshiremen can be found as early as the late
eighteenth century and still survive today, though on nothing like the scale of
jokes about the Scots. The English saying "He's too far north for me", mean-
ing "He's too canny, too cunning, a hard bargainer" refers to the people of
Yorkshire in the north of England, though it can also apply to the people who
live much further north again in Scotland, and even as far north as Aberdeen.
The social roots of regional and local jokes 19
"To come Yorkshire over someone" likewise means to swindle them ( Brew-
er's Dictionary 1981: 791; Grose [1811] 1971). Atone time Yorkshire, a very
large county, was divided into three sub-sections called ridings for adminis-
trative purposes. These were the North Riding, the East Riding and the West
Riding. The traditional strength of Puritan and Nonconformist Protestantism
in the manufacturing towns of what used to be the West Riding of Yorkshire
may well underlie the image of the canny Yorkshireman. In support of this
suggestion it should be noted that Yorkshire "canny" jokes were also told
about the people of the West Riding by those who lived in the East Riding of
Yorkshire (see also pp.000). In Lancashire by contrast the strength of Roman
Catholicism, both in the past (Braxnap 1910: 3) and in more recent times
(Walker 1981: 7-10), may underlie (see pp. 61-62) the comic image of the
gormless Lancastrian. In Yorkshire there has been a stronger sense of county
identity than elsewhere in Britain, for in general the counties have become
mere administrative districts that today can be merged and dissected at the
whim of the central government. During the major reorganization of county
boundaries in the 1970s, however, a minor alteration in the boundary be-
tween Lancashire and Yorkshire caused great indignation on the part of the
people affected, who did not wish to alter the colour of their roses.
Lancashire, along with the West Riding of Yorkshire and South Wales,
was one of the pioneering centres of the industrial revolution and the word
"Manchestertum" signifying the rule of hard-headed, competitive, industrial
capitalists was once capable of reducing German romantics, militarists and
socialists to a frenzy of impotent fury (Davis 1914: 268; Engels 1958: xxiii,
XXX, 50-51). However, a great part of the workforce in the large mechanized
cotton mills of Lancashire was unskilled and female, in contrast to the sub-
stantial strata of small masters and skilled workers to be found in the woollen
industry of the West Riding or the metal industry in South Wales. As Adam
Smith ([1776] 1896: book 5, chapter 1, article 2) had predicted and in other
contexts pointed out, the extreme division of labour in Lancashire rendered
people stupid because their work was so routinized that they never needed to
think. Also it is common for the skilled male workers of industries that en-
trench traditional sex roles to mock men employed in occupations where there
is a high demand for female labour, as in the Welsh miners' description of
trading estates as "doll's eyes factories". My father, who was the son of a
Welsh coal-miner, always described anything done in an inept or slapdash
fashion as "proper Penclawdd"; Penclawdd was a village close to his own
village of Three Crosses also known as Crwys. When I asked him about this,
he explained that the cockle-women of Penclawdd (in contrast to the wives of
coal-miners) were the bread-winners of the family and would not only collect
the cockles from the shore, but take them to market as far afield as Bristol in
England. There, he claimed, they would be courted by idle, foreign, English
layabouts with their eyes on the cockle-money, who would then become house-
husbands in Penclawdd and drink beer all day while their wives slaved over
the cockles. Such a way of life was abhorrent to the miners, whose sense of
self-respect came from the money they made in a tough all-male occupation.
In Lancashire the male "tacklers", or overlookers, were often the butts of
jokes about stupidity told by the weavers, who were mainly women (Spencer
1938: 265). These jokes may well be the basis of jokes about Lancastrians
and the source of the image of the amiable but dumb male Lancastrian which
was made internationally famous by the shrewd Lancashire comedian Stan
Laurel. Men in families, industries, villages (such as Pitsilia in Cyprus), and
by extension regions, based on female work and earnings seem very often to
be the butts of jokes that make them out to be absolutely foolish (Rockwell
1982: 51).
From fooltowns to ethnic jokes: Continuity rather than change
Jokes about fooltowns and foolregions are essentially similar to ethnic jokes
about stupidity which, as I have shown elsewhere (Davies 1990), are rooted
in such universal sociological contrasts as centre versus periphery, urban ver-
sus rural, white-collar versus blue-collar, skilled versus unskilled and compe-
tition versus monopoly. It is necessary to stress this because so many scholars
with some slight knowledge of the folklore of jokes claim that modern ethnic
jokes about stupidity are "hostile" in a way that the fooltown jokes of the past
were not, and imply that the modern jokes are rooted in bitter inter-ethnic
conflicts, apparently unknown in an idyllic past, when folk lived in contented
self-sufficient communities and exchanged gentle jests about Gothamite droll-
eries, numskulls and noodles. This is not merely nonsense, it is nonsense on
stilts. Before the emergence of the modern state with its monopoly of organ-
ized force and the right and the capacity to enforce the King's Peace and the
King's Justice, it was often unsafe for an individual to venture alone from his
or her own local community into the territory of another village or small
town, and vicious territorial fights between rustic louts were common (Baechler
1979: 29). By contrast with this, Hamtramck, the Voorstreek, Jutland, Kerry
and Fribourg are havens of peace and order. The benign peasants of
Ostfriesland, who today are the butts of German jokes about stupidity, were
Fromfooltowns to ethnic jokes 21
in the past violently intolerant of visiting strangers whose habits and apparel
were slightly different from their own; hence the proverb "Don't wear a brown
hat in Friesland" (Brewer's Dictionary 1981: 534). Friesland was clearly not
a safe place for brown-hatters.
O n e of the silliest attacks on modern ethnic jokes comes from Alvin
Schwartz (1973: 109), who contrasts the "gentle, good-natured" jokes of the
1940s with today's "angry, insulting hate jokes" about ethnic stupidity, which
he sees as a hostile put-down for the butts of the jokes. Jokes about fooltowns
would seem to come in the gentle category, as in the case of the Molboer
jokes about the people of the Danish community of Mols, which Schwartz
curiously refers to as "Noi", as in the Cromwell after whom Freud named his
son. Schwartz seems to suggest that Americans telling jokes about Poles
actually hate Polish-Americans and that the cause of this hate lies in inter-
ethnic competition for jobs and housing (Schwartz 1973: 75), but he provides
no factual evidence to support either assertion.
Roger L. Welsch's study of "American Numskull Tales: The Polack Joke"
provides another display of equally inadequate scholarship buttressed by fre-
quent use of the evasive adverb "probably"; he writes:
Throughout Europe there are individual communities that enjoy the reputa-
tion of being populated by idiots: Gotham in England, Kampen in Holland,
Mol in Denmark, Schildau in Germany for example... In the United States the
numskull tale has taken on an interesting aberration, perhaps reflecting the
geographic, economic, and ethnic mobility of American society... in general
numskull tales have been associated with various immigrant groups.
Far from being an "aberration", the United States is very similar to much of
the rest of the world. Jokes about "stupid" ethnic minorities are extremely
common and widespread, and there is less difference than Welsch thinks be-
tween internal and trans-national migration. British jokes about the Irish have
been common since the seventeenth century when the Irish first emigrated to
Britain in search of unskilled work as labourers, hay-makers and domestic
servants. Such jokes are far more popular than the tales told about Gotham,
which are now of interest only to the antiquarian. Had Welsch studied in
rather more depth and detail the modern culture and history of societies other
than the United States, it might have occurred to him that comic tales about
Gotham are no longer told on the upper deck of the Clapham omnibus (if they
ever were), having long been supplanted by jokes about Hibernian stupidity.
Ethnic jokes about stupidity are, for Roger L. Welsch, above all a sign that
the butt of the jokes is perceived as a threat. This type of joke, according to
Welsch (1967: 183), "probably represents a reaction to the imagined threats
posed by a sudden influx of an immigrant group at a particular point in his-
tory. Thus Pat and Mike jokes gained particular prominence in the mid-nine-
teenth century because of the great Irish immigration following the potato
famine and Hans and Fritz jokes... reflected the insecurity of the American
public in the face of mid-to-late nineteenth-century German immigrations.
The Polack joke is probably a parallel phenomenon. As the Polish laborer has
gained greater social mobility from increased affluence and the influence of
labor in general, he has moved into neighbourhoods outside of the Polish
ghetto, usually to the less magnificent apartments of that area for example
basements... As other social and economic strata come into contact with
Polacks — American Poles — they learn more about their character, real and
supposed, and feel more and more threatened by them."
This passage is full of muddled thinking and of assertions that are not
supported by data or references. The problem Welsch has failed to confront is
that some immigrants are perceived as very threatening and some as not threat-
ening at all; equally some immigrants and ethnic minorities are the butts of
jokes about their stupidity and others are not. There is no simple relationship
between the degree of threateningness and being the butt of stupidity jokes,
for there are cases of high perceived threat and few jokes (for example in the
past the Japanese in California) and of low perceived threat and many jokes
(e.g. Polish-Americans in the 1960s, 1970 and 1980s).
The Poles may well have been seen as a threat in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries when there was a huge wave of immigration to
America of poor peasants from the most backward parts of Poland and again
in the inter-war period when the Irish and Germans who were a little higher
up the economic ladder tried to prevent the Poles from having access to skilled
jobs. At that time, however, there were few jokes about stupid Polacks. 10 In-
deed, throughout the period stupidity jokes continued to be largely told about
the Irish. In the period after World War II the Polish-Americans were not a
threat to anyone. The children and grandchildren of the original immigrants
had been Americanized, spoke English, revered cleanliness and were absorbed
into the well-paid, blue-collared, hard-hatted American working class. Their
rate of upward social mobility out of this class was slow, gradual and non-
threatening, for they valued security rather than success." This is in marked
contrast to the record of the Jews from Eastern Europe who only remained in-
dustrial workers for one generation. Their fathers in Europe had been pedlars
From fooltowns to ethnic jokes 23
and artisans, their children were businessmen and professionals. Many anti-
Semitic Americans did perceive the Jews as threatening, though, contrary to
Welsch's theory, they did not tell jokes about their stupidity.12 The Poles were
not perceived as particularly threatening, precisely because they were neither
very successful nor competitive. Also the Poles of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
did not threaten property values or cause non-Polish families to flee the neigh-
bourhood. Welsch's image of beleaguered, joke-telling, old-stock, urban
Americans cowering at the thought that "The Polacks are coming!" is absurd.
The threat-and-hate model of stupidity jokes also permeates, the other-
wise observant, comparative work of Sandra McCosh (1979) on children's
humour. McCosh has noted both the similarity and the differences between
the ethnic jokes told about the Poles in America and those told about the Irish
in Britain. She (1976: 120) correctly states that "the Irish stereotype [in Brit-
ish jokes]... appears as stupid and foolish, but also loveable... In contrast the
Polish-stereotype in the United States is a much nastier image and the Polack
is compared to shit and has other nasty habits."
She (1976: 120) explains this difference in terms of the same entirely un-
proven and unsubstantiated sociological thesis used by Schwartz and Welsch,
and declares that the basic script of the American Polish jokes is more nega-
tive in content than that of the British jokes about the Irish because:
The Polack is a newer immigrant group and is threatening jobs and positions
traditionally held by other groups. In England the Irish although at times im-
migrants are considered members of Great Britain and are not a visible ethnic
group and therefore are acceptable.
In this statement the hypothesis of the threatening upward mobility of the

Polish-Americans is combined by implication with an absence of such mobility
by the Irish in Bridan. No evidence whatsoever is presented concerning either
Polish or Irish mobility. Also every factual statement she makes here about
the Irish is wrong. Ireland has never been part of Great Britain, and the Irish
Republic (formerly the Irish Free State) has been an independent state since
1922. The vast majority of Polish-Americans were born in the United States
and Polish immigration has been at a relatively low level since World War I.
By contrast there are about a million people who were born in Ireland living
in Britain, making them easily the largest community of recent immigrants.
They are as individuals far more recognizable than Polish Americans in the
United States, mainly because they speak English with a very distinctive accent,
or rather set of accents, for the English spoken on the Shankill Road in Belfast
differs from that of Mullingar and those who speak Dublin English laugh at
the brogue of the Kerryman (Brown 1972).
The error in McCosh's argument lies, not in her fieldwork nor in her logic,
but in the theory about jokes that underpins her analysis. If it were the case
that ethnic jokes about stupidity could be reduced to disguised hostile re-
marks about the butts of the joke, then jokes that depict such people as filthy
and faecal as well as stupid would indeed indicate even greater levels of hos-
tility, and would presumably emanate from a situation of considerably more
intense inter-ethnic conflict. However, in point of fact Anglo-Irish relations
have been rather more fraught than those between Poles and other Ameri-
cans. There is no Polish equivalent of the IRA setting off bombs in Hamtramck
and no Polish-American version of Sinn Fein. In consequence it is clear that
the initial assumption which McCosh takes for granted is wrong. Jokes about
stupidity cannot be reduced to hostile, but disguised, serious statements. Even
the children who provided Sandra McCosh with her jokes had enough insight
to see that, for, as two English boys said, "We have nothing against the Irish;
my father and his father are Irish. They're just supposed to be stupid." (McCosh
1979: 117).
Concluding thoughts on fooltowns
It is difficult to know for certain whether the traditional jokes of the past
about fooltowns and stupid regions are essentially the same as the stupidity
jokes pinned on ethnic groups today, especially since it is often impossible to
know how the peoples of the past used such jokes. In certain respects the
stupidity jokes of today, like all modern jokes, do differ from those of past
times. They are, for instance, more likely to dwell on ignorance of modern
machines and artefacts rather than on more local and arbitrary errors of speech
or social convention. There are, after all, far more technical devices to be
ignorant about (Davies 1990: 17-28, 145-166). Also the modern jokes are
likely to be snappier and less discursive, and built around a formula that leads
directly and unerringly to a surprise punch line (Raskin 1985, Utley 1965 and
1971-3).
In most other respects, though, the modern ethnic jokes do seem to resem-
ble traditional jokes about stupidity quite closely, and the reason is a simple
one. Everyone enjoys, and always has enjoyed, jokes at the expense of some
other group's stupidity, regardless of whether they like, dislike or feel indif-
Concluding thoughts on fooltowns 25
ferent towards the butt of the jokes. It is pointless to search for hidden mo-
tives and resentments and, indeed, the attempt to do so, far from advancing
our understanding of humour, has hindered it.
The key factor that should be examined is not how the joke-tellers feel
about the individual members of the group who are the butts of the jokes, but
how they categorize the group in social terms. The objective evidence about
the relative social and economic positions of joke-tellers and butts is so con-
sistent (Davies 1990: 40-83) that it is reasonable to infer that the joke-tellers
associate the butts of jokes about stupidity with a relatively static, uncom-
petitive and uninnovating way of life in which stability is more highly valued
than individual success. The jokes represent the centre laughing at the periph-
ery, townies laughing at rustics, skilled and white-collar workers laughing at
the unskilled, and the established laughing at the greenhorns.
Chapter 3
From the Milesians to the Milesians: The Irish-Pontian
joke, its history and its absence in China and Japan
Milesians are not stupid, I aver,

But they behave the same as if they were.
Milesians are not stupid, no, not they.

They merely act as if they were that way.1
By an odd coincidence both the ancient Greeks and the modern British tell
jokes about stupid Milesians. The Greeks told such jokes about the citizens of
Miletus, an Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor, the British about the Irish
who are jocularly known as Milesians after Miledh or Milesius a legendary
Spanish king, who according to myth conquered Ireland in about 1300 B.C.
and repopulated it, after eliminating the aboriginal Firbolgs (Brewer's Dic-
tionary 1981). The Greek Milesians were a trading people who founded nu-
merous cities and colonies round the coast of the Black Sea (Cook 1962;
Dunham 1915; Koromila 1991). The Black Sea or Pontus continued to attract
Greek settlers in modern times and they were to be found until recently on the
coasts of Bulgaria, Romania, the Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey (see Koromila
1991). As a result of the political upheavals of the twentieth century, many
Black Sea Greeks were forced to return to Greece, where they are known as
Pontians. By another odd coincidence they have become the butts of modern
Greek jokes about stupidity (Petropoulos 1987: 46-47).
The Irish and the Pontians are, of course, not alone in having such jokes
told about them, for in the modern world most countries have a region, neigh-
bouring country or ethnic minority about whom such jokes are told (Davies
1990: 40-83). Many of these jokes could not have been told in the ancient
world, for the artifacts to which they refer had not yet been invented. The
proliferation of new machines, gadgets and types of vehicle in modern times
means that there are far more things to be ignorant of and to use in jokes
about the alleged ignorance of others.
Why does a Pontian housewife have two washing machines?

So that she can balance the scrubbing board on them.
28 From the Milesians to the Milesians
How can you tell an Irish word-processor?

By the Tipp-Ex on the screen.
How do you recognize a Belgian in a submarine?

He's the one with a parachute on his back.
Why was the Irish train-driver on the underground sacked?

For over-taking.
Jokes of this kind are extremely popular in the modern world and there exist
literally thousands of ethnic j o k e s about the alleged stupidity of some other
group. With the exception of jokes about sex, there are more j o k e s about
stupidity and particularly ethnic stupidity than on any other theme. T h e more
complicated the everyday material world becomes and the greater the corre-
sponding emphasis on skill, know-how and intelligence, the more we tell
j o k e s about others who are allegedly unable to understand even the simplest
of artifacts or principles. It is possible that the source of much of this h u m o u r
is the uneasiness people may feel because they routinely use and even repair
machines whose m o d e of operation is a mystery to them (see Holbek 1975;
K u m a r 1978: 241). M u c h of the support for green parties stems f r o m the
bafflement spread by the use of modern techniques whose m o d e of operation
is not easily discernable. The hysterical fears aroused by Western nuclear
p o w e r stations and the opposition to the storage of the nuclear waste f r o m
these p o w e r stations which are out of all proportion to the risks involved,
stem f r o m the invisible, intangible and seemingly unnatural quality of this
method of generating power. It is far more dangerous to dwell in a house built
on and of granite with a substantial cellar and energy-saving double-glazing,
insulation and draft excluders than to live next door to a British, American or
West European nuclear power station. M o r e British children died in one day
at Aberfan when an old coal tip moved and engulfed their school than are
ever likely to be casualties f r o m the storage of nuclear waste in Britain. H o w -
ever, for our present purposes the irrationality of the fears people have about
modern technology is less important than the fact that such fears are wide-
spread (Wildavsky 1991: 111-145).
T h e anxieties that the Greens exploit for sinister political ends, joke-tell-
ers dexterously use to produce laughter. We laugh at the ignorance of others
because we are conscious of our own. Most people in an industrial society
cannot give a coherent account of how even such "old" and familiar items as
a telephone or a telescope work. I can remember everyone in a high school
From the Milesians to the Milesians 29
physics class laughing at a friend of mine who refused to believe that sound
could not travel through a vacuum, because in that case how was it that we
were able to communicate with space satellites. I can also recall the amuse-
ment of another fellow student of physics at my own expense, when I was
unable to imagine how it was possible to construct a telescope from a turn-
table, a plane mirror and a beaker of mercury and had to have it explained to
me. The jokes about Irish stupidity possibly exist in part at least to reassure
the joke-tellers (i.e. in this case the British) that they themselves aren't stupid.
Manager on the phone: How are you getting on, Pat?

Irish foreman: Very well sir. The goods is sent off.
Manager: What have you been drinking?
Pat: Ach, look at that now, me breath has given me away again. (Mr. Punch's
Irish Humour 1908: 116)
The observatory took on a new Irish night-porter who watched with amaze-
ment one of the astronomers setting up and operating a large telescope. Pres-
ently, as the astronomer moved the telescope into position , a shooting star
shot across the sky, falling rapidly. "Begorrah", said the porter, to the astrono-
mer, "I've never seen such foine shooting." (Copeland and Copeland 1939:
728; see also Further Sunbeams 1924: 122)
Ethnic jokes about stupidity are not told about a people who are very distant,
different or alien from ourselves, but always about a neighbouring and simi-
lar people, whom we can perceive as a comic imitation of ourselves, just as
we might visit a hall of mirrors to laugh at our own distorted reflections. This
is a general rule that can be observed in countries all over the modern world
as can be seen in Table 1 (see pp. 2-3). It should be noted, though, that it only
works for ethnic jokes about stupidity. Ethnic jokes about other negative
equalities such as craftiness, brutality, cowardice, greed, stinginess, or per-
verse sexuality are ascribed to other peoples on the basis of quite different
sets of principles (see Davies 1990). The relationship between each pair of
joke tellers and butts of ethnic jokes about stupidity is in every case one of
centre and periphery with those at the dominant centre of a culture laughing
at their imitators on the periphery. It is always that way round. A Frenchman
can laugh at a Belgian for being a funny imitation of a Frenchman but neither
the Belgians nor the French nor anyone else is going to see the French as a
funny imitation of the Belgians. Not even Simenon or Hercule Poirot could
convince us otherwise. Indeed Captain Hastings once caught Poirot in pos-
session of a newspaper cutting with an advertisement that began "How to
speak French like a Frenchman". Language is one important dimension of

the dominant position of those at the centre. Walloons try to speak "pure"
Parisian French and to eradicate Belgicisms from their speech but the French
never attempt to master Bruxellois. Likewise middle-class Dubliners laugh at
the brogue of the Kerryman even though it is more truly Irish than their own
relatively Anglicized speech. In the nineteenth century the Pontians of Tur-
key's Black Sea coast sought to improve their Greek by importing school-
masters, first from Constantinople, the Greek metropolis of the Ottoman
Empire and then later from Athens — they wanted to speak like Athenians.
Most cultures and nations have a dominant centre of this kind, whose su-
premacy is implicitly acknowledged by these obvious patterns of imitation
and deference. The most that militant members of the peripheral group can
hope for is a greater degree of autonomy in their own backyard, for they will
never be able to reverse the pattern of dominance. Hinduism is never going to
become an offshoot of the Sikh religion, nor is Erse going to emerge from the
Gaeltacht and become the language of Dublin let alone Liverpool, Kilburn or
Kentish Town.
The jokes themselves reflect the comic possibilities of the peripheral groups'
idiosyncratic version of a common language as can be seen from the jokes
below about the Irish use of English:
Learn to speak Irish in one easy lesson. Say very quickly:

WHALE
OIL
BEEF
HOOKED (Whitelands Rag, 1985)
I'm an Irish tinker

Oh! And what are you t'inking about? (O'Leary and O'Larry 1983)
Is your father alive yet?

No, not yet.
Garda(policeman): "Yer name's obliterated."

Lorry driver: "Yer a liar, it's O'Flaherty."
A train stopped at a small station in the West of Ireland. Kieran Moriarty got
out and ordered a drink at the bar. To his horror the train started pulling out of
the station. He ran after it shouting: "Stop, stop! There's a man on board that's
been left behind!"
The cultural and linguistic periphery is often, though by no means always,

economically backward and often dependent on the centre, with an agricul-
tural economy and a surplus of unskilled labour which migrates to the centre.
Ireland for instance has in turn provided the pick and shovel labourers for
Britain's canals, railways and motorways, and Irish emigrants to America,
Australia and New Zealand have had to take the same kinds of jobs. The same
is true of the Poles in America, the Newfies (Newfoundlanders) in Ontario
and the Ukrainians in Alberta. Their rustic origins and lowly occupations are
often directly referred to in the jokes.
Why did the Irish expedition to climb Mt Everest fail?

They ran out of scaffolding. (British 1970s)
Why was the wheelbarrow invented?

To teach the Irish to stand upright. (British 1980s)
What's the first thing a Pole buys for his baby son?
Booties with cleats. (American 1960s)
How can you tell an Aer Lingus pilot?

By the three gold rings on his wellies. (British 1970s;
see also Hornby 1977: 84)
How does a Newfie count?

One fish, two fish, another fish, and another. (Canadian 1970s; see also
G.Thomas 1976: 144)
The jokes about stupidity that are so popular in the modern world and so
adapted to it, nonetheless have a long history. In a relative sense we are more
ignorant than our ancestors were, for each of us can only master an ever smaller
proportion of a growing body of knowledge, but the average citizen today has
access to modes of reasoning that were not available to the rustic majority of
past civilizations. Today in industrial societies it is taken for granted that most
people can read and write and perform calculations and also that from an
early age they have a basic familiarity with simple machines such as toys and
bicycles, that can be taken to bits and reassembled or run backwards. In the
past only a minority enjoyed these privileges and in consequence only they
were able to understand basic ideas of cause and effect and of the conserva-
tion of length, mass and volume. For most other people reasoning could only
be based on analogies with the puzzling tangle of nature and the idiosyncratic
structure of their language or of the local social order (see Hallpike 1979: v-
vi), which led to a world view that incorporated magic, oracles and witch-
craft. The equivalent today would be a mass commitment to homeopathy,
flying saucers and the Gaia hypothesis; given time we'll no doubt regress to
the world we have lost! Inequalities in intellectual performance are probably
at their greatest in societies where a few people are literate and numerate and
have a taken for granted familiarity with simple machines including toys but
in which the mass of the population are trapped in that idiocy of rural life
where wisdom masquerades as understanding (see Hallpike 1979: 261-262;
but see also Minogue 1987: 12). The earliest British jokes about the Irish of
the seventeenth century have to be seen in this context, as do other compara-
ble jokes of that time.
An Irish servant was asked by his master to bring him a pint of claret and a
pint of sack (sherry). The servant poured them into one pot and said, "I prithee,
master, drink off the claret first, for the sack is all in the bottom." (Banquet of
Jests 1633)
An English gentleman travelling from Corke to Waterford met a native of

whom he enquired, How many miles it was from Corke to Waterford. The
other, considering it awhile at length, returned ; "Bee Chreesht, Dear Joy, I
cannot tell dee how many miles it ish from Corke to Waterford but it ish about
eighteen miles from Waterford to Corke." (Teagueland Jests or Bogg Witti-
cisms 1690: 104)
In the seventeenth century Thomas Fuller ([1662] 1811,2: 206) had already
noted the universality of ethnic jokes about stupidity even in the ancient world
and cited jokes about Phrygians, Abderites and Boeotians.
Men in all ages have made themselves merry with singling out some place,
and fixing the staple of stupidity and stolidity therein. Thus the Phrygians
were accounted the Fools of all Asia and the anvils of other men's wits to
work upon. Sero sapient Phryges, Phryx nisi ictus non sapit [The Phrygians
are wise too late, unless struck they haven't any sense]. In Grecia take a single
City and then Abdera in Thracia carried it away for Dull-heads,—Abderitanae
pectora plebis habes [You have the brains of an Abderite (i.e. not much) is a
quotation from Martial Book 10, Epigram 25, Line 4]. But for a whole Coun-
try, commend us to the Boetians for Block-heads; and Boeticum ingenium
[Boetian intelligence (it is used ironically as if one were to say Irish logic or
Goyischer kop)] is notoriously known".
To Fuller's list may be added the Milesians and the people of Cumae. There
were many such fooltowns in the ancient world and classicists have recorded
numerous jokes about them in both Latin and Greek.
A visitor to Cumae saw a funeral and asked, "Who is dead?" A native pointed
to the coffin and replied, "He is." (Ferguson 1968)
A Cumaen who was trying to sell honey explained why it didn't taste good:
"If a mouse hadn't fallen into it, I wouldn't be selling it." (Feinburg 1978: 51 ;
see also Clouston 1888)
It may be hypothesised that the same kinds of peoples were the butts of jokes
about stupidity in ancient as in modern times, i.e. those living at the edge of a
culture or civilization who looked like a comically distorted version of the
joke-tellers themselves or else rustics living in the hinterland of a major city.
A few cases will be considered here but a more thorough testing of the hy-
pothesis would require the skills of professional classicists and specialists in
ancient history.
Those who were the butts of jokes about stupidity for the ancient Greeks
were in the main not barbarians, but the inhabitants of Greek colonies and
cities far away from the core of Greek civilization in Greece itself; settle-
ments at the edge of Greek civilization surrounded by and in consequence
influenced and penetrated by non-Greek peoples — such as Abdera in Thrace,
or Miletus in Asia Minor. The Phrygians who lived in Anatolia were not Greek,
but spoke a related language which was written using the Greek alphabet. All
these peoples were in some measure ambiguous, and thus a frequent source
of humour rather than being truly foreign, barbarian and incomprehensible.
Homer (¡Iliad Book 2 lines 868 et. seq.) spoke of "the uncouth-tongued
Carians of Miletus" who were allied to Troy during the Trojan war but the
Milesians of the jokes were much later Greek settlers of mixed descent, (Cre-
tans, Athenians, Thebans, Phocians, etc.) who had colonized Miletus and in-
termarried with the indigenous Carians. 2 Herodotos (The Histories Book I
line 146 et. seq.) tells a curious story of their customs and origins which
would seem to indicate that the Milesians were seen as odd and ambiguous
by other Greeks:
Even those who started from the Government house in Athens and believed
themselves to be of the purest Ionian blood took no women with them, but
married Carian girls, whose parents they had killed. The fact that these women
were forced into marriage after the murder of their fathers, husbands, and
sons was the origin of the law, established by oath and passed down to their
female descendants, forbidding them to sit at table with their husbands or to
address them by name. It was at Miletus that this took place.
When Milesian navigators later founded numerous colonies in the Black Sea,
other Greeks in search of fresh opportunities went first to Miletus before be-
coming colonists (Cook 1962: 51; Dunham 1915: 47), and presumably this
again led to the mixing and confusing of dialects. There is, though, nothing in
the economic life of Miletus that would have reinforced the comic image of
the Milesians as stupid, for theirs was a successful trading city whose mer-
chants were seen as "steady, austere and honorable in their transactions" (Cook
1962: 91). The diverse contacts of the Milesians with distant lands, the flex-
ibility demanded of a trading people together with the need for practical skills
in geometry, navigation and astronomy, and the growth of a leisure class ex-
cluded from politics led to the development in Miletus of a school of rational,
questioning, sceptical philosophers and speculative scientists. (Cook 1962:
91-93; Dunham 1915:77). Scholars such as Thaies, Anaximander and Hecateus
freed themselves from earlier pre-conceived myths and notions concerning
the nature of the universe and the origin of life and questioned and found
alternative explanations for accepted tradition. In retrospect these scholars
seem in advance of their time and it is odd that the Milesians who produced
them should be laughed at as stupid, but it is possible that their more prosaic
Greek neighbours thought that such speculations were bizarre, impractical
and "stupid".
The Milesians may be contrasted with the rustic Boeotians, who were neigh-
bours to Athens, a great commercial city and a key centre of Greek civiliza-
tion. The Boeotians were the butts of jokes told by the Athenians who "af-
fected to despise the agricultural sluggishness of their neighbours the 'Boetian
pigs' ... as dull and thick as their own atmosphere" (Andrewes 1971: 94; see
also Buck 1979: 94; Demand 1982: 3 & 10). The Boeotians were free and
independent peasants whose polity was a stable, balanced federation of small
units controlled by an aristocratic oligarchy, in contrast to Attica where the
Athenians had a unitary state. In Boeotia not even the citizens of Thebes were
traders, for well-to-do landed families dominated the social and political or-
der and were opposed to the social and political changes that extensive in-
volvement in trade would bring about (Demand 1982: 10). The landed aris-
tocracy of Boeotia were a conservative group whose ideal was a self-suffi-
cient agrarian society (Demand 1982: 10). Aristocrats of this type, like peas-
ants, are often the butt of jokes about stupidity told by city slickers (see pp.
166-170). In Athenian comedies, notably those of Aristophanes (see also De-
mand 1982: 3), the dumb Theban like the Boetian pig was as much a stock
type as the stage Irishman in eighteenth century Britain and nineteenth cen-
tury Britain and America. Possibly too, the Boetian dialect, which was based
on several diverse Greek sources (Buck 1979:75-81,171) was a further source
of amusement.
In ancient Egypt jokes, apparently based on stupidity, were told about the
Nubians (Russell 1982: 4) and indeed similar jokes are still told today. Then
as now, the Nubians lived on the southern edge of Egyptian civilization, a
group of distant provincial rustics neither really foreign nor wholly Egyptian
(Fairservis 1960: 14, 85, 90, 126, 182; Kees 1961: 39, 142, 308, 332). If the
jokes told in Egypt today (El-Shami 1980) are in fact the same as the ancient
ones, then these are the oldest ethnic jokes in the world.
In ancient China by contrast there do not seem to have been many ethnic
(Kowallis 1986: 8) jokes about stupidity, even though the Chinese have long
had clear stereotypes concerning peoples from different regions, provinces
and cities (Hücker 1975: 10). It is clear that just as jokes based on a particular
script such as stupidity can be popular in the absence of any corresponding
seriously held stereotype, so too stereotypes can exist without giving rise to
jokes. There are many ancient Chinese jokes about stupid individuals but
they do not seem to take on a consistent ethnic or regional form; even when
stupidity jokes are pinned on a particular place or people, the locale or butt
varies from joke to joke:
In the land of Lu (now in Shandong province), there was once a man who tried
to enter a city gate while carrying a long pole. If held vertically, the pole was
too high to make it under the gate; if held horizontally the gate was too narrow
to allow him to advance. Unable to think of any other way to get it through,
the man was presently approached by an elderly gentleman, who announced:
"Though sage I be none, I have witnessed many things in my life-time. Pray
couldst thou not saw thine staff in half and then clear the limits of the portal
with it in hand?" The man then acted accordingly and split his own pole in
two! (Wit and Humor from Old Cathay 1986: If
A simpleton from Dongzishang village in the district of Huxian was sent by

his aged father to the market, there to buy a slave. The father instructed him
before-hand: "It is said that in Chang'an, when they deal in quality slaves, the
fact that the slave is up for sale is always concealed from him, and he is kept
in some other place until the price and details have all been concluded."
Arriving at the market, the son chanced to step before a mirror. In the mirror
he saw a young and able-bodied man. Pointing at the mirror, he asked its
seller: "How much do you expect to get for this slave?" Seeing the young
man's ignorance, the wily seller said, "This slave is worth ten thousand cash,
easily!"
The young man then paid him that amount of money for the mirror and brought
it home with him. On his return home, however, his father met him at the gate
and demanded: "Where is the slave that you were to have bought?" "Right
here," replied the son, drawing the mirror out from under his coat and present-
ing it to his father.
But the father saw in it the features of an old man with hair and eyebrows
white and a dark wrinkled face. In a fit of anger, he made ready to beat his son,
yelling: "How could you spend ten thousand cash on this old man of a slave?"
and wielded his walking stick menacingly at the lad.
In a great fright, the son called out for his mother, who rushed in with her
young daughter in her arms, came forward and asked to have a look at the
slave. She too became instantly infuriated, but this time at her husband, say-
ing: "You old idiot, my son spent only ten thousand cash and got two slaves
for it — one maid and her daughter, too! And you call that extravagant!" (Wit
and Humor from Old Cathay 1986: 13-14)4
In the state of Zheng, a man who wished to purchase a pair of shoes first
measured his feet with a piece of string. On arriving at a shoe stall in the
market, however, he discovered he had forgotten to bring the measurements
with him. With a pair of shoes already in hand, he exclaimed: "Oh no! I have
forgotten my measurements at home," dropped the shoes and returned home
to fetch the string with which he had measured his size.
On his return to the market, the stalls had already closed. A man then queried:
"Why didn't you just try on the shoes?"
"Because I have more confidence in a measurement than in myself," the man
replied. (Wit and Humor from Old Cathay 1986: 33; see also Jiang Yu Dai
1986: 29)5
While crossing a river, the sword of a man from Chu fell from the boat he was
riding on into the water. He hastened to place a mark on the side of the boat,
telling his companions: "This is exactly where the sword fell." When at last
the boat came to shore, he stepped out and waded through the shallow water
there, groping around for his sword just below the mark he had made on the
side of the boat. (Wit and Humor from Old Cathay 1986: 131 )6
A northerner came down to the South for a rare visit. He was entertained by
his host with fresh bamboo shoots. It was the first time he had ever eaten
them. He found the dish extremely tasty. He asked what they were and his
host explained to him that they were bamboo shoots and that they would be-
come bamboo trees when they matured. Back home in the North the northerner
often missed the delicious dish, but he could not find any in his region. One
day he was delighted to discover that his mat was woven of bamboo: He took
it apart and cooked it. But no matter now long he cooked it, the bamboo re-
mained hard and tough. He said angrily: "That southerner is a big cheat. He
has tricked me and made me suffer." (Jiang Yu Dai 1989: 10)
It is a moot point whether these jokes, several of which are from the anthol-
ogy Wit and Humour of Old Cathay, are in fact ethnic or fooltown jokes and
in any case there are only six such jokes out of a total of two hundred and
ninety one jokes in that anthology. It is perhaps even more significant that
there are, in the Old Cathay anthology, a further total of fifty nine jokes about
stupidity that do not refer to any particular place or region. Of these fifty nine
jokes, seventeen are totally unspecific mentioning neither the name, the place
of origin nor the occupation of the stupid party, while twelve refer to particu-
lar named individuals; there are a further seven jokes about stupid rustics and
four about stupid servants similar to those told in both an ethnic and a non-
ethnic context in other countries and another seven refer to stupid persons in
various other occupations, mainly officials. The most striking contrast with
modern European or American jokes is that eight of the old Chinese jokes are
about stupid sons. Presumably this indicates the importance of father-son ties
in a society that stressed filial piety and lineage. The relative absence of eth-
nic jokes about stupidity in Kowallis' particular anthology of Old Chinese
jokes may of course simply reflect the compiler's preferences (see Kowallis
1986: 8-9) and selection of items, or be the result of the chance survival of
particular texts, but the same paucity of ethnic jokes about stupidity is to be
found in Jiang Yu Dai's anthology. Out of the one hundred jokes in the an-
thology there are twelve jokes about stupidity but only one could be called
ethnic or regional, it is about southerners laughing at northerners. One joke
begins, "A rich nigger" (Jiang Yu Dai 1989:37) but this is probably an error of
translation. One is about a foolish pedantic scholar and one is about a foolish
son. The rest do not specify who the stupid person was. The absence of spe-
cifically ethnic jokes about stupidity does fit in with other familiar contrasts
between the Chinese and other civilizations, particularly those of Europe.
The Chinese are and long have been an extremely numerous people occupy-
ing a large empire in which they are ninety-five per cent of the population.
They have no myth of origin, no account of how they first came to China or
why it is theirs. In the past the Chinese had a taken for granted confidence in
their own identity and superiority, which was only shaken by European and
Japanese incursions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Until then their
world consisted of China alone and beyond China there were only the outer
barbarians such as the Mongols, Turks and Tibetans. There were no zones of
ambiguity and no concern with cultural boundaries, for not only aboriginal
and bordering peoples but also foreign dynasties such as the Yuan descend-
ants of Genghis (Chingis) Khan or the Manchus were easily Sinicized and
absorbed into Chinese civilization. Also as Hücker (1975: 72) has noted:
Since the Chinese conceive of the universe, seen and unseen as a single inte-
grated organism, they are not inclined, as most Westerners are, to think in
terms of contending, antagonistic polarities such as natural versus supernatu-
ral, life versus death, us versus them, this versus that.
Perhaps with a philosophy of this kind and an immense hierarchical, political

and social order, so much in contrast to the ever changing congeries of small,
squabbling independent nations and ethnic groups that make up most of the
rest of the world, the Chinese did not feel inclined to joke about the centre
versus comic periphery divide, which has provided the basis of ethnic jokes
about stupidity in most of the rest of the world. Elsewhere, in much of Eu-
rope, Africa, Australia, North and South America, the Middle East and South
and South-East Asia, jokes about the stupidity of the local equivalents of the
Milesians proliferate and in some cases may have done so for millenia.
In modern China, as in the former Eastern Europe, there are many jokes
about the stupidity of the Communist cadres many of whom are or were igno-
rant rustics (Butterfield 1982: 289), so that China, in recent times at least, is
not an exception to the generalisation that jokes about stupidity foisted onto
others are universal throughout the civilized world. However, Japan is just
such an exception. Despite having given a public lecture in Osaka on the
subject of ethnic and political jokes about stupidity, I have been unable to
discover any Japanese equivalent of these jokes. Possibly the humour of the
Japanese comedian Morita Kazuyoshi, known as Yamori, about the alleged
stupidity of the people of Nagoya, which he called a "great countryside", are
an example of my theory that stupidity jokes are told at the centre about the
periphery, for Nagoya is half-way between the two great rival metropolitan
areas of Tokyo and Osaka. It is difficult, though, to say whether his humour
can be called jokes in the way that that word has been used here. Also whilst
many books of foreign jokes classified by country and subject have been
translated from many languages into Japanese for Japanese readers, Hiroo
Onoda the Japanese publisher has told me that there are not enough modern
Japanese jokes to be translated into other languages for the benefit of non-
Japanese. Many very ancient Japanese jokes from much older times have
been translated by folklorists but these tend not to be useful in resolving the
issue raised here; most of these jokes translated from the Japanese have erotic
themes. From watching Japanese television programmes with translations or
sub-titles involving absurd competitions, it is clear to foreigners that the Japa-
nese can and do laugh at other people being made to look foolish, as when
competitors in game shows try to see which of them can remain longest on a
snow covered mountain wearing only a swimming costume or who can best
stand the discomfort of being dragged on one's stomach across a rough gravel
desert. However, these shows seem to be unique to Japan, are not in general
found to be humorous by foreigners and cannot easily be related to the verbal
jokes about stupidity I have analysed here.
It may be that the Japanese (and also, in a rather different and quite sepa-
rate way, the Chinese) have such a strong and dichotomous sense of the dif-
ference between themselves and all foreigners, that there exists no intermedi-
ate people sufficiently similar to the Japanese to be seen by the Japanese as a
comic version of themselves, i.e. as themselves viewed in a distorting mirror.
Everyone else is too different for this to be possible. In Europe the entire
continent is broken up into a kaleidoscope of different little nations and peo-
ples who gradually shade into one another; indeed important differences in
national identity can coincide with great similarities in language and way of
life as, say, within the British Isles or Scandinavia or the French-speaking
parts of Europe. Japan, by contrast, is an island with a long history of isolated
self-sufficiency, and a largely homogeneous population. There are no transi-
tional, ambiguous, "almost but not quite Japanese" groups about whom stu-
pidity jokes could be told. Japanese colleagues when asked about the absence
of ethnic stupidity jokes in Japan, are apt to answer in terms of the widely
accepted, though fallacious, theory that such jokes are a means of expressing
hostility; the Japanese, they claim, are much too amiable to tell such jokes
about regional rustics, neighbouring peoples or ethnic minorities. It is doubt-
ful whether their Chinese or Korean neighbours and former colonial peoples
or the Korean minority in Japan itself would agree with this benign proposi-
tion.
The best candidates to become the butt of stupidity jokes in Japan are
probably the people of Tohoku, the six north eastern prefectures of Honshu
(namely Aomori, Akita, Iwata, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima), not because
Tohoku people are particularly stupid but because they are the one's predicted
by the centre-periphery model. They live at the back of beyond, in an area
formerly called Michinoku or back-roads because of its remoteness. Tohoku
is at the very edge of the main island of Japan and this area was the last part of
Honshu to be transformed from subsistence farming to the modem Japanese
economy of industry and services. In consequence, many Tohoku men were
forced to go south to work as labourers on construction sites in the major
urban areas, where, like the Irish in Britain, they were perceived as tough,
good-humoured and distinctive in speech and appearance. Their thick rustic
accent called zu zu ben in Japanese, spoken through compressed lips in their
cold winters, departs from koku-go, the elegant national language of Japan
(based on the dialect of the Tokyo region, which has in practice been Japan's
capital for nearly 400 years) in the same way that an Irish brogue differs from
standard British English or the slow slurred Jutland Danish of Aaaaaarhus
[Aarhus as pronounced by a Jute] from that of Copenhagen.
Thus, on both economic and cultural grounds the people of Tohoku seem
the most likely candidates for Japanese jokes about stupidity. The people of
Tohuku are not in any sense outsiders in relation to the rest of Japan; indeed
to foreigners they may appear as the most typical of Japanese because they
have been less touched by foreign and cosmopolitan influences. But to those
who live in the great urban centres, they will appear as a comic, distorted,
rustic, out-of-date version of themselves, to be viewed humorously, albeit in
a sympathetic and even nostalgic and affectionate way. Indeed this is very
much the way in which the Tohoku rustics are depicted in Japanese television
comedy. Despite this, they are not and never have been the butts of popular
Japanese jokes about stupidity, to be exchanged as shared narratives or rid-
dles when a group of people meet informally. There is no equivalent in Japan
of the jokes told in Canada about Newfoundlanders or in Ireland about
Kerrymen. The Japanese find foreign jokes of this type extremely funny when
they are translated into Japanese and presented in an appropriate context, 7 but
they do not invent and circulate their own indigenous version of such jokes.
The absence of Japanese jokes about stupidity, indeed the paucity of Japanese
jokes of any kind, remains an enigma.
Unlike China, Japan has never fallen under Communist rule and is today
one of the world's most economically successful, socially stable and cultur-
ally distinctive countries. The Japanese do not seem to have much respect for
their politicians and indeed this may be why they have been willing to elect
comedians to high political office in major cities. However, in an open demo-
cratic system, where politicians have limited powers, it is difficult to make
them the universal butt of jokes about stupidity. If they are stupid, then so are
the joke-tellers who voted them into office. Also the autonomous success of
Japan's designers, engineers, capitalists, novelists and founders of religious
movements makes the apparent failure of the Japanese politicians largely ir-
relevant. Japanese society has shown remarkable progress in all fields even if
Japanese politics seems to be in a state of chaos. Even in the Tokugawa pe-
riod, when the government bureaucracy sought to regulate the colour of peo-
ple's clothes or the size of their umbrellas, there does not seem to have been
extensive joking about the stupidity of the society's rulers. This attempt to
control status by law and to prevent the rise of an independently powerful
merchant class failed, for the same reason that communism failed in Eastern
Europe. There are no laws of history, only of economics. But Tokugawa Ja-
pan unlike Eastern Europe did not produce jokes.
Perhaps then we have yet another example of Japanese exceptional ism
and Japanese uniqueness. It may be that unlike most modern societies, Japan
lacks both the ethnic and political structures and the social pressures that
elsewhere have made jokes about the stupidity of particular ethnic, regional
or political groups almost universally popular. On the other hand, as shown
by the assessment above of the potential for the development of the Tohoku
joke, it is quite possible that such jokes will emerge in the future. However,
even if it did, the absence of Japanese jokes about stupidity in the past and
indeed the paucity of Japanese jokes of any kind in the 1980s and 1990s
remains an important social fact for which there is no satisfactory sociologi-
cal explanation.
For those of us who are not Chinese or Japanese, ethnic jokes of the type
told about the Milesians and the Milesians are, though, the oldest and longest
surviving item of popular culture that we possess. It is thus imperative that
we should strive to record and preserve the ethnic jokes about stupidity of the
past which are so important a part of everyone's cultural heritage. Further-
more, we have a duty to go on inventing and telling new jokes of this kind in
order to maintain in being an important living tradition that connects us with
the ancient world.
Chapter 4
The Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism
There are two linked yet also opposed connections between the Protestant
ethic and the spirit of capitalism. The first is the well known thesis' put for-
ward by Max Weber that one of the key factors responsible for the early de-
velopment of capitalism and modem industry in the West (rather than within
some other civilization possessing relatively advanced forms of technology
and organization) was the distinctive ethos of work, thrift and systematic cal-
culation developed by the members of the Reformed Protestant churches.
The second may well be termed the Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of
capitalism. By this I mean the steady growth in capitalist societies of jokes
and humour at the expense of groups perceived as strongly committed to the
Protestant ethic. This humour is both of interest in itself and also provides
evidence relevant to an assessment of Weber's theory. In order to demon-
strate this it is first necessary to give a brief summary of Weber's work, not-
ing in passing his own occasional use of humorous sources. Then I shall dis-
cuss the nature and chronology of the humorous material from capitalist soci-
eties that pokes fun at the Protestant ethic and indicate why it should lead us
to think differently about Weber's thesis.
The humorous data may be said generally to support Weber's main thesis
concerning the affinity between Protestantism and capitalism. However, a
careful analysis of the content and chronology of popular humour at the ex-
pense of the Protestant ethic in capitalist societies does cast considerable doubt
on Weber's rather dichotomous view of the difference between early Protes-
tant-ethic-driven capitalism and the mature capitalism of his own times. The
new data derived from the study of humour thus provides the basis for a
fundamental criticism of the way in which Weber perceived the capitalist
societies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Weber thesis
In his pioneering study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Weber pointed out that even in his own time in countries of mixed religious
composition such as Germany there were among business leaders and capi-
44 The Protestant ethic
talists, and also among managers and skilled workers with technical and com-
mercial qualifications, proportionately far more Protestants than Catholics
(Weber 1930: 35-39). He further noted that in the past Protestant individuals
and groups and especially those of a Calvinist persuasion not uncommonly
combined an "extraordinary capitalistic business sense" with "the most in-
tensive forms of piety" which penetrated and dominated their whole lives
(Weber 1930:43). For Weber the ethos to be explained consisted of "the earn-
ing of more and more money" not as a means of satisfying material needs but
as an end in itself combined with "the strict avoidance of all spontaneous
enjoyment of life" (Weber 1930: 58). He describes this way of life as "irra-
tional from a naive point of view" (Weber 1930: 53), in that it brings the
individual who espouses it little enjoyment and a good deal of painful toil and
anxiety, but as also in another sense extremely rational. This other sense of
rationality refers to the calculative virtues of concentration, self-control, fru-
gality and methodical conduct that are conducive to an ability to prosper by
rigorously squeezing more out of less and by accumulating capital through
saving and investment (see Weber 1930: 63, 67-68).
Weber felt that an ethos of this kind, though fitting for the capitalist econo-
mies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was unlikely to have
evolved merely in response to economic opportunity. What is also striking is
that this calculative outlook was already to be found in economically back-
ward areas such as New England and Pennsylvania in the seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries or Scotland in the seventeenth century (Marshall
1980: 263; Smout 1972: 89-91), after the Scottish Reformation but well prior
to urbanization and industrialization (Marshall 1980:272). Gordon Marshall's
(1980: 222) empirical study Presbyteries and Profits shows clearly that "the
development of the secular ethic of modern Scottish capitalism and of puri-
tanical Scottish Calvinism was parallel, both developing contemporaneously
during the seventeenth century ..." and Marshall (1980: 222) claims to have
"demonstrated an 'elective affinity' between the ethic of Scottish Calvinism
and that of Scottish capitalist enterprise during the period in question".
That Weber and Marshall can discern the spirit of capitalism in Calvinist
Scotland and in the Puritan colonies in America long before these peoples
created, as they were to do later, a modern capitalist economy is of particular
importance. In seventeenth-century Scotland the "principles of modern capi-
talist conduct, including those relating to the accumulation of capital as an
end in itself, the rational maximization of profits, frugality in consumption
and so forth" (Marshall 1980: 272) were already present; it was the "struc-
tural" preconditions of capitalism and the related economic opportunities that
The evidence from humour 45
were missing. As soon as the union with England and Wales, improved trans-
portation and the discovery of indigenous sources of power remedied this,
the Scots became notable capitalists not only at home but throughout the Eng-
lish speaking world (Jackson 1968). Indeed they became known for their skill
in exploiting economic opportunities abroad that local people less endowed
with the Protestant ethic had neglected.
The Protestant ethic of the later Calvinists consisted of the virtues of dili-
gence in one's calling, and this-worldly asceticism reinforced by the psycho-
logical uncertainty engendered by the doctrine of predestination which di-
vided human beings into the elect (predestined for salvation by Divine de-
cree) and the more numerous reprobate.
The doctrine of predestination as originally formulated by Calvin could
have led in time to an erosion of morality as those whose minds dwelt over-
much on the immutability of their ultimate fate lapsed into despair, fatalism
or antinomianism (Weber 1930: 232) 2 . However, Calvin's successors (some-
times termed neo-Calvinists), in addition to laying great emphasis on the duty
to labour in one's calling and to leading a frugal and systematically moral
life, interpreted and added to the doctrine of predestination in ways that
strengthened these moral precepts. One could not improve one's prospects of
salvation through good works but to display an ability to lead a life of dili-
gence and methodical self-control provided a sign that one belonged to the
elect not only to others but to oneself; the sense of one's own rectitude con-
firmed and reinforced a self-confident inner faith of having been both called
and chosen. The doubts of the diligent were dispelled by their intense and
continuous immersion in active duties as a means of proving their faith and
reinforcing their inner certainty of being in a state of grace (Weber 1930: 1 ΙΟ-
Ι 15, 121). The qualities that constitute the Protestant ethic which are so pre-
eminently displayed by Weber's Calvinists both helped to pave the way for
capitalist economic development and survived on in the resulting capitalist
society, even after secularization appears to have undermined the religious
commitment from which they sprang.
The evidence from humour
If we now turn to the evidence of popular humour, notably from the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries, a picture emerges which confirms Weber's
central thesis of the affinity between the ethic of the Reformed Churches and
the spirit of capitalism but which, as we shall see later, contradicts his final
glum but ambivalent peroration about the nature of modern capitalism. We-
ber himself was of course aware of the significance of humour as an index
and reflection of social attitudes for he speaks of Ferdinand Kürnberger's
"clever and malicious" Picture of American culture (Weber 1930: 50-51),
and notes that the "opponents of the Nonconformists, even in the eighteenth
century, again and again ridiculed them for personifying the spirit of shop-
keepers, and for having ruined the ideals of old England" (Weber 1930: 180),
though it may be doubted whether Weber understood and appreciated the
subtle satires of Defoe.
Popular humour at the expense of those most strongly endowed with the
Protestant ethic, far from ceasing with the triumph of industrial capitalism,
flourished enormously. In particular the inhabitants of countries and regions
with a strongly Calvinist population or tradition such as Scotland, Holland,
N e w England or the Calvinist Swiss cantons were and are the butts of j o k e s
and humorous sketches about their allegedly stingy, calculating and irration-
ally rational disposition. The comic stage Scotsman of the English theatre
was first seen in the latter half of the eighteenth century and became increas-
ingly popular over time. On the basis of an analysis of all English printed
plays J.O.Bartley noted that the theme of Scottish " e c o n o m y " only became
significant after 1770 but by the turn of the century nearly a fifth of all plays
containing Scottish characters mentioned this trait (Bartley 1954: Diagram Β
and 235). Bartley (1954: 232-235) notes of the period 1756-1800 that:
The impression which he [the Scotsman] was actually making on the English
during these years was such as to stress the sober, hard-headed and calculating
aspects of his character ... Though canniness is not always highlighted it is
nearly always present in the make-up of the stage Scots of these years... [Jests
in plays about the parsimony of the Scots] only began in the later eighteenth
century and there is only one such reference — which may have been added
later — ina play of before 1770. The word used is almost always "oeconomy"
and twice it is significantly paired with "forecast". "Ye have nae kind of
oeconomy, nae forecast" says Sergeant Trumbull to Sergeant O'Bradley in
Pilon's Siege of Gibraltar, "you dinna heed the proverb — clap your hand
twice to your bonnet for once to your pouch; aw gangs oot, naithing gangs in."
... In Lady Graven's "Miniature Picture" (1780) Lord MacGrinnon says, "I
would no more squander my breath than I would my money, unless I were to
get cent percent interest for it", to which Eliza replies, "I dare say not: true
Scottish oeconomy".
Jokes about canny Scots and N e w Englanders became increasingly popular

in the early nineteenth century at first mainly taking the form of jocular anec-
dotes located in particular settings and half pretending to be true tales:
In the year 1797, when democratic notions ran high, it may be remembered
that the king's coach was attacked as his majesty was going to the House of
Peers. A gigantic Hibernian on that occasion was conspicuously loyal in re-
pelling the mob. Soon after, to his no small surprise, he received a message
from Mr. Dundas to attend at his office. He went, and met with a gracious
reception from the great man, who after passing a few encomiums on his
active loyalty, desired him to point out any way in which he would wish to be
advanced, His Majesty having particularly noticed his courageous conduct,
and being desirous to reward it. Pat scratched and scraped for a while, half
thunder-struck — "The devil take me if I know what I'm fit for." "Nay, my
good fellow," cried Henry, "think a moment, and dinna throw yoursel out o'
the way o' fortun." Pat hesitated another moment, then smirking as if some
odd idea had taken hold of his noddle, he said — "I'll tell you what mister,
make a Scotchman of me, and, by St. Patrick, there'll be no fear of my getting
on." The Minister gazed a while at the mal-apropos wit — "Make a Scotchman
of you, sir, that's impossible, for I can't give you prudence." (Wit and Wisdom
1826: 335-336)
A New England merchant who had accumulated a vast property by care and
industry yet still was as busy as ever in adding vessel to vessel and store to
store though considerably advanced in life, being asked by a neighbour how
much property he supposed would satisfy a human being, after a short pause
replied, "A little more." (The American Jest-Book 1833: 91).
The American historian Ray Ginger has collected many early American and
Canadian jokes about the Scots often with a distinctive North American set-
ting:
Did ye hear about Ramsay? Scalped by the Indians. Poor chap. Just two days
since he paid fifty cents for a haircut. (Ginger 1974: anecdote 30)
Ginger comments somewhat crassly on his jokes:
Virtually without exception jokes against the Scots in America have focused
on one charge: they are covetous. A few hours reading in the business corre-
spondence of Scottish and Scot-Irish merchants and cotton factors of the eight-
eenth century might make anybody wonder if this canard did not originate
from hard realities. Persons not American are referred to the practices, mid-
twentieth century of Scottish bankers on Bay Street in Toronto or Sherbrooke

Street in Montreal. (Ginger 1974: comment on anecdote 30)
More recently jokes about the canny Scot have spread throughout the world
not only in countries such as Canada or New Zealand to which there has been
an extensive emigration of Scots but in countries such as France, Germany,
Sweden, Italy, Slovakia or Greece, with relatively little direct experience of
the Scots. In these latter countries they not only import jokes about Scots but
invent new Scottish jokes often with a distinctly local setting:
A Scotsman went into a boulevard cafe and asked the price of a glass of wine.
"Four francs", replied the waiter.
"That's a lot", said the Scotsman.
"Well then, don't drink sitting on the terrace. If you stand at the counter it will
only cost you two and a half francs".
"Ah", said the Scotsman, "and how much will it cost me to drink at the coun-
ter if I stand on one leg?" (French 1970s; see also Bramieri 1980: 277)
Jokes about the canny Calvinists have long shown them as incapable of spon-
taneous pleasure, as absurdly parsimonious and as applying calculative ra-
tionality in an excessive, inappropriate and tasteless way. The central charac-
ters of the jokes act out a caricature of the Protestant ethic in a wide range of
inappropriate contexts ranging from golf to toothache. They are comic be-
cause whenever money is at stake they are unable to break out of their Protes-
tant ethic cage and follow the ordinary everyday utilitarian pattern of life in
which people pursue pleasure and avoid pain:
An Aberdeen man had most violent toothache for more than a week, but he
bore the agony rather than spend money having the offending molar extracted.
At last, however, he could stand the pain no longer, and boldly rang the Den-
tist's bell. "Fat's yer chairge, ma mannie, for haulin' oot an auld, decayed
tooth?" he asked, "it'll no' tak' a clever chiel like you a couple o' seconds tae
yark it oot!"
"Five shillings, Sir, and I may say that the operation will be entirely painless,"
said the Dentist.
"It's a lot o' siller, five shillings for a wee job like that," commented the Aber-
donian. Then he went silent for a few seconds. "Look here!" he exclaimed.
"Could ye no just slacken it for a shillin', an' then I could pull it out masel?"
(Lauder 1929: 13-14)
"I've nae use for thae cork-tipped ceegarettes", said Mr. Craw, "I canna thole
the taste o' the burnin' cork." (Bell 1929: 17)
Employer: "Do you mean to tell me, MacNab, that you want your summer
holidays now, in February?"
MacNab: "It's my youngest boy, Angus: He'll be over twelve years if I dinna
gang noo." (Junior 1929: 30)
Wee Willie Dougan loved his game of golf but one bright sunny day his friends
saw him sitting disconsolately in the club house, his clubs nowhere in sight.
"Why aren't you out playing, Willie?" asked a friend.
"Ach I nae can play agin", sighed Willie.
"Why not?" asked his friend.
"Ach", said Willie "I lost me ball." (Cerf 1945: 16)
In jokes of this type all considerations other than financial calculation disap-
pear, so that a political office becomes merely a business investment and fox-
hunting the unaccountable in pursuit of the unsaleable. For acute N e w
Englanders motives other than profit are incomprehensible and the pursuit of
foxes, stripped of its ethical meaning and associated mundane passions, has
ceased to have the character of a sport:
A group of wealthy Southerners, Virginians and Carolinians mostly, were on a

train returning from a meeting of the National Fox-hunting Association. Natu-
rally the talk dealt largely with the sport of which they were devotees. A lank
Vermonter, who apparently had never done much travelling, was an interested
auditor of the conversation.
Presently, when the company in the smoking compartment had thinned out he
turned to one of the party who had stayed on. He wanted to know how many
horses the Southerner kept for fox-hunting purposes and large a pack of hounds
he maintained and about how many foxes on an average he killed in the course
of a season.
The Southerner told him.
In silence for a minute or two the Vermonter mulled the disclosures over in his
mind.
Then he said: "Wall, with fodder fetching such high prices and with dog meat
for hounds a costin' what it must cost and with fox pelts as cheap as they are in
the open market and taking one thing with another, I don't see how you kin
expect to clear much money out of this business in the course of a year."
(Cobb 1923: 191-192)
Apolitical office in a small New Hampshire town was vacant. The office paid
$250 a year and there was keen competition for it. One of the candidates,
Ezekiel Hicks, was a shrewd old fellow, and a neat campaign fund was turned
over to him. To the astonishment of all, however, he was defeated.
"I can't account for it", said one of the leaders of Hicks' party, gloomily.
"With all that money, we should have won. How did you lay it out, Ezekiel?"
"Well", said Ezekiel, slowly milking his chin whiskers, "ye see that office
only pays $250 a year salary, an' I didn't see no sense in paying $900 out to
get the office, so I bought a little truck farm instead."
(Braude 1979: 186-187)3
The unco' canny folk about whom such jokes are told carry book-keeping to
the characteristically tasteless extreme4 of treating one's own life or one's
spouse's corpse as commodities and exercises in accountancy. Asceticism,
parsimony and calculativeness could hardly go much further than this:
An Aberdonian sat at the bedside of his friend who was a patient in a nursing
home. "Ye seem to be cheerier the day, John," said the visitor.
"Aye man, I thocht I was going to dee but the doctor tells me he can save my
life. It's to cost a hunner pounds."
"Eh, that's terrible extravagance! Do ye think it's worth it?"
(Moffat 1928: 16)
An Aberdonian and his wife went to Rothesay for a holiday and went for a
sail. Unfortunately the wife fell overboard and was drowned. The Aberdonian
asked the pier-master to let him know if her body was found. Two weeks later
he received a wire saying, "Body recovered yesterday covered with crabs.
Send instructions."
The Aberdonian sent a wire back saying "Sell crabs, send on money, reset
bait." (HHGBA)
The jokes are not intended to be realistic; (see Raskin 1985 on ethnic scripts),
rather they employ an erratic version of Weber's ideal type methodology
(Weber 1948: 59-60), and the ideal type of the Protestant ethic is ludicrously
funny. The ideal type ethic of the mythical Scots and Yankees of the jokes
may be summed up in Weber's own terms as
the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of
all spontaneous enjoyment of life ... above all completely devoid of any
eudaemonistic not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as
an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to,
Religion in the jokes 51
the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irra-

tional. (Weber 1930: 53; see also note 9 to chapter 2: 193-194)
The subjects of the jokes are comic precisely because their behaviour is, to
use Brentano's description of it, "a rationalization toward an irrational mode
of life" (quoted by Weber 1930: note 9 to chapter 2, 194). Their rational irra-
tionality (or is it irrational rationality?) indicates once again the "complexity
of the only superficially simple concept of the rational" (Weber 1930: note 9
to chapter 2, 194).
Religion in the jokes
In the jokes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century about canny
people there is frequent mention of their religious background or beliefs:
Irate Landlord (and Free-Kirk Elder, after being called in, for the fiftieth time
about some repairs). "The fact is, Mrs. McRacket, ye'll ne'er be content till
ye're i' the hoose made wi'out hands"— Severely—"See Second Corinthians,
fifth chapter, an firrst vairse, Mrs. McRacket!"
{Mr. Punch's Scotland 1908: 80)
The Doctor's Daughter. "I declare you're a dreadful fanatic, Mrs. McCizzom.
I do believe you think nobody will be saved but you and your minister!"
Old Lady. "A weel my dear, ah whiles hae ma doots about the meenister!"
(.Mr.Punch's Scotland 1908: 93)
In some jokes there are even explicit references though in a rather muddled or
fuddled way to the distinctive doctrine of predestination held by strict Cal-
viniste:
Predestination
Always ready in a tight corner and quick to meet an emergency, a faithful
member of a Glasgow kirk, much addicted to frequent liquid refreshment, met
one of the elders of his congregation as he, the tippler, came out of a public-
house one Saturday night. Unsteady, but wary, he bad the elder "a fine nicht!"
But the elder fixed him with a meaning glare in his eye. Not a bit abashed, the
unsteady one invited the other to gaze at that "bonnie mune" shining in the
clear frosty night. Still that steady, boring gaze. Then, the embarrassed one
links his arm in the elder's and confidently says: "Now, Elder, tell me, between
man to man, what dae ye really think about predestination?"

"We'll talk about predestination, Sandy, when you are in a more fitting
condition."
"Na, na, Elder, when aw'm sober a dinna care a damn about predestination!"
(Ferguson 1933: 26)
A yankee preacher on predestination

Let us for argument's sake grant that I, the Rev. Elder Sprightly, am foreor-
dained to be drowned in the river at Smith's ferry, next Thursday morning, at
twenty minutes after ten o'clock; and suppose I know it; and suppose I am a
free, moral, voluntary, accountable agent — do you think I am going to be
drowned? I should rather guess not! I should stay at home; and you'll never
ketch the Rev. Elder Sprightly at Smith's ferry nohow, nor near the river nei-
ther. (Dr. Merry n.d: 239)
These tales lack something of Weber's subtle and speculative inquiry into the
links between the later Calvinist theology of predestination and this-worldly
asceticism and diligence, but they do indicate a popular awareness that the
theological beliefs and the moral behaviour were characteristic of the same
selection of peoples. There is little point in asking whether such jokes origi-
nate from within the people being laughed at, or whether they are told from
the outside, for they very soon become the common property of both groups.
Jokes have no author, for they are spontaneously generated and the compilers
of joke-books are merely responsible for the particular wording of these items
of diffuse and diverse popular origin. 5 The orderly patterns that can be per-
ceived when large number of jokes are analysed are not the result of any
deliberate design; they are akin not to the planned order of a machine or of
Weber's ideal type bureaucracy (Weber 1948: 214), but to the spontaneous
order of a competitive market or of language itself (Barry 1982: 7-58; Polanyi
1951: 156, 185).
Support for Weber
At the very time Weber was writing there existed, then, a large number of
jokes about the commitment to the Protestant ethic of the citizens of Calvinist
nations or regions. In one respect the existence of this spontaneous popular
humour reinforces Weber's argument, for it depicts Cal vinists rather than other
religious or national groups as extraordinarily steeped in an ethic of this-
worldly asceticism, frugality and calculation. The jokes are, of course, far too
Support for Weber 53
fantastic to be regarded as a description of the way of life of the peoples of

Calvinist nations. Nonetheless, the jokes do demonstrate that the way of life
of the butts of the jokes was seen as distinctly different from that of their non-
Calvinist neighbours to the point where it could become the basis of humour.
Also they indicate that the link between Calvinism on the one hand and the
calculative, calculating spirit of capitalism on the other was specifically rec-
ognized by the joke-tellers and incorporated into their humour. Thus far We-
ber is supported by the evidence of humour, which corroborates the contem-
porary evidence (i.e. of Weber's own time) showing the greater aptitude for
success in business or commerce of Protestants relative to Catholics with
which he begins his essay (Weber 1930: 35-40).
However the existence and popularity of such jokes contradicts the view
put forward by Weber towards the end of his study that the religious ethic that
formerly underpinned capitalism had now departed and become unnecessary.
In a characteristic blend of pessimism and stoicism, Weber wrote of the then
modem world at the turn of the century:
The puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when
asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to
dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos
of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and
economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives
of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those di-
rectly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force ... Today
the spirit of religious asceticism — whether finally, who knows? — has es-
caped from the cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical
foundations, needs its support no longer. (Weber 1930: 181-182)
The jokes create a problem for Weber's view of his own contemporary world
quoted above because the jokes were also his contemporaries. If the spirit of
religious asceticism had escaped from the cage, why was it still such a popu-
lar subject for jokes? Whilst it may be true that a weakening spirit of religious
asceticism is an easier target for jokes than one which enjoys established
hegemony, it is equally true that, if it had escaped altogether, there should
have been little left to joke about. A consideration of this point also leads one
to wonder how Weber could possibly reconcile the great disparities between
Protestant and Catholic economic achievement of his own day with his view
of a now established and victorious capitalism which has no need of a reli-
gious backing to help it persist. Weber rightly explains this major difference
between Protestants and Catholics in terms of the "mental and spiritual pecu-
liarities acquired from the environment, here the type of education favoured
by the religious atmosphere of the home community and the parental home"
(Weber 1930: 49). But how could mere peculiarities have had such a potent
influence in a world in which materialism for its own sake had become domi-
nant? Weber's essay was a bold challenge to the "one-sided materialistic ...
causal interpretation of culture and history" (Weber 1930: 183), notably in
relation to the origins of the spirit of capitalism. The evidence from contem-
porary humour added to Weber's own contemporary data suggests that he
could have been bolder and emphasised the continued elective affinity be-
tween Protestantism and capitalism in his own day, such that Protestantism
continued to be an important factor in the renewing and reproducing of the
capitalist spirit. Whilst Weber was, to a large extent, right in seeing capitalism
as having become by his own time a securely established economic system
able to survive without the support of an independently generated Protestant
ethic (Weber 1930: 181-182), this view of economic life is based on an over-
simple dichotomy between capitalist and non-capitalist (which in this par-
ticular context means traditional [Weber 1930: 58-68]) economies and socie-
ties. However, in practice some capitalist societies are far more capitalist than
others and this is an important factor that helps to decide whether their econo-
mies thrive and compete or languish and falter (Wiener 1985). Here I have in
mind not so much differences in particular economic institutions between
one society and another, such as the relative degree of state as opposed to
private control over banks, credit or money or over particular industries, as
the variations in the degree to which the citizens of a society, or indeed the
members of important groups within it, are motivated by what Weber termed
the spirit of capitalism. In principle at least this spirit is a continuous rather
than a dichotomous variable and is far stronger in some capitalist societies
than in others with the consequence that individual capitalist societies differ
greatly not only in prosperity but in their very way of life. It is in this sense
that I want to argue that, while all capitalist societies are capitalist, some are
more capitalist than others. Among the factors determining how capitalist a
society is will be the relative presence or absence of the Protestant ethic.
Thus Weber gave too much away when he wrote that "the idea of duty in
one's calling prowls about in our lives like the ghost of dead religious be-
liefs" (Weber 1930: 182). The Calvinist way of life was far from being a mere
Geist of Banko6, even though the vigour with which the adherents of compet-
ing religious ethics opposed one another had in general declined to the point
where their adherents no longer fought but made fun of one another and even
of themselves. Likewise, Weber was wrong to suggest that the German reader
Secularization and the calculating Cardis 55
of 1905 could no longer enjoy the humour of Ferdinand Kürnberger's satire

Der Amerikamüde (Frankfurt 1855), written fifty years earlier, about the foi-
bles of the zealously commercial Yankee because (presumably) the differ-
ences in outlook between the two peoples were "now long since blurred over"
(Weber 1930: 192; see also 283, note 115). The differences between the two
peoples had no doubt diminished but even on Weber's own evidence they
were still striking and visible at the turn of the century. It is certainly the case
that the Americans of the time (like the English and French) laughed a good
deal at German cultural peculiarities and there is no reason to suppose that
the Germans were unable to return the compliment. Finally it is difficult to
see how Weber could write that "the modern man is in general, even with the
best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance for culture and national
character which they deserve" (Weber 1930: 183). This may have been true
of many of Weber's colleagues, blinded by intellectual fashion or ideological
prejudice, but contemporary popular culture in many countries took such a
view for granted and it certainly became incorporated in humorous accounts
of nations of Calvinists. A piece of doggerel of 1901 describes Scotland as:
Land o'canny, careful' bodies —

Foes to a' ungodly fun;
Those who sum up man's whole duty —
Heaven, hell and number one. (Ford 1901: 167)7
Weber was more prophetic than accurate in his account of the degree of
secularization of industrial Europe and America at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century. He correctly spotted a trend towards secularization but over-
estimated the extent to which changes in the direction of that trend had al-
ready come about. Europeans reading Weber towards the end of the twentieth
century can recognize their own societies in his work, but they also know
how vastly more secular these societies are than they were in Weber's day
(Acquaviva 1979).
Secularization and the calculating Cardis
Secularization can occur either because of a shift in the content of a particular

people's or denomination's religious beliefs, as when Calvinists become deists
or unitarians, or in a general falling away from religion into indifferent
agnosticism and non-participation. Both of these processes form part of
Weber's account of the social changes that have taken place in mature capitalist
societies and both can be discerned in popular humour about the Protestant
ethic.
In his account of the moral attitudes and character of Benjamin Franklin,
Weber writes:
If we thus ask, why should "money be made out of men", Benjamin Franklin
himself, although he was a colourless deist, answers in his autobiography with
a quotation from the Bible, which his strict Calvinistic father drummed into
him again and again in his youth: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business?
He shall stand before kings (Prov. xxii 29)." (Weber 1930: 53; see also 52-56)
Weber here stresses Franklin's combination of a lack of religious fervour with

a strong continued commitment to the Protestant ethic he had acquired from
his Calvinist ancestors. Deism is only one of the possible end products of a
decaying Calvinism and probably has fewer adherents than the Unitarians, a
small denomination, whose members are renowned both for their hard-headed
entrepreneurial vigour (Wilson 1969: 184), and for their ultra-rational and
unemotional religion that even denies the divinity of Christ. They are in one
sense almost the ideal type of Weberian Protestantism in so far as they have
stripped their religion of all magical elements whatsoever. They are the
creedless as opposed to the credulous. The Unitarians, though, have retained
their Protestant ethic and in some respects they even benefited materially
from the stripping away of pieties which could have been a hindrance to busi-
ness-like conduct as well as providing the motive force for that conduct. It is
not surprising, therefore, that jokes about canny New Englanders survived
their slide from Calvinism into Unitarianism which was in turn cyclically
followed by an evangelical re-awakening (Vidier 1961: 239, 236-237; Weber
1930). At no point was the Protestant ethic seriously weakened.
The most remarkable instance of regional based jokes about canny Unitar-
ians is to be found in Wales with the jokes about "Cardis", the people of
Cardiganshire, which are in essence similar to those told about the Scots, the
Dutch and the New Englanders.
The crafty Cardi

A very important man died down in Pembrokeshire and he was a wealthy man
you see. And he had three special friends and he had made his will; all was to
be shared between the three: one from Carmarthenshire, one from
Pembrokeshire and a Cardi — these were the three. Well, all three had to be
Secularization and the calculating Cordis 57
present at his funeral and they were supposed to place a hundred pounds each
in his hand in the coffin on the morning of the funeral. And so it happened.
The men came, all three together. The Pembrokeshire man came forward and
placed the hundred pounds in his hand in the coffin. The Carmarthenshire
man went forward and placed the same amount in the coffin. That was two
hundred pounds then, wasn't it? Well now, this meant that the other one was to
place another hundred in after that. Three hundred pounds would have gone to
him then, wouldn't they? But the Cardi had come forward now and took out
his wallet from his pocket: there wasn't even a halfpenny in the wallet, he had
left everything behind. "Never mind, though," he said, "the old man will not
be without his due. What shall I do?" And he took a cheque book from his
pocket and wrote a cheque for three hundred pounds. And then, to compen-
sate himself, and also to gain, he took the notes that were already in the dead
man's hand and then gave him the cheque to cover everything. (Ranke 1972:
67; see also Bell 1929: 24)
The significance of the Welsh jokes about the Cardis is that Cardiganshire
was and is, in most respects, quite indistinguishable from the rest of West
Wales. West Wales was historically, and to a fair extent still is, a poor, remote
and mountainous region with an acid infertile soil and a people who are largely
Welsh speaking Nonconformists with a strong sense of a distinctive Welsh
national identity. Throughout Wales Methodism has largely taken a Calvinistic
rather than a Wesleyan form, for it was Whitefield the Methodist upholder of
predestination and his Welsh speaking colleagues who carried out the work
of evangelism among the Welsh people (Morgan 1982: 16, Williams 1884),
who had previously been rather apathetic Anglicans. Had Weber added a
knowledge of Wales and its people to the remarkable range of cultures and
languages that he had mastered, he would not have written that "Whitefield,
the leader of the predestinationist group, which after his death dissolved for
lack of organisation, rejected Wesley's doctrine of perfection in its essentials"
(Weber 1930: 25; see also 125). In England such a dissolution may have
occurred but in West Wales the vigour of the Calvinistic Methodist chapels,
later also known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales, indicates the opposite.
In the Teifi valley of south Cardiganshire, and there alone, the Calvinism
of West Wales was subsequently transmuted into Unitarianism to produce the
only rural area in Britain with a large number of Unitarian chapels (Report of
the Commission 1910). Throughout the rest of Wales, a country often gripped
by outbursts of emotional religious fervour (Evans 1969, Morgan 1909), the
Cardis were viewed with a curious mixture of horror and admiration. There
was horror at their heretical rejection of the Trinity which led to their region
being labelled the "black spot" of Wales (Davies 1980), and their ministers
barred from the pulpits, assemblies and collaborative enterprises of the other
Nonconformists, but admiration for their Biblical and secular scholarship,
which even led to their employment as instructors in colleges for the training
of the trinitarian Welsh Nonconformist clergy (Rees 1883: 463). These same
Cardis were also disproportionately successful in manufacturing and com-
merce, setting up woollen mills in their own rural county and emigrating to
London and other English cities, where they were prominent in the drapery
business and the dairy trade (Francis-Jones 1984, Morgan 1982:6). The Welsh
jokes about the "rational parsimony" (Wallis-Jones 1898: 148-149) of the
Cardis grew out of this combination of theological distinctiveness and de-
monstrable commercial acumen, and have survived down to the present day
(Davies 1978).
The comic cultural contradictions of modern capitalism
In the culture of mature capitalist societies a distinctively modern hedonism

and consumerism, a thirst for affluent leisure and aspirations for self-expres-
sion and self-fulfilment (Herzberg 1968), exist alongside Weber's spirit of
capitalism, both complementing, and in opposition to, it. These may not be
universally available or even desired, but they are now sufficiently wide-
spread for it to be reasonable for Daniel Bell (1979) to speak of the "cultural
contradictions of capitalism". Their present importance allows us to recog-
nize in retrospect (much more easily than Weber could) the origins of these
forces, running counter to the Protestant ethic as far back as the industrial
revolution itself, with a further strong growth in mass consumption and or-
ganized leisure in the nineteenth century (Cunningham 1980; Lowerson and
Myerscough 1977). A growing capitalist economy needs consumers of ad-
vertised delights, as well as dedicated savers, and thus needs leisure and fri-
volity (Wolfenstein 1975: 394-402), as well as work and seriousness. The
individual in a mature capitalist society is not so much trapped in Weber's
iron cage as walking a tight-rope. A neglect of the virtues of work, thrift and
calculation will lead to economic failure, but there also exists the opposite
type of failure in the form of the grim, tedious, pleasureless and over-inhib-
ited existence that is seen as the fate of those who are excessive in their devo-
tion to a diligent, methodical ethic.
Before capitalism came to be seen as a normal taken-for-granted economic
order such persons might be regarded as sinful misers or fearful strangers
The secularization of humour 59
threatening to disturb a traditional economic order (see Weber 1930: 67-69).

In modern jokes they are seen, rather, as comic figures trapped by their es-
pousal of the Protestant ethic into an excessive adhesion to one of the con-
trary spirits of capitalism. The devotees of the traditional Protestant ethic are
portrayed in the jokes as trapped within a rigid iron cage and unable to make
sophisticated choices. Those who tell the jokes about them, by contrast, see
external goods and cares as a light cloak that can be taken up or thrown aside
(Weber 1930: 181, notably his reference to Baxter), as an aid to maintaining
one's balance in a complex world of competing moral and material pressures.
Ever since the jokes about the canny Calvinists began, those citizens of
capitalist societies whose commitment to the Weberian spirit of capitalism is
secular, balanced, contingent, utilitarian and "associated with mundane pas-
sions which often actually give it the character of sport" (Weber 1930: 182),
have mocked the Protestant-ethic-bound Calvinists as comically rigid vic-
tims of a religion inspired "mécanisation de la vie" (Bergson 1911). Their
laughter indicates that they see themselves as free individuals and perceive
the modern world of capitalism, industry and machinery not as an iron cage
but as offering unique opportunities for human choice and flexibility, pro-
vided that its citizens are emancipated from the moral compulsion of the Prot-
estant ethic. The joke-tellers are celebrating their freedom from a religion-
generated set of constraints, rather than bemoaning with Weber the nullity
that exists when the fulfilment of a calling can no longer "directly be related
to the highest spiritual and cultural values" (Weber 1930: 182). Those who
like myself sympathize with Weber's criticism of modern bureaucratic soci-
ety may well argue that the mass of the people who tell, share and enjoy jokes
about the Protestant ethic have a mistaken notion of the nature of freedom,
but the people will laugh at us too. Risus populi, vox Dei.
The secularization of humour
The laughter of the people has, however, itself become secularized during the
last eighty or so years, since Weber first composed his Protestant ethic thesis,
and the general falling away from religion that Weber mistakenly claimed for
his own times has become a reality in our own (Acquaviva 1979). In this
respect Weber was a better predictor than observer but this is a tribute to his
prescience, to his ability to discern the dominant trends of the future at a time
when it was not clear which of many contradictory possibilities was likely to
prevail. Towards the end of the twentieth century the jokes about canny peoples
have also become secular in character. The internationally popular jokes of

today about the Scots unlike those of the past do not stress their distinctive
national religious culture and this reflects both the secularization of much of
Scottish life and the secular cultures of those who enjoy jokes about Scots.
The same point may be made in relation to humour about the Dutch (compare
for example Werner 1894 with van den Broeck 1976). Jokes about Cardis and
New Englanders have lost much of their earlier popularity as these regions
have lost their former distinctiveness. This distinctiveness was rooted in a
particular religious culture, which has since been eroded by the general secu-
larization of the societies of which they form a part. Scottish jokes can now
be constructed by using a formula based on an easily recognizable script that
lacks any particular reference to the Scots. In these jokes, which often take
the form of a comic riddle, "Scotsman" or "Scottish" is merely an indirect
signal that an unlikely tale is being told which will have a punch line based on
canniness. Likewise any mention of religion, theology or the Deity is purely
incidental to the jokes as can be seen from the third of the examples quoted
below about the Swiss:
Why do traffic lights have an orange light as well as a red and a green one?
To give Scottish drivers time to start their engines. (HHGBA)
Scotland Yard?
Two feet, eleven inches. (Wilde 1978: 221)
The Swiss share with the Scots an innate genius for commerce. This is well
known. A genius for commerce and for stinginess.
Everyone knows the story of Bolomey who carefully preserves the gold watch
which his father sold him on his death bed.
This is the story of how Switzerland was created.
On the sixth day God created Switzerland and its mountains, meadows and
cows. Then God said to the first Swiss:
— "What can I make for you?"
— "I would like plenty of milk!" said the Swiss.
God did as he was asked and a little later asked him:
— "Is the milk good?"
— "Yes it isn't bad at all! Taste it!"
— "It is very good!" After tasting it God said: "Is there anything else you
would like?"
— "Yes!" said the Swiss, "one franc eighty for the glass of milk." (Isnard
1979: 93; see also Herdi 1979: 8)
The comedy of Calvinists and Catholics 61
What is the shortest book in the world?

La dolce vita in Scotland. (Dundes 1971: 190-191)
A Belgian and a Dutchman had a competition to see who could tell the most
fantastic story. The Dutchman began: "Once upon a time there was a very
generous Dutchman ..."
"Stop", cried the Belgian, "you've won." (van den Broeck 1976)
The comedy of Calvinists and Catholics

In the late twentieth century there exist many sources of jokes about the canny,
only some of which have a Calvinistic people as their butt. Many jokes of this
type have no religious basis but refer, for instance, to the alleged canny char-
acteristics of the citizens of towns that have pioneered industrial or commer-
cial development in otherwise economically backward countries, such as the
Gabrovonians of Gabrovo in Bulgaria, the Regiomontanos of Monterrey in
Mexico and the Paisas of Medellin in the province of Antioquia in Colombia
(Davies 1987, 1990). So far as I know the entrepreneurial vigour of the
Gabrovonians, Regiomontanos and Paisas has no present or past religious
basis. It is interesting, nonetheless, that in both the Latin-American cases the
joke-tellers subscribe half-seriously to the myth that the citizens of Monterrey
and Medellin are or were originally "New Christians", i.e. Spanish Jews who
had pretended to convert to Catholicism. They did so in order to avoid expul-
sion from Spain at a time of persecution, while secretly retaining their old
religion, and it is popularly believed that they subsequently emigrated to re-
mote towns in the Spanish empire in the New World to avoid the attentions of
the Inquisition. However, despite the development ofjokes about other "canny"
groups, Calvinistic peoples are still disproportionately likely to be the butt of
jokes about the canny virtues and vices.
In contrast to the jokes about canny Calvinists, jokes about stupidity are
likely to be pinned on peoples whose myth of faith and nation is a Roman
Catholic one (Martin 1978: 102, 107); as with the jokes about the Irish in
Britain and Australia, about the Poles, Italians and Portuguese in the USA,
about the Belgians in France and the Netherlands, the Limburghers in the rest
of the Netherlands, the Slovaks in the Czech lands, the Fribourgers in Swit-
zerland and in Colombia about the distinctively pious and conservative
Pastusos from Pasto in Nariño (Davies 1988: 44-65; Davies 1990). Those
who tell such jokes, by contrast, typically have a national myth whose basis is
Protestant, secular or even anti-clerical (Martin 1978: 101-103). The humor-

ous images conveyed in ethnic jokes about stupidity are the very opposite of
the comic business acumen on which the tales about canny Calvinists were
based. The stupidity jokes make the butts of the jokes appear inept and igno-
rant in the face of commercial pressures and technical change, and often de-
pict them as Catholic peasants and labourers from economically backward
countries or regions, who are trapped by their own traditions and unable and
unwilling to adapt to the modern world. The only Calvinist group to be the
butt of jokes of this kind are the Afrikaners (Carver 1980), whose remote and
rural isolation from developments in Calvinist theology in Europe and North
America and strong corporate outlook have rendered them a peculiar case
(Martin 1978: 207; Moodie 1975; Wilkins and Strydom 1980).
Has the spirit finally escaped from the cage?
The humour of the end of the twentieth century suggests that the link between
Protestantism and capitalism postulated by Weber still exists in the minds of
the joke tellers, though in a much diminished way, which is in line with other
evidence indicating that there are still significant, albeit smaller, differences
between the economic behaviour of Protestants and Catholics (Golde 1975).
Perhaps by now it is safe to treat such differences as merely the result of the
inertia of tradition, but in doing so we may be making the very mistake that
Weber made in 1905, at a time when the Protestant ethic was alive and well
and still making an independent contribution to the spirit of capitalism.
Chapter 5
Stupidity and rationality: Jokes from the iron cage
One of the most outstanding features of the jokes told in industrial societies is
the enormous and universal popularity of jokes told at the expense of alleg-
edly stupid groups of people. In the Western industrial countries these jokes
are usually told about an ethnic group or minority, whilst in the former social-
ist Eastern Europe the jokes were of a political nature. It is perhaps not sur-
prising that, apart from jokes about sex, ethnic jokes of all kinds are perhaps
the most popular and numerous of all jokes in the West whilst political jokes
tended to dominate the popular humour of Eastern Europe. However, what is
remarkable is the range, durability and popularity of jokes about stupidity in
both types of industrial society. It is a phenomenon that calls for a sociologi-
cal explanation. Why, for instance, do people in Western industrial societies
prefer jokes about "stupid" ethnic minorities to almost any other kind of joke?
Why are they so fond of jokes like these:
A Polish couple decided to have a chicken farm. They bought two chickens,
took them home, dug a hole in their backyard and buried the chickens head
first. Next morning they discovered the chickens were dead.
They bought two more chickens, this time planting them in the yard feet down.
By the next morning the fowl had died. They wrote to the Polish consulate
explaining their problem. Within a week they received a prompt reply from
the Polish consul. The letter said, "Please send us a soil sample."
(Wilde 1978: 176)
Article in Irish medical journal: "Are vasectomies hereditary?"

(Chambers 1980: 94)
A Sabena (Belgian airlines) aeroplane was unable to land at Brussels airport.

The Belgian pilot signalled to the control tower that the landing-strip was too
short for him to land on. "Your landing strip", he said in amazement, "is only
a few dozen metres long and several kilometres wide." (French 1980s)
Practically every Western industrial country has its own "stupid" group about
whom such jokes are told, as can be seen from Table 1 (see pp. 2-3). The
jokes are told in each case about a group living on the social or geographical
64 Stupidity and rationality
periphery of the country where the jokes are told. The group is usually an
ethnic minority but the jokes may well be applied to the inhabitants of a neigh-
bouring country (such as the Belgians) or of a peripheral provincial town or
district (such as Aarhus or Ostfriesland). Often identical jokes are to be found
in different countries and it is sometimes clear that the jokes of one country
have been adapted or translated for consumption in another. The joke-tellers
may dislike, despise, feel indifferent towards or feel affection for the group
who are the butt of their jokes. In a sense the victims are important and in
general attempts to explain such jokes simply in terms of the relationships
between particular ethnic groups are mistaken. The key facts about these jokes
is that they reflect a wish that people have to tell jokes about a group of stupid
outsiders. By telling jokes about the stupidity of a group on the periphery of
their society, people can place this despised and feared quality at a distance
and gain a brief sense of reassurance that they and the members of their own
group are not themselves stupid or irrational.
There have always been jokes about simpletons, noodles and village idi-
ots and in many pre-industrial societies joke-tellers have fastened the label
"stupid" on the inhabitants of a particular village, town, region or country.
Towns such as Abdera in Thrace, Chelm in Eastern Europe, Kampen in Hol-
land and Sidon in Phoenicia were made the butt of jokes about the foolish-
ness of their inhabitants (see chapters 2 and 3; Esar 1978: 295-296; Rosten
1970: 85-86) long before modern industrial societies came into being. How-
ever, in the pre-industrial world there was nothing to compare with the great
flood of "Polish jokes", "Irish jokes", Ostfriesenwitze and other jokes about
stupid outsiders that has characterized the industrial societies, particularly
since the 1960s. In the pre-industrial world stupidity was just one among
many despised traits that was mocked in jokes, whereas in the advanced in-
dustrial countries of Western Europe and North America, jokes about stupid-
ity have become something of an obsession.
There certainly seems to be a correlation between the increased popularity
of ethnic jokes about stupid minorities and the development and intensifica-
tion of industrial society. Jokes about the alleged stupidity of the Irish first
appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century and showed a steady
growth in popularity during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the
period when Britain was becoming the world's first industrial country (See
Bartley 1954; Joe Miller's Jests [ 1739] 1963). Irish jokes have remained popu-
lar in Britain ever since and the Irish have also been the main butt of jokes
about stupidity in Australia, New Zealand and until relatively recently, the
United States.1 Jokes about stupidity have, as one might expect, always been
Stupidity and rationality 65
popular in the United States and have been pinned on a variety of immigrant
groups — the Irish, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Swedes, as well as the
Poles. The Polish jokes which have been so popular in the United States since
the 1960s are only the most recent in a long tradition of American jokes about
stupid ethnic outsiders. Since the Second World War countries as diverse as
India, Mexico, Iran and South Africa have advanced considerably along the
road to industrialization and have also begun to produce large numbers of
jokes about their own "stupid" minorities as shown in Table 1 on pp. 2-3.
The reason for the enormous popularity of jokes about stupidity in West-
ern industrial societies must be sought in the antithesis between the attitudes
and behaviour displayed by the member of the "stupid" minority in the joke
on the one hand and the intensely and increasingly "rational" character of
industrial society on the other. Modern industrial societies are dominated by
a belief in technical and economic efficiency, by the view that all institutions
should be "rationally" organized via the interplay of the key impersonal forces
of the market place, bureaucracy and modern science so as to maximize the
stated goals of these institutions from the means at their disposal. At one
level, then, we may see jokes about stupid outsiders as an affirmation of the
value of rationality, efficiency and applied intelligence on the part of the joke-
tellers, for any failure to live up to and conform to these qualities is ascribed
to outsiders and then subjected to severe ridicule. It is they who are comically
stupid and irrational and we who are intelligent, skilled and organized. By
apportioning implicit praise and direct mockery in this way, the jokes pre-
sumably act as a minor means of social control. They are one more factor
pressing individuals into conformity with the "rational" demands of modern
organizations and society.
However, in order to provide a full explanation of the popularity of these
jokes, it is necessary also to consider the negative impact of rational social
organization on the individual. The key question that must be asked is: "What
aspect of such a rational social order is likely to make individuals anxious
about their position in the rational world in which they live and to want to
indulge in jokes about stupid outsiders as a temporary release from this an-
xiety?" The answer to this question probably lies in the high degree of
specialization and division of labour imposed on them by the market,
bureaucracy and modern science. The mass market encourages individuals to
become specialists who sell their particular skills in the market place and thus
take advantage of the enhanced over-all efficiency and profitability created
by the market-coordinated division of labour (Smith 1896). Modern bu-
reaucratic organizations of all kinds are, almost by definition, organized around
the principle of the division of labour. As Weber put it, "bureaucracy rests
upon expert training, a functional specialisation of work and an attitude set
for habitual and virtuoso-like mastery of single, yet methodically integrated
functions" (Weber 1948:229). Modern science, even where it is not organized
along bureaucratic and market-oriented lines (which it usually is) (Toynbee
1934, 1: 2; see also Weber 1948: 223-224), also demands a high degree of
specialization from those who become scientific workers of all kinds, simply
because of the enormous and increasing body of scientific knowledge (Toynbee
1934, 1: 2) that now exists. No one can know and understand more than a
fraction of it or keep up with the torrent of new research findings, except
within a severely limited area of study.
The extreme division of labour that characterizes Western industrial soci-
ety has produced a situation where everyone, including even the most highly
skilled and intelligent of individuals is aware that he or she is a minor part of
a system (be it a market, a bureaucracy or a science) that contains far more
skill and knowledge than he or she can ever master. They are all specialists
whose individual efforts in isolation might amount to very little. Each indi-
vidual specialist knows that he or she is perpetually dependent on innumer-
able other specialists whose work and skills he or she cannot reproduce and
possibly cannot even comprehend. Under these circumstances even the most
knowledgeable and skilled person is aware of how little he or she knows and
how little he or she can do in a world that puts an enormous emphasis on skill
and knowledge. In such a world everyone needs to be reassured that they are
not really stupid and that real stupidity is safely restricted to the ranks of the
Poles, the Irish, or whoever is the butt of the local ethnic joke. It is significant
in this context to note how many of the jokes about a stupid minority have as
their setting an aeroplane, a submarine 2 or a space rocket where everyone is
locked in a technically sophisticated artificial environment and dependent for
survival on the intelligent behaviour of highly skilled specialists. The situa-
tion of people caught up in such a scientifically controlled and constructed
but potentially dangerous situation is an extreme metaphor 1 of the anxious
and dependent position of anyone trapped like Weber's bureaucrat as "a sin-
gle cog in an ever-moving mechanism which prescribes to him an essentially
fixed route of march" (Weber 1948: 228). The introduction of a stupid out-
sider into the artificial situation of the joke has disastrous, but comic, results:
Pokorski got a job as a test pilot. He took a helicopter up to 5000 feet ...
10,000 feet... 15,000 feet. All of a sudden it crashed. Pokorski woke up in the
hospital ward. His boss was there asking him what had happened. "It got too
cold", said the Polish pilot, "so I turned off the fan." (Wilde 1977: 135)
"How do you sink a Belgian submarine?"

"You knock on a port-hole and wait for someone to come and open it"
(Steeman 1977:95)
Van was a wealthy Free State farmer with his own aeroplane. One day while
on a holiday in the Cape his friend Van Tonder asked Van if he would like to
fly his seaplane. Van gratefuly accepted and did a perfect take-off from the
bay accompanied by Van Tonder as his co-pilot. After flying around for some
time Van began letting down over the aerodrome much to Van Tonder's alarm.
"Hey, Van"! he said. "This is a seaplane not an aeroplane. You must land on
water not on land."
Van thanked Van Tonder for his timely advice, pushed forward the throttle and
flew off to the bay where he did a graceful landing.
He then turned to Van Tonder and said: "I cannot thank you enough for re-
minding me not to land on the aerodrome. If you had not pointed it out, it
would have been the end of us."
With these words he stepped out of the plane into the water. (Carver 1980: 39)
The pilot of a plane approaching Heathrow airport asked the control tower for
a time check. The control tower replied: "If that's Quaint-arse the Australian
airline, well the time is now three o'clock. If it's Air France, well the time is
now fifteen hundred hours. And if you're Aer Fungus, the Irish airline, well
the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the three."
(British 1970s)
Aer Fungus, the Irish airline, introduced a completely automatic plane on their
flight from Dublin to London. As the plane took off from Dublin airport a
deep voice announced on the loudspeaker: "This is your computer control
speaker. You are now travelling in the world's first pilotless completely com-
puterised and automatic aircraft. Everything has been carefully programmed
by the very best Irish engineers and you can rest assured that nothing can
possible go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong...." (British 1960s, see also
p. 144)
In 1990 the Swedes sent their first rocket up into outer space with a crew
consisting of a chimpanzee and a Norwegian. On the control panel in front of
them was a red light and a green light. When the red light flashed it indicated
that instructions were about to come through for the Norwegian and when the
green light showed, it signalled an imminent instruction for the chimpanzee.
Ten minutes after blast-off the green light flashed and the chimpanzee was
instructed to alter the course of the rocket slightly, to take infra-red photo-
graphs of Sweden and to repair the radio transmitter. Half an hour later the
green light flashed again and the chimpanzee was told to calculate the rate of
fuel consumption, adjust the computer and make observations in connection
with the earth's magnetic field.
By this time the Norwegian was getting restless at having nothing to do and
resentful of the busy chimpanzee. Then one hour later the red light flashed
and the Norwegian eagerly awaited his instructions. A minute later came the
order: "Feed the chimpanzee." (Swedish 1977; see also Wilde 1973: 22)
Thus far there has been an emphasis on one aspect of the rational society that
in one way or another impinges on everyone — everyone at some time feels
inadequate as a lone individual faced with the complexity of modern technol-
ogy and social organization and likes to feel superior to the comic outsider
who cannot cope with it. However, in a society with a high degree of occupa-
tional specialization and division of labour, people are divided into highly
diverse and unequal groups, differentiated by the degree of skill, training and
acumen demanded by their work. At one extreme we have highly skilled spe-
cialists who must regularly undertake complex tasks involving a high degree
of intelligence, knowledge, judgment or dexterity. A surgeon, a pilot, an elec-
trical engineer, a barrister, a bank manager, a dealer in grain futures simply
must get it right most of the time, if they are to survive in their chosen busi-
ness or profession. For such people jokes about stupid outsiders are a release
from the strain of having to exercise a perpetual intelligent vigilance, of hav-
ing to live by one's wits. Jokes about other people's stupidity can serve to
dissipate any anxiety about losing their skill or intellectual powers at a crucial
moment. It was probably for a similar reason that in the pre-industrial world
jokes about stupidity seem to have been most popular in trading and commer-
cial communities such as those of the ancient Athenians — with their gibes at
nearby peasant societies such as Boeotia or their trading rivals from Sidon
(Esar 1978: 295) — and of the Jews of Eastern Europe with their jokes about
Chelm and about Schlemiels (Spalding 1976: 119). Where a community has
to live by its wits, stupidity is likely to be a despised, feared and widely mocked
characteristic.
At the other extreme of a society characterized by a very high degree of
division of labour are those who perform extremely simple, repetitive tasks
that are but a fragment of some complex industrial or bureaucratic process
and which require the exercise of hardly any skill or intelligence at all. The
effect of such a job on the person who does it was clearly outlined by Adam
Smith (1896, 2: 301-302), one of the earliest observers of the introduction of

the modern division of labour:
The understanding of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their
ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a
few simple operations of which the effects too are perhaps always the same or
very nearly the same has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise
his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never
occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion and generally
becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
People of this kind are also likely to be anxious about stupidity. They are
anxious about their own low status in a society which prizes skill, intelli-
gence and rationality, and are anxious lest the complex and baffling society in
which they live should make unexpected demands on them which they will
not know how to fulfil. Such anxieties are relieved by jokes about ethnic
groups reputedly so stupid that they cannot even reach the level of social and
economic competence attained by the least skilled of the occupational groups
created by the division of labour. For such people perhaps the one remaining
source of intellectual self-esteem that they have is the belief that they are
more sophisticated than the newly arrived immigrant from the provinces, the
countryside or a technically-backward country. An unskilled person may well
feel over-awed by the complexity of the world in which he works, but his
very familiarity with its complexity enables him to feel superior to the igno-
rant newcomer. Hence the fund of stories about immigrant bumpkins who
have not yet learned to master even the simplest task.
Did you hear about the Polack who lost his elevator operator's job because he
couldn't learn the route? (Wilde 1977: 152)
A Toronto woman called a firm which was renowned for its landscaping and
interior decorating. A man from the company soon arrived and the lady showed
him round the house. Every time she asked what colours he would recom-
mend for a particular room he used to go to the window, raise it and call out
"Green sides up?" before aswering her. This happened several times and the
woman's curiosity got the better of her. "Is this some kind of a ritual?" she
asked. "No", he replied, "it's simply that I've got two Newfies next door lay-
ing sod." (Thomas 1976: 148)
A Sardarji [Sikh] working on a building site was trying to knock a nail into the
wall head first. Another Sardarji seeing that his efforts were unavailing said to
him, "You're using the wrong kind of nail. That nail is meant for the wall
opposite." (Told to me in Srinagar, Kashmir in 1980)
Perhaps, then, the universal appeal of j o k e s about stupid outsiders lies in the
fact that they have the power to relieve and defuse the various f o r m s of anxi-
ety experienced by the citizens of a rational society. Such anxieties may be
generally experienced or specific to those occupying a particular niche in the
division of labour with its own level of skills and intellectual demands and
attendant fears. Different people may well laugh at j o k e s involving stupid
ethnic minorities f o r widely differing mixtures of reasons, but the nature of
the modern rational world is such that everyone may well have some reason
to feel anxious, some reason to laugh at ethnic jokes of this kind.
Thus, the predominant ethnic jokes of the Western industrial societies serve
the cause of rationality by denigrating its opposite — stupidity — and per-
haps also by defusing the various anxieties of those w h o live in the modern
rational world. A s such, they constitute a minor form of social control. T h e
Irish joke, the Polish joke, the Ostfriesenwitze in some small way reconcile
each trapped individual to his fate as one who, like W e b e r ' s "individual bu-
reaucrat, cannot squirm out of the apparatus in which he is harnessed" (We-
ber 1948: 228) or who is "chained to his activity by his entire material and
ideal existence" (Weber 1948: 214). The jokes about stupid outsiders consti-
tute part of that ideal existence — they are one small item helping to inculcate
into people a secure belief in a "rational" world devoted to the pursuit of
"precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discre-
tion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and per-
sonal costs" (Weber 1948: 214).
However, a careful study of the world of ethnic jokes reveals also an aware-
ness that the rational world of "rules, means, ends and matter of factness"
(Weber 1948: 244) that we have created is, at a deeper level, irrational. T h e
successful pursuit of efficiency has created "a joyless e c o n o m y " (Scitovsky
1976), a world in which work is, for many people, tedious, monotonous and
uncreative and where leisure is all too often simply a mirror-image of such
work (Bell 1960). If this is what the pursuit of rationality has achieved then
perhaps the pursuit was itself irrational. In a pessimistic mood, M a x Weber
(1930: 181) wrote of the trap in which we now find ourselves:
The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when
asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life and began to
dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos
of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and
economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives
of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those di-
rectly concerned with economic acquisition. Perhaps it will so determine them
until the last ton of fossilized fuel is burnt. In Baxter's view, the care for exter-
nal goods should lie on the shoulders of the "saint like a light cloak which can
be thrown aside at any moment". But fate decreed that the cloak should be-
come an iron cage ... in the United States the pursuit of wealth stripped of its
religious and ethical meaning tends to become associated with purely mun-
dane passions which often actually give it the character of a sport. No one
knows who will live in this cage in the future or whether at the end of this
tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise or there will be a
great rebirth of old ideas and ideals or if neither, mechanised petrification
embellished with a sort of compulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of
this cultural development it might truly be said: specialists without spirit, sen-
sualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civi-
lisation never before achieved.
Ethnic jokes protesting against the constraints of the iron cage are less popu-
lar, less numerous and less insistent than the jokes that pillory those groups
too stupid to survive within its bars. Nonetheless, diverse ethnic jokes of this
kind do exist and three types may be cited, each of which reveals one facet of
the revolt against rationality. These are jokes about work-addicted Ameri-
cans, jokes about rigid, pedantic, over-obedient Germans and jokes about
stingy, over-rational, humourless Scotsmen. In each case the the joke-tellers
mock the members of another ethnic group for their excessive subordination
to the world of work, money and duty. They are portrayed as senseless beings
who have locked themselves in the iron cage and thrown away the key. Their
very rationality is irrational, for their methodical manipulation of means to-
wards ends robs their lives of the possibility of human joy and freedom.
An American businessman visiting in Mexico watched an Indian making pot-

tery vases. He asked the price. "Twenty centavos each." — "And for 100?"
The native thought it over and then answered: "That will be 40 centavos each."
The American thought the Indian was making a mistake in his quotation of the
price so he tried again. "And if I bought 1000 all alike?" "All alike?" he said.
"One thousand? Well, Senor, then they would cost you 60 centavos apiece."
"Impossible! Why you must be insane!"
"It could be", replied the Indian, "but I'd have to make so many and all alike
and I wouldn't like that. So you see you would have to pay me for my bore-
dom as well as for my work." (Braude [1958] 1976: 38-39)
An engineer was trying to put through a railroad project in one of the Latin
American countries and he was seeking some local support for it.
"How long does it take you to get your goods to market on a burro?" he in-
quired of a native.
"Four days", he was told.
"See there", cried the engineer triumphantly, "with our road you could get
your goods to market and be back in one day."
"But Senor", protested the native, "what would we do with the other three
days?" (Lewis and Wachs [1966] 1972: 255)
A couple of French tourists winding up an extensive trip around the United

States passed an old folks' home. The inmates were rocking back and forth
vigorously in their chairs on the porch.
"Regardez, Clarinda", remarked the French husband, "these crazy Americans
keep up their mad pace to the very end." (Cerf 1959: 195)
An American teacher undertook the task of convincing an indolent native son

of the Philippines that it was his duty to get out and hustle.
"But why should I work?" inquired the guileless Filipino.
"In order to make money." declared the thrifty teacher.
"But what do I want with money?" persisted the brown brother.
"Why when you get plenty of money you will be independent and will not
have to work any more", replied the teacher.
"I don't have to work now", said the native. And the teacher gave up in dis-
gust. (Copeland and Copeland 1939:76; see also Lewis and Wachs 1972: 352;
Wilde 1978: 170)
Northern visitor (in Georgia): "I see you raise hogs almost exclusively here.
Do you find they pay better than corn and potatoes?"
Native (slowly): "Wal no, but yer see, stranger, hogs don't need hoeing."
(Lawson 1923: 16)
In a South Carolina town a businessman beset by domestic and financial wor-

ries had blown his brains out. Naturally the tragedy, for the time being, was
the main local topic of conversation. A resident who knew the suicide slightly
was discussing the sad affair with his negro office servant.
"Joe", he said, "speaking of such things, I've been struck by a curious circum-
stance. To the best of my recollection, I never heard a member of your race
deliberately killing himself because of private troubles and yet every day in
the papers we see where white people have been taking their own lives. I
wonder why this should be? You're a negro yourself, what are your theories
on the subject?"
"Mista Barnwell", said Joe, "yere's de way it tis: a white man gits hisself in a
jam and he can't seem to see no way out of it and he sets down and thinks
about it and thinks about it some mo' and after a while he grabs up a pistol and
shoots hisself. A black man, he gits snarled up in trouble the same way and he
sets down and starts thinkin' and after a while he goes to sleep!"
(Cobb 1925: 233)
These Yankee jokes, though at one level patronising about the lack of a work-
ethnic among Latin-Americans, Filipinos, blacks, white Southerners, etc., also
reveal an uneasiness about their own work-obsessed society. There lurks in
all these jokes a distinctly subversive message about the value and purpose of
work and about the rationality of being a hustling American workaholic. 4
There is a similar subversive message to be found in jokes about those
dour, rational, stingy Scotsmen in whose Calvin-bounded lives the idea of
duty in one's calling prowls about in a far from ghost-like way (see p. 54).
A Deeside wife listened for a whole evening to the jokes and patter of Billy
Connolly without a hint of a smile. Next day she confided to a friend, "He's a
great comic. It was all I could do tae keep from laughing." (Hodes 1978: 58)
An Aberdonian with a rotten molar went to his dentist who said he would
charge £5 to pull it out.
Aberdonian: "Couldn't you loosen it for a £1 so that I can pull it out myself?"
(HHGBA, 1968)
An undertaker at a Rotary dinner offered a free funeral to the first member of

the club to die. Suddenly there was a shot from the back of the room. A Scots-
man had shot himself. (HHGBA, 1968)
A young Scotsman, methodical, painstaking, and sincere, as so many of his

race are, had been a bachelor of long standing. Since coming to this country
he had saved his money until now he felt he was qualified properly to support
a domestic establishment. One day he went to a friend:
"I've about decided to get married", he said, "In fact, I'm looking around now
for a wife."
"Where are you looking?" asked his friend.
"I'll tell you", said the Scot. "It's my belief that the girls who work as clerks in
the big department stores here in New York, are mighty fine types. As a rule,
they are well dressed and tidy and good-looking and have nice ways. They
must be self-reliant or they wouldn't be working. They have to be intelligent
or they couldn't hold their jobs. They know how to make a dollar go a long
distance, or they couldn't dress as well as they do on the modest wages most
of them get. My notion is this: On pretext of wanting to buy something, I am
going to tour the big shops until I see a girl behind a counter who seems to fill
my requirements. Then I'm going to find out her name and make private in-
quiries as to her character and disposition, and if she answers all the require-
ments, I'll secure an introduction to her and if she seems to like me I'm going
to ask her to marry me."
Six months went by. The cautious Scot and the man to whom he had confided
his plan of campaign met again. The latter thought his friend looked rather
careworn and unhappy.
"How are you getting along?"
"Well", said the Scot, "I'm a married man, if that's what you mean."
"Well, did you follow the scheme you had in mind — I mean the one you told
me about the last time I saw you?"
"Yes. I married a girl that worked at Macy's."
"Congratulations. How's everything getting along?"
The Scot fetched a small sigh.
"Sometimes", he said, "I can't help thinking that maybe I might have done
better at Gimbel's". (Cobb 1925: 238)
Here it is thrift, self-control and rational calculation that are comically under-
mined and subverted. The Scotsman's excessive adherence to these three bars
of the iron cage is shown as being self-defeating and even self-destructive,
for it is a world from which warmth and enjoyment have been banished. A
third example of an ethnic joke "against the cage" depicts the typical Ger-
man's orderly methodical, pedantic, procedure-bound and obedient behav-
iour as equally self-destructive.
A Stickler for the Code

A survivor of Mosby's Cavalry told me this one years ago, as illustrative of
the German's love for regularity and orderly routine in all the affairs of life:
A Bavarian immigrant joined a Union regiment and in the third year of the
(American Civil) war was sent to Virginia. One night he imbibed too heavily
of strong drink and fell asleep in a corn crib. When he wakened he discovered
that during the night a negro camp follower had stolen his uniform, leaving
behind a ragged civilian outfit. The German clothed himself in these tatters
and set out to find his command.
Presently another and an even more disagreable circumstance than the theft of
his wardrobe impressed itself upon him. By certain signs he was made aware
that the Federal forces had withdrawn from their old positions and the enemy
had advanced so that he was now inside the foe's lines. As he limped towards
the rear hoping to overtake the retreating force, a squad of ragged gray troop-
ers came whirling out of a thicket and surrounded him. Quite frankly he told
them who and what he was and they took him prisoner.
Presently his captors halted him where a tree limb stretched across the road,
and one of the Southerners unlooping a plow line from his saddle-bow, pro-
ceeded to fashion a slip-noose in one end of it. The captive inquired of the
lieutenant in command what the purpose of all this might be.
"Why," said the lieutenant, "we're going to treat you as we would any Yank
caught inside our lines in disguise. Under the laws of war we're going to hang
you as a spy."
"Veil", said the German, "votefer is der rule!" (Cobb 1925: 201)
On a Lufthansa flight from Heathrow to Berlin the captain's speech to the

passengers went something like this: "Gut mornink, ladies und jentlemen,
ziss iss your captain shpeakink. Ve took off from Heat'row precisely on time
at 10.30 hours British Mean Time, unt ve are now flyink at a height of fifteen
thousand feet. In two hours and forty three minutes ve shall descent to ten
thousand feet und sixteen minutes und fifteen second later ve shall descent to
five thousand feet. Ve shall remain at this height for seven minutes and twenty-
eight seconds and then ve shall land at 13.56 precisely. In the event of an
emergency you vili all follow to the letter the safety regulations printed on the
cards in front of you. There need be no panic or any casualties provided you
all do exactly AS YOU ARE TOLD!" (Kilgarriff 1975: 24)
Lufthansa hostess: "Good mornink, ladies and schentlemen. You vili enjoy
the flight." (British 1960s)
Two Germans in a bar in Mexico city see a third man coming in.
First German: "That man is a police officer."
Second German: "How do you know?"
First German: "He's wearing a uniform." (Told by a Mexican in Mexico City
1979)
A small child walking down Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv asked an adult the
time. "It is precisely seventeen and a half minutes past three," replied the
adult. "Are you a Yekke [German Jew]?" asked the child.
"Yes, but how did you know?" (Told in England 1980)
Easy for the trained mind

I was a reporter on the New York Evening World. The body of a young woman,
expensively dressed, was found in a thicket in a lonely and remote part of
Long Island. She had been murdered — shot through the head. Harry Stowe
of our staff, since deceased, was the first reporter to reach the place. The body
had not been moved and in searching about it Stowe happened upon some-
thing the local coroner had overlooked — a scrap of discoloured paper bear-
ing printed and written words in German upon it.
Stowe quietly slipped the paper into his pocket and caught the first train for
town. He couldn't read German himself so he took his find to the office of the
German consul. There he met an elderly, spectacled, exceedingly serious-look-
ing under-secretary who translated the printed and written inscriptions for
him.
Then the secretary wanted to know what it was all about. Stowe told him,
explaining that the identity of the murdered woman was still a profound mys-
tery — that nobody could guess who or what she was. He described her cloth-
ing in some detail.
"Pooh!" snorted the German, "Stupid fools that these American policemen
are! To the trained mind the whole thing is simplicity itself. By process of
elimination and deduction it is possible to ascertain beyond question exactly
what manner of woman this was."
"Could you do it?" asked Stowe, hopefully.
"In one little minute", said the under-secretary impressively.
"Go ahead then, please and do it", begged Stowe.
"Very well", said the German. "My young friend, please follow me closely.
This paper shows that some woman bought at a store in Leipzig certain small
articles, kitchen utensils — a bread knife, a potato masher, a coffee grinder.
No woman in Germany unless she was a housewife would buy such things.
So! On the other hand, this woman, you tell me, wore forty-dollar corsets. No
woman in Germany unless she was an actress would wear forty-dollar cor-
sets. No actress would buy common household utensils. That would make her
a housewife! No housewife would wear forty-dollar corsets. That would make
her an actress. And there you are!" (Cobb 1925: 238)
Sign in a continental train:

E pericoloso sporgersi
Dangerous to lean out
Nicht Hinauslehnen! (Continental train 1981 )s
All these ethnic jokes about the "rational" Americans, Scots and Germans are
the mirror-image of the earlier jokes about stupid ethnic groups. The exces-
sive devotion to work, money, order, rules, precision, rationality of the latter
ethnic groups are also portrayed as forms of stupidity. Jokes which depict
such an enthusiasm for the iron cage as stupid after its own fashion and which
project such stupid traits safely on to other groups are a protest against the
encroachments of the bars. They also serve to dispel our anxiety that we too
may become completely absorbed into a competitive and bureaucratic world.
The comforting message of the jokes is that it is the others who are irration-
ally rational whilst we are wise enough not to be trapped in the constricting
formal and technical rationality of the iron cage.
The jokes about stupidity and irrationality so far discussed have been mainly
in relation to the ethnic jokes of the Western industrial capitalist societies.
However, practically identical jokes about stupid groups were just as numer-
ous and popular in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. What is
significant, though, is that in Eastern Europe such jokes were told about groups
holding or exercising political power rather than about ethnic minorities. The
people portrayed as stupid in East European jokes tended to be the leaders of
the Communist Party, apparatchiks, official heroes and members of the mili-
tia (police). Thus the East European equivalent of Irish and Polish-American
jokes were told about groups defined not in ethnic but political terms.
Why do Polish militiamen have a stripe round their elbows?

So that they can remember where to bend their arms. (Polish 1981 via Michael
Beckham)
A Czech militiaman went to see his doctor with severe burns on both his ears.
"How did this happen?" asked the doctor.
"Well, someone rang up while I was ironing", said the policeman.
"Yes, but how did you manage to burn both ears?" asked the doctors.
"Well, then I had to ring for an ambulance", said the militiaman. (Czech 1981 )
Why do Czech militiamen go round in groups of three?

One can read, one can write and the other is keeping an eye on the two intel-
lectuals. (Czech 1981)
The phone rang in the Kremlin one night. Brezhnev woke up, put on the light,
put on his glasses, fumbled in his pyjama pocket for the appropriate scrap of
paper, picked up the phone and read out carefully: "Who is it?" (Russian 1981 )
All Brezhnev's speeches at the Olympic games in Moscow carried as a head-

ing the Olympic symbol OOO. As a result Brezhnev began all his speeches
with the phrase "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" (Russian; told to me in 1980 by Emil
Draitser)
Why was Grechko made a Marshal of the Soviet Union?

Because he was too stupid to be a General. (Kolasky 1972: 70)
Husak one day held a reception for Mrs. Gandhi and the staff of the Indian
Embassy in Prague. He and his wife arranged a curry buffet and had all the
Czechs dress up in Indian Costume. Half way through the reception, Husak's
wife came over and said: "Gustav, we're not dressed right."
"What do you mean?" asked Husak.
"You've got to paint a red spot on your forehead like Mrs. Gandhi", said his
wife.
"Why?" said Husak.
"Well", said his wife, "all the Indians are looking at you and tapping their
foreheads with a finger." (Czech 1981)
What is May 1st?

Socialist April Fools' Day. (East European 1981).
The content of these jokes about stupidity is the same as in the Western jokes
cited earlier, but instead of the jokes being told about peripheral groups in the
society they were told about groups at the very heart of the political order.
What the jokes reflected is the awareness in the minds of the East Europeans
who invented and told them of the unresolved tension in their societies be-
tween the pressures towards rationality inherent in any modern industrial
economy and the dictates of their then political system. The jokes were, as in
the West, an expression of the values of rationality and of the anxieties en-
gendered by modern forms of rational social organization but they were also
a protest against the perceived irrationality of the dominant modes of politi-
cal authority and coercion. The jokes were a form of social control upholding
the technostructure of society and yet also a means of subverting the legiti-
macy of the political order. The jokes exalt work and deny politics. East Eu-
ropean jokes about stupidity underline the fundamental contradiction that
existed in these societies between the rational outlook engendered by modern
processes of production, administration and scientific enquiry, and the irra-
tional, arbitrary, muddled and obstructive exercise of power that emerged
from their political system (Hirszowicz 1980: 131-132).
The politicization of jokes about stupidity is a reflection of the general
politicization of society in the former socialist societies of Eastern Europe, a
politicization which was both irrational in itself and productive of unforeseen

irrational consequences. At one level the irrationality can be seen simply as a
result of continual arbitrary and irrelevant political interference with the work-
ings of the basic "rational" processes of modern society — the market, bu-
reaucracy and science — for reasons of ideology or expediency, to such an
extent that the rational and routine functioning of these processes was per-
ceptibly disrupted. At another and possibly more fundamental level, the irra-
tional aspects of the former socialist East European societies can be seen to
be the inherent result of attempts to extend ostensibly rational forms of bu-
reaucratic planning and control beyond what is possible and beyond what is
rational to attempt. All societies, all economic and legal systems, all modes of
production consist of a blend of two interacting and complementary forms of
order, the specifically planned order of, say, a machine, a factory process or a
bureaucracy, and forms of spontaneous order such as the market place or the
advance of science. Any workable social, legal or economic system necessar-
ily includes both forms of order. A rational social order is not one which seeks
to maximise planned order (or, come to that, spontaneous order) but one which
combines elements of planned and spontaneous order, of corporate and self-
adjusting systems in an optimal way. The fundamental irrationality of the
socialist societies of Eastern Europe (Polanyi 1951: 156) stemmed, to a large
extent, from their excessive reliance on specifically planned order and in par-
ticular (a) their self-defeating "attempts to exercise more specific control over
the machinery of economic life than is compatible with the rules of an effec-
tively functioning system of production" (Polanyi 1951: 152-153), (b) their
failure to establish a fully workable and independent system of private law
which could have impartially enforced contractual obligations, e.g. between
two state enterprises (Polanyi 1951: 185-186), and (c) their attempts to pre-
dict and determine the advance of scientific knowledge (Ruhemann 1937:
445-447; Webb and Webb 1944: 769-793).
These East European socialist attempts to impose massive constraints on
the spontaneous form of order in society together with a failure to provide an
institutional framework within which such forms of order can operate effec-
tively would necessarily have had horrendous irrational consequences even if
the over-riding specifically planned order had been rationally designed. 6 In
practice, of course, the pervasive, intrusive and irresponsible nature of East
European politics ensured that even those smaller simpler social tasks that
could be planned on a rational basis were subject to irrational pressures and
distortions (Hirszowicz 1980: 127-167).
East European jokes about stupidity did not only involve the ascribing of
lack of intelligence to those individuals and groups most responsible for or
most expressive of the irrational aspects of their social order. They also
focussed specifically on just those departures from the rational operations of
the market, bureaucracy and science outlined above. Such anecdotes and jokes
arose, for instance, from the conflict between the arbitrary exercise of politi-
cal power and the rational operation of bureaucratic administration. One source
of jokes about the irrationality and stupidity of political processes in Eastern
Europe was the contradiction between the "rational" view that managers, of-
ficials, etc., should be appointed on the basis of ability, experience, skills and
qualifications, and the Party view that political reliability and affirmative ac-
tion by social class should take precedence (Hirszowicz 1980:101 -102). Hence
the jokes about the stupidity of those whose position depended mainly or
entirely on political power, political loyalty or political ideology. By attempt-
ing to politicise management or science or civil administration and to make
political power prevail over expertise in these areas, the politicians sparked
off a comic counter-attack in which rational expertise prevails over stupid
politics. Similarly, the attempt to elevate men like Chapaev to hero status
largely because of their unlettered origins led to a counter-attack by the pro-
ponents of skill and education in which these erstwhile peasants and proletar-
ians were made to look stupid. Such processes were often mocked both di-
rectly and implicitly in East European jokes.
A Czech interview:
"What was your father's occupation?"
"I don't rightly know ... He used to mingle with the crowds in market places
and at soccer games and come back in the morning loaded with money."
"In other words, a pick-pocket. And your mother?"
"I don't rightly know. She used to leave at night and come back in the morn-
ing loaded with money."
"In other words, a prostitute. Anybody else in the family?"
"There was an uncle. He used to go from door to door selling combs and
brushes."
"A petit-bourgeois businessman! You fool, you could have been a first-class
cadre but your uncle spoiled it all for you!" (Beckmann 1980: 84)
The greatest number of Eastern European jokes directly concerned with the
irrationality of the system dealt with the failures of central economic plan-
ning, particularly in relation to agriculture and consumer goods. The queues,
shortages and bottlenecks that result from the inability of a centrally directed
system of prices and outputs to adjust rapidly to changing conditions of pro-

duction and demand were probably the most popular theme of all in East
European jokes. East European centrally directed economic plans aimed to
be rational, yet fundamentally they were irrational, for they often attempted
to achieve something that is administratively impossible — "impossible in
the same sense in which it is impossible for a cat to swim the Atlantic" (Polany i
1951: 126). East European jokes mocked both the irrational consequences of
such a system and its ideological justifications.
Why do the Poles build their meat shops two miles apart?
So that the queues (lines) won't get mixed up. (Polish 1981)
At the May Day parade in Moscow, Leonid Brezhnev and other Russian offi-
cials watched as usual the long parade of Soviet military power — missiles,
tanks, armoured cars and the like. At the end of the parade came a little truck
with three middle-aged men sitting in it. Comrade Brezhnev turned to the
Defence Minister and asked: "Who are they?" The Defence Minister replied:
"Those are three economists. You would not believe the destructive power
they possess." (Russian 1981)
The Russians have absolute proof that the Bible is wrong. According to the
Holy Book originally there was chaos and then there was order. The Russians
know from experience that this is not so. First there was planning and then
there was chaos. (Kolasky 1972: 129)
A Russian economist gave a lecture in Moscow about a visit he had made to

West Germany. "The poverty to be seen in West Germany, comrades, is quite
incredible. The shops everywhere are full of the finest goods and produce but
no one can afford to buy them. There is not a single queue to be seen any-
where in the whole country." (Russian 1981; see also Benton and Loomes
1976: 98)
What do the Polish and American economies have in common?

In neither country can you buy anything with zloties. (Larson 1980: 90)
Under capitalism you get rigid discipline in production and chaos in consump-
tion. Under socialist economic planning you get rigid discipline in consump-
tion and chaos in production. (Benton and Loomes 1976: 98)
There may have been chaos in production but it was nonetheless disciplined
chaos. The departures from rationality that were made fun of in East Euro-
pean jokes did not release anyone from the iron cage. They merely ensured
that everyone was caged twice — first in the familiar iron cage of rationality
and secondly in a separate iron curtain cage whose bars were political, ideo-
logical and irrational. Neither cage enclosed the other. Rather they were set at
an angle to one another so that the hapless inmates were doubly constrained
by some of the bars of each.
Under socialism it was every bit as tedious to work on an assembly line in
Togliattigrad, in a tractor factory in Budapest (Haraszti 1977) or in an insur-
ance office in Prague as in their Western equivalents. As the Czech economist
Ota §ik (1967: 139) guardedly noted at the time: "At the socialist stage of
development labour is still relatively onerous (long hours) and intensive. There
is a relative lack of variety, work is monotonous and for most people offers
little creative scope. There is still a fairly rigid division of labour binding the
majority to one occupation for life." This fact, too, has been noted in the
political jokes of the former communist states of Eastern Europe (Beckmann
1969: 102; Isnard 1979: 95), which thus provided a protest against the irra-
tionality of rationality as well as the irrationality of irrationality.
In conclusion we may note that in all industrial countries jokes about stu-
pidity are immensely popular and this reflects the fact that the crucial institu-
tions of these societies are organized along rational lines in the narrow sense
that they are designed to extract the maximum ends from given means. Jokes
about stupidity are an affirmation of rationality and a release from the anxie-
ties and tensions engendered by a zealously rational social organization. As
such they consitutute a minor form of social control; but other jokes act as a
protest against the iron cage of rational organization and question the ration-
ality of "rationality". Such jokes suggest that it is irrational for human beings
to lead joyless, tedious lives spent in the pursuit of work or wealth.
In the Western capitalist countries the key vehicle for jokes about stupid-
ity has been the ethnic joke which places this despised quality at a safe dis-
tance by pinning it on to a peripheral ethnic minority. "They may be stupid
but we and our society are rational" may well be the implicit message of the
jokes. In the former Eastern Europe jokes about stupidity were political and
ascribed this quality to those holding or exercising political power at the core
of society. In this way the political order itself was criticized for its perceived
irrationality. Such jokes may have been a significant vehicle of protest in a
type of society which lacked many such outlets. The way in which the citi-
zens of the Eastern European countries stopped joking as soon as they had
freedom of speech provides strong support for this view. At the same time the
very ambiguity of humour means that all these jokes would have also had
other and very different meanings for the individuals who shared them.
Chapter 6
Humour for the future and a future for humour
It is often stated that jokes in an authoritarian society are one of the few av-
enues of political criticism open to people and that jokes are a way of ex-
pressing political resentments, grievances and grumbles (Larsen 1980). At
this point the argument often dissolves into a sterile wrangle as to whether
political jokes are a means by which political dissent is kept alive and the
morale of the dissenters maintained or a safety valve which protects authori-
tarian regimes by channelling political resentments into a harmless form. The
purpose of this chapter is to try and get away from the pointless debates of
functionalists and conflict theorists and to look at the actual content of the
jokes as a form of implicit politics.
Even individuals who, from compulsion or choice, from frustration or
apparent apathy take no active part in politics, have an internal map of the
political world that impinges on them, its nature, its failings and its prospects.
Equally they have a notion of what that political world ought to be like, of the
future they would like to see, even if it appears impossible right now. In a free
society there are many ways of studying this implicit politics. It can be in-
ferred from certain consistent patterns of behaviour and comment (often in
non-political contexts) that indicate their view of the nature of social and
political organization, of power, of political morality. It is also possible sim-
ply to go and ask people questions either by the use of questionnaires whose
answers can be coded and quantified or by in-depth interviews. Yet despite
the plethora of data that is available, it is still possible to learn new and some-
times unexpected aspects of people's implicit politics through the study of
their folklore in general and their jokes in particular. Alan Dundes' (1984)
book Life is Like a Chicken-Coop Ladder, for instance, is a study of German
social and political life through folklore which provides insights into the "im-
plicit politics" of the German people that it would have been difficult to ob-
tain by other methods. Similarly the study of ethnic jokes and the scripts they
employ can tell us a great deal not merely about the joke-teller's attitudes to
the butts of the jokes but about the relationship between them and about the
kind of negative qualities that the joke-teller's wish to "export." Thus while
both the British and the Americans agree in telling jokes which pin "stupid-
ity" on familiar ethnic groups living on the periphery of their society, the
86 Humour for the future
Americans alone also depict these groups as dirty. Why? It is not because
they are dirty but rather because the American evaluation of hygiene and the
American view of the nature of the boundaries of their society differ from
those of the British. One of the trickiest of political questions that can be
asked is "Where are the boundaries of our people, of our land, of our nation?"
Most citizens do not regularly grapple with such problems or even think about
them very much except perhaps in a crisis but they frequently tell jokes that
explore this very issue.
Similarly most people — quite rightly — do not bother their heads with,
say, the labour theory of value which still survives despite being either false
or circular depending on how it is formulated. They know it is absurd, for
everyday experience teaches people the meaning of scarcity, the value of land,
location, rare talents, intangible services — and they demonstrate the fact by
their willingness to pay for these things. Admittedly, there are a few implicit
believers in the labour theory of value but they are soon put in their place —
by jokes:
An old man came into town to have a tooth extracted by the dentist. After-
wards he asked how much it would cost and was told: five pounds. "Five
pounds!" he exclaimed in astonishment, "Why it only took you a minute. The
blacksmith in my village took a tooth out for me a year ago and it took him
nearly two hours. He dragged me all round the room and lost his grip half a
dozen times at least. I never saw such hard work, and after all that, he only
charged me two pounds. And now you want five pounds for a mere minute's
work!"
An engineer was called in to repair a large piece of machinery in a factory. He

examined it carefully and tapped it gently with his hammer until it sprung to
life. Later he sent in the following bill:
For tapping machine £5

For knowing where to tap £50
If the study of jokes is a useful part of the analysis of the implicit politics of a
free society, it is even more valuable in relation to the exploration of the
implicit politics of authoritarian societies.
Here jokes are more important both because other forms of political ex-
pression are limited and because of the difficulties a researcher faces in ex-
ploring a people's implicit politics — for quite different reasons neither the
regime nor the people would be willing to trust him or her. The regime would
Humour for the future 87
seek to prevent or at least to curtail such research lest the findings prove
embarrassing while the people might well feel inhibited from expressing criti-
cal views that could lead to repercussions. These problems also face the col-
lectors and interpreters of jokes but at least it is possible to assess those that
were in common circulation in the former Soviet Union and its Eastern Euro-
pean colonial dependencies and to compare them with the jokes told in freer
societies. On this basis it is possible at least to say something about what
were the joke-tellers implicit views of life under socialism and hopes and
expectations for the future.
One of the most striking features of the old East European jokes was the
way in which politicians were depicted in these jokes as utterly stupid, not
merely in their political role but in ordinary everyday life. Some of them no
doubt were stupid but they were not all stupid and even the stupid ones were
not that stupid. The jokes are not descriptions of individuals or even a class of
individuals any more than, say, the similar ethnic jokes told in the West about
the alleged stupidity of the witty Irish, the enterprising Belgians or the canny
citizens of French-speaking Switzerland. They were rather a ritual statement
about the lack of legitimacy of a certain category of politicians. The range
both of subjects and of targets in the jokes about stupidity from Eastern Eu-
rope and the Soviet Union is quite remarkable:
After the successful Apollo-Soyuz space flight Leonid Brezhnev called to

congratulate the cosmonauts. However, he also reproached them with: "The
Americans are winning the space race. We must accomplish something to
outdo them. They've already landed on the moon so we in the Politburo have
decided to send you for a landing on the sun."
The cosmonauts groaned: "But, Comrade Brezhnev, we'll be burned alive."
"What do you think," interrupted Brezhnev, "that we don't understand any-
thing? Don't worry, we've already planned all the details. First of all you are
going to complete the landing at night." (Draitser 1978: 56)
What is the average I.Q. of Poland? Fifty Ochab. (UCBFA, Polish file 1969,
collected by Juliana Roth)
Antonin Novotny (president of Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1968) wanted to

take his wife to the annual ball of the Academy of Sciences but his advisers
tried to dissuade him. "They are a nasty lot. They will ignore you." The
Novotnys went all the same.
The next day he bawled out his advisers: "Ignore us my foot! Nobody took the
slightest notice of us!"
At the same ball Mrs. Novotny had noticed the beautiful complexion of some
of the ladies. Novotny set his spies to work: "Find out how they do it."
They report back within a few minutes: "They use eau de toilette, Mr. Presi-
dent." "Oh-d — what?"
"Toilet water, Mr. President."
When he comes home next evening his wife has a big bump on her head.
"What happened to you?" he asks.
"I tried this thing with the toilet water," says the first lady "but the lid dropped
on my head." (Beckmann 1969: 94)
When Gierek was secretary of the Polish Communist party, he was renowned
for making long, dull and boring speeches. After one particularly tedious three-
hour speech one of his colleagues hinted that a shorter speech might go down
better with his audience. Gierek took the hint and told his secretary to limit his
speeches to twenty minutes. At his next public appearance, however, he spoke
for a full hour to the great irritation of his colleagues. The next day Gierek
said angrily to his secretary: "I gave you definite instructions that my speech
was under no circumstances to be longer than twenty minutes."
"But, Comrade Gierek," replied the secretary, "I wrote you a twenty minute
speech just as you requested and as usual I gave you two carbon copies to go
with it." (Polish 1981; see also Kolasky 1972: 38-39 for a similar joke about
Gomulka)
The uniform total stupidity that was assigned to all politicians' in the old East
European jokes is quite striking when compared with the jokes that have been
told about politicians in the free societies of the West which pin highly par-
ticular and very diverse traits onto recognizable individuals: the jokes about
the deviousness of Lloyd George, the taciturn Calvin Coolidge, the bluntness
of Harry Truman, the aloof pride of General de Gaulle, the self-effacing mod-
esty of Clement Attlee, the toughness of Barry Goldwater, the wobbling vac-
illation of Jimmy Carter (how I went from peanut butter to jelly in four years),
Richard Nixon's selling of a used car to Edward Kennedy, the logic of Enoch
Powell, the monarchical style of President Kekkonen of Finland or the oilyness
of Jim Griffiths or Tony Blair. Whether these jokes are true or fair is besides
the point. What is crucial is that they represent a very varied pattern of mock-
ery of the politicians. The only two politicians to exercise power at the very
top in the countries of the English-speaking world in recent years who have
been the butt of East European type jokes about stupidity were Gerald Ford
and Sir Alec Douglas-Home, both of them able and by no means unpopular
politicians.
Harold Wilson versus Sir Alec Douglas-Home — a case of smart alec versus
dull Alec. (British 1964)
R.A. Butler introducing the former Lord Home at a meeting: "We are very
lucky to have Sir Alec Douglas-Home here with us this evening. He will be
talking about foreign policy, a subject he knows something about"
(British 1960s)
The j o k e s about the alleged stupidity of Gerald Ford were even collected and
published as The Jerry Ford Joke-Book edited by Max Brodnick:
Only last week Mr. Ford was riding a White House escalator when it broke
down and he was stuck there for three hours. (Brodnick 1975)
Irked by Ronald Reagan's Hollywood sophistication, Mr. Ford has signed a

contract to star in one film comedy. However, he isn't thrilled by the title —
Mr. Clumsy goes to Hollywood. (Brodnick 1975)
Ford and Douglas-Home were intelligent and respected politicians and it was
perfectly possible for anyone to criticize them as part of the normal d e m o -
cratic political debate. The only thing these two men had in common with the
despots of Eastern Europe is that they had not been elected to the office they
held. Gerald Ford was the only American president never to have been elected
as either president or vice-president. He was the accidental president w h o
c a m e to that position as a result of the unprecedented resignation of both
President Nixon and Vice-President Agnew. W h e n in office he had the kind
of minor banana-skin physical accidents that happen to everyone and also
made embarrassing verbal slips of a kind since repeated by Carter and Reagan.
However, only in Ford's case were these seized upon and turned into j o k e s so
that he became the president who "stumbled into office and has gone on stum-
bling ever since". Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Lord Home, a hereditary peer
holding office in Harold Macmillan's government. It had long been felt in
Britain that it would be undemocratic for a peer to be prime minister and
indeed this was one of the factors that prevented Lord Curzon and Lord Hali-
fax f r o m attaining that office. Lord H o m e got around this convention by re-
signing his peerage and being elected to the House of C o m m o n s in a spe-
cially arranged by-election for a safe Conservative seat. He was then eligible
to b e c o m e prime minister.
9 0 Humour for the future
The election of Sir Alec Douglas-Home to Parliament created a vacancy in

the House of Lords — and another in the House of Commons. (British 1964)
The penalty both men paid for their unorthodox routes to office that circum-
vented the usual process of democratic competition was that they became the
butts of jokes about stupidity. It is more difficult for people to make jokes
about the stupidity of political leaders whom they have elected for, like
Barrabas, they are the people's choice, though a second-string politician like
Quayle coming in on someone else's coat-tails may be joked about. After
every election in a democratic country bumper stickers proclaim "Don't blame
me, I voted X" (i.e., for the losers). It is this process of competition and choice
that is the basis of political legitimacy in a democracy. Those who lack it are
labelled "stupid" whether they are or not. If we extend this argument to East-
ern Europe and the Soviet Union then it is clear that the entire political class
was seen as illegitimate, because they had not been chosen by the people,
they had not won office in open competition and were thus a "stupid" group.
By implication the joke-tellers shared the concepts of democratic legitimacy
applied in the West and not those of "democratic centralism" as implied in a
contemporary joke:
At the Central Committee Plenum: After his unanimous election as General

Secretary, Andropov announces: "When you have voted, you may lower your
arms and come away from the wall." (Sturman 1984: 213)
Only when East European politicians came to be chosen in open competition

and the people gained the fundamental political right "to turn the rascals out"
did jokes about stupid politicians wither away. The implicit political message
of the old East European jokes is that this is the future many of the joke-
tellers wanted and were determined to have.
The politicians were by no means the only group in Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union who were the butts of jokes about stupidity. Party
hacks, official heroes, and especially militiamen were also ridiculed in this
way.
Two Czech militiamen were on duty in Wenceslas Square in Prague. A for-

eigner came up to them and asked them in German how to get to the main
railway station but he received no reply. The militiamen simply shrugged their
shoulders so he tried in English. Again no reply. In French — still nothing; in
Russian — not even then. Finally the foreigner also shrugged his shoulders
and went away.
"You know, I think it would be a good idea to learn a foreign language," said
one of the militiamen.
"Whatever for?" asked the other. "Just look how many languages that chap
spoke and it didn't help him one bit." (Czech 1981)
A Polish militiaman took his car into the garage to have it serviced. "There's
something wrong with the indicator lights," he told the mechanic.
The mechanic got into the car and turned them on. "How are they now?" he
asked.
"They're working. They're not working. They're working. They're not work-
ing...," replied the militiamen. (Polish 1981)
The jokes about stupid militiamen were not simply an expression of resent-
ment at the behaviour of the day-to-day enforcers of state power, for there
were after all other much more powerful and sinister agencies of state control
in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union who were the subject of different
kinds of jokes. The key to the jokes about stupid militiamen lay rather in their
mode of recruitment. The role of policeman in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union was not a respected one and those who were in a position to choose
other careers did so. In consequence, the militia was forced to recruit un-
skilled rustics who lacked a trade or an educational qualification and for whom
joining the militia was their only means of obtaining a permit to live and
work in a city (Conquest 1968: 31-33, Conquest 1980: 98). 2 Police officers of
a similar breed in other countries such as Italy or South Africa under apart-
heid or in nineteenth-century American cities are or were the butts of similar
jokes about carabinieri, van der Merwe and dumb Irish cops. The key ele-
ment in each case was the political appointment of the unskilled, uneducated
and unsophisticated to positions of crude power. In Italy it was the clients of
the entrenched politicians of the poor and backward South, in South Africa it
was Afrikaner Red-necks (as distinct from rooineks) who supported the Na-
tional Party and in America it was the nominees of Tammany Hall who filled
the police force. Thus the unfortunate militiamen of the former Soviet Union
or its Eastern European dependencies were doubly illegitimate, for not only
were the rules they had to enforce often seen as illegitimate, but so, in the
eyes of the citizenry, was the mode of their appointment.
Political appointees who have not had to compete in the marketplace, the
examination hall or even through the ballot box are always likely to be re-
garded as stupid, for in the eyes of the joke-tellers they lack merit. They are
not professionals. This point has been neatly made by Fox Butterfield ( 1982:
289-290) in his description of the Chinese telling political jokes:
These cadres are viewed by the more sophisticated natives of Peking and Shang-
hai as urban Americans would view hillbillies from Kentucky or Tennessee.
Our friends the Wangs liked to tell jokes about the typical cadre:
"In a village the county authorities had announced they were going to form
the militia and issue rifles," Li began one of his favorites stories. "It was a big
event in a place where nothing ever happens and the peasants got very ex-
cited. But then days and weeks passed, and the county authorities were having
trouble reaching a decision.
Finally, after two years, a jeep came down to the village. An important-look-
ing cadre got out and declared there would be a big meeting about forming the
militia.
At the meeting, he got up and began speaking slowly, Ί-am-the-county-party-
secretary,' and with those words the audience burst into thunderous applause.
It was a great honor to be visited by such a high cadre.
But then the speaker added, 'That is, I was sent by the county party secre-
tary.'"
Li told the story employing the thick dialect of Hunan province, where Mao
and many other cadres came from:
"'We have decided, about the guns, that one gun for each person,' and again
there was a chorus of applause, 'is absolutely impossible'.
'We have reached the conclusion that one gun for every two people,' and there
was still clapping, 'is not right'.
'So I want to announce the final decision of the county Party committee is,
one gun for every three people,' which set off more applause. 'But they are
wooden guns,' the cadre concluded."
The point of the jokes is not the mere snobbish rejection of crude peasant
manners and speech, though that in itself can be the basis of jokes but (a) the
fact that the cadres/militiamen, etc. are stupid in the sense that they lack the
skills and knowledge necessary for their job, (b) the way in which political
rectitude is seen as a sufficient qualification for resolving technical issues
and (c) the inverse snobbery that sees proletarian or peasant ancestry as a
qualification in itself, in much the same way as an aristocratic lineage would
have been in a traditional society. In those open societies where tradition is
still an important social force both peasants and aristocrats are the butts of
jokes about stupidity. The sons of peasants who come to town are derided as
stupid rustics, ignorant bumpkins, dumb yokels, and slow-witted hill-billies,
hoosiers and red-necks, because their traditional skills and attainments are
not relevant to the changing and cosmopolitan city where they are seeking
employment. Aristocrats are equally the butt of jokes about stupidity because
their claim to status is not a meritocratic one, not one based on success through
competition. Hence the English jokes about upper-class twits, the American
jokes about tongue-tied English aristocrats,3 the Austrian and German jokes
about Graf Bobby 4 and their Hungarian equivalents, which still survive long
after the demise of the Hapsburg social order. The aristocratic preoccupation
with social origins rather than the abilities of the individual has its Commu-
nist counterpart and the fate of the individuals held up for esteem by the
system is to be the butt of jokes about how stupid they are. The Russian
official hero Chapaev who was lauded for his humble origins was the butt of
jokes about stupidity for the same reason as aristocrats in other societies.
The fearless hero of the Civil War, Vasiliy Ivanovitch Chapaev and his loyal
orderly Pyetka were sky-diving.
"We're only 100 meters from the ground," said Pyetka, excitedly. "Its time to
pull the ripcord, Vasiliy Ivanovitch!"
"Its still kind of early," Chapaev answered calmly.
"Its only fifty meters now," screamed Pyetka. "Pull the ring Vasiliy Ivanovitch!"
"Calm down, Pyetka," said Chapaev. "There's still time before we hit." "Only
three meters remaining!" cried Pyetka. "Pull!"
"Its not worth it," answered Chapaev. "From this height I can land without a
parachute ... !" (Draitser 1978: 50)
Why is an aristocrat like Euclid's definition of a point? He has position but no

parts and no magnitude? (British nineteenth century)
Why are the upper classes like turnips?

The best part of them lies under the ground. (British 1960s)
Why are the upper classes the cream of the country? They are rich and thick.
(British 1960s)
The implicit message of the jokes is a meritocratic one that stresses mobility
through competition, legitimacy and skill, as against arbitrary sponsorship on
irrelevant social or political grounds. There were also many jokes that spell
out this message directly:
Two comrades met in the street. "Heavens, you've changed!" said one.
"You've lost so much weight."
"Well you see I got married and my wife can't cook," replied the other.
"Why don't you send her on a state cookery course?" asked the former.
"That's exactly what I did just after we got married six months ago."
"Well?"
"The course has only just reached the revolution of 1905." (Russian 1981 ; see
also Larsen 1980: 95)
It was finally decided to introduce striptease into the Soviet Union, and since
this was thought to be an extremely avant-garde concept, it was decided only
to employ women who had been members of the Party for at least 20 years.
One day Brezhnev himself came along to watch the imported novelty. To en-
sure absolute ideological correctness, a girl who had been a Party member
since 1917 was the main star. Brezhnev watched her act for a while and when
with palsied hand she removed the last veil, he said in a bored voice: "I can't
understand why those westerners are so enthusiastic about striptease."
(Russian 1980)
Politics is of necessity an irrational activity. It cannot be reduced to a techni-

cally rational system of administration (see chapters 1 , 2 and 10 in Robertson
1982). There is no way of deciding that a person is qualified (or unqualified)
to be a politician in the sense that a surgeon, a mathematician, an electrician
or a pilot has to be and they do not require the paper qualifications demanded
of the would-be bureaucrat. Politicians are experts in doing nothing in par-
ticular and they often do it very well. They are the ultimate fixers and politics
is the point at which the final arbitrary bargains of interests, values and re-
sources must be struck. There are no right answers, only possible ones, and
the only qualification for being a politician is being a politician.
The qualified, the specialists, the bureaucratic office-holders retire at an
arbitrary fixed age, beyond which they are quite unfairly held to be too old
and incompetent through age, but the politician who has the ultimate respon-
sibility for running the state can go on to become the Grand Old Man
(Gladstone) or his rival "Der alte Jude — das ist der Mann" (Disraeli). Old
politicians only fade away at a very advanced age indeed as we can see from
the careers of Adenauer (der Alte) and Hindenburg, de Gaulle and de Gasperi,
Kekkonen and Reagen, Tito, Franco and Mao, Clémenceau and Churchill,
Khomeini and Morarji, Pétain and Perón. Le roi est demi-mort. Vive le roi.
Very old politicians represent in their own persons the political bargains of
yesterday, survival and continuity, a link with safer or more successful times
(Davies 1982b: 271-289). But before Gorbachev, there was no gerontocracy
like Soviet gerontocracy — not respected as the G.O.M. or der Alte had been,
but mocked as a dubious oligarchy of senile survivors:
What did Chernenko inherit from Brezhnev? Senility. (Sturman 1984: 214)
Why is it that Brezhnev travelled abroad but Andropov doesn't?

Brezhnev was supplied from a battery but Andropov is plugged into the mains.
(Bulgarian 1980s)
Political life is of necessity irrational and the legitimacy of politicians does

not depend on any specialized expertise or knowledge. This is fair enough —
but there is a corollary, viz., that politics should be limited in scope and the
range of politicians' power restricted by constitution or convention. It is when
the politicians step far outside their true sphere and try to settle technical,
economic or social issues that require expertise or are best left to the forces of
"spontaneous order" that they gain a reputation for stupidity. Such a reputa-
tion has stuck to the apocryphal politicians of the Indiana State Legislature
who came within two crucial votes of declaring that the value of the ratio of
the circumference of a circle to its diameter was, in the area of their jurisdic-
tion, to be 3.2 exactly (Grant 1982: 34; see also Morgan and Langford 1981 ;
Pile 1979). Had they got to the point of trying to enforce such a law, the
politicians would have been the irrational fraction of Indiana. The point is not
that politicians are stupid or grossly fallible, for the world contains a multi-
tude of scientists, businessmen, academics and plumbers who are one or the
other or both. It is rather that politicians alone possess the final power to
enforce their decisions and it is this combination of power without expertise
that makes their stupidity more dangerous and more risible than that of other
people. This is particularly the case in totalitarian societies where they have a
monopoly of political power, where they may be filled with a sense of their
own ideological righteousness and where there are no clear limits to what is
political, so that they are able to extend the range of their arbitrary decisions
into areas that need autonomy. Political attempts to decree the findings of
pure science or the nature of mathematical relationships, or to denounce bour-
geois science, Jewish physics or Machism really are stupid. The wisdom of
scientists is fallible and provisional, but that is its virtue, and the worst thing
one can say about influential scientists who try to use their position to enforce
their views and to exclude dissent is that they are behaving like politicians.
Scientific paradigms are not enforceable or even dogma. The jokes about the
politicization of science in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe mainly
related to the stupid impositions of an arbitrary ideological cage on scientific
findings, though Polanyi noted on his various visits to scientific institutions
in the USSR that attempts to plan the advance of science were themselves the
subject of "contemptuous jokes" (Polanyi 1940). The Lysenko affair (Langdon-
Davies 1949; Beckmann 1968: 78; Popovsky 1980) in particular gave rise to
such jokes, the main butt of them being the unfortunate horticulturalist
Michurin who allegedly had produced wonderful hybrid proletarian fruit that
defied "bourgeois" Mendelian genetics.
Do you know how Michurin died?

He broke his neck when he fell off one of his strawberries? (Beckmann 1980:
67; Kolasky 1972: 110)
Do you know how Michurin died?
He crossed his legs and could no longer urinate. (Beckmann 1980: 67)
Who invented barbed wire?

Michurin. He crossed earthworms with hedgehogs. (Beckmann 1980: 67;
Kolasky 1972: 111)
Professor Beckmann, a Czech electrical engineer, who was a connoisseur of
jokes about stupid politicized, politically correct science, also recorded a
number of true incidents about the exercise of political power to supress ra-
tional criticism in the physical sciences:
For example in Ostrava, an industrial town in East Moravia, a worker had

proposed a machine that in essence was to throw rocks in the air and the rocks
would then do work coming down. The chief engineer tried to explain the
principle of the conservation of energy to him, but to no avail. The worker
turned to the party, the engineer was fired and the proposal wandered all over
the country, one expert handing it to another like a hot potato. (Beckmann
1969: 123)
The aspect of political control that impinged most directly on the common
people in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was the supression of
the marketplace, the lack of private ownership of the means of production,
and the attempt to replace the price mechanism by central planning. The re-
sults of this were lines and shortages, and a black market in Western goods
and currency, which alone were recognized as having value. The black mar-
ket, moonlighting, speculation and corruption were all attempts by individu-
als to create a spontaneous order in the face of the chaos left by planning
(Hirszowicz 1980:130-148; Davies 1978: 383-392). The jokes about the state
of economic life told in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union also implicitly
recognized the failure of socialist planning, and the necessity for a system of
market prices and a meaningful currency.
A hundred people were standing in line for food in Warsaw when Jaruselski
drove past in his car. He stopped. "What are people waiting for?" he asked.
"We are waiting for meat. There is no meat," they replied.
Jaruselski said: "It is dreadful that you should have to stand like this. I must do
something about it." An hour later a truck drove up and unloaded a hundred
chairs. (Told by a Russian émigré in Washington D.C. 1980s)
A Soviet economist visited France and told the French economic Minister,
"Your economy is in a terrible state. I have never seen such poverty."
"What do you mean," replied the Frenchman. "The shops are full of all kinds
of goods and produce."
"But," replied the Russian, "No one can afford to buy them. During the whole
of my visit to France I haven't seen one single line." (French 1980s)
There are three classes in the classless society of Poland. Those who have
dollars, those who have zloty, and those who have neither. (Polish taxi driver
quoted in Time, September 1980)
The use of Marxist jargon and special pleading to excuse chronic economic
failure was equally subject to ridicule in jokes:
Soviet economist: The reason why Canada and the United States supply the
Soviet Union with so much grain is due to the catastrophic over-production of
capitalism. (Russian 1980s)
When will the Cubans know that they have achieved the same level of social-
ist development as the Soviet Union?
When they start importing sugar. (Kolasky 1972: 132)
The free market, science and jokes are all forms of spontaneous order created
by the autonomous actions of individuals and groups. In a competitive sys-
tem prices and production depend on the hidden hand not the clenched fist.
Discovery, invention, innovation cannot be predicted let alone planned with
any accuracy except in limited artas over short periods of time. Jokes are not
produced by ministries of humour and their invention and circulation are in-
evitably the result of millions of spontaneous individual initiatives. They are
but the sum of people's uncoordinated humorous responses to widely shared
predicaments. There is an order to the jokes told in a society, albeit one that is
often difficult to pin down, but it is not an order designed by any one. There
was no director of the fictitious Radio Armenia 5 (also called Radio Erivan)
but the Armenian broadcasts had a recognizable style; there were no central
transmitters but there was a c o m m o n wavelength.
N o complex industrial society is based only on spontaneous order. There
always exists also a planned and corporate order, a state that is not going to
wither away, a degree of necessary and beneficial central control and inter-
vention, a role for politics. The fallacy on which Marxist states were and are
based is the idea that the equally necessary forms of spontaneous social order
(which require the autonomy of individuals, groups, and institutions) can and
should be m a d e subordinate to political authority and directives. It is singu-
larly appropriate that j o k e s should be one of the means by which people ex-
press their mockery of the manifest failures of such a system, a mockery
which reveals popular insight into its central, tyrannical yet self-defeating,
oppressive yet risible weakness, namely the attempt to supress spontaneous
order and to deny autonomy.
T h e absurd promise of Marxism is that it can enable man to determine his
own future. An understanding of the forces of spontaneous order teaches us
that long-term future patterns of demand, of scientific discovery, of techno-
logical innovation and of supplies of raw materials are unknown and un-
k n o w a b l e and that political attempts to control that future are futile. At best
we can simply try and avoid tomorrow's total disasters, but we don't even
k n o w which of these is most threatening or what new ones will arise. Joke-
tellers are no better at telling the future than anyone else and there is no more
esoteric wisdom to be found in jokes than in the dimensions of the pyramids.
There was nonetheless an impressive implicit political common-sense in the
j o k e s of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They were the j o k e s of
people who had seen the future and it didn't work, who had recognized the
stupidity of a politicized society, who had no illusions about either the reali-
ties of day to day socialism or its Utopian promises for the future:
"In twenty years," proclaimed the Soviet economist, "our socialist society
will be so advanced that everyone will have their own private helicopter."
"But why would anyone need one?" asked a puzzled listener.
"Well," said the economist, "supposing you lived in Moscow and one day you
heard that potatoes were available in Kiev — look how quickly you could get
there." (Russian 1980s)
The three stages of socialism: Early socialism where goods are readily avail-
able and there are no ration cards.
Advanced socialism where there are few goods but plenty of ration cards with
which to obtain them.
Full communism where there are neither ration cards nor any goods left in the
shops. (Russian 1980s; see also Isnard 1977: 79)
A Muscovite inherited millions of dollars from America. The government of-

fered to do him any favour he wants in return for the money.
He asks to run the biggest food shop in Moscow for three days and to have all
the supplies he needed. He then put up notices all over Moscow saying, "all
the food you want free."
There were huge crowds, total chaos, fifty shop assistants were killed, the
buildings were demolished and all the food in Russia eaten up.
The members of the Politbureau asked him, "Why did you do it?"
"I'm an old man. I'd have never lived to see what Communism will be like.
But now I've seen it!" (Told by Alexander Shtromas, 1981 ).6
There was, however, a promise for the future implicit in the people's (not the
People's) humour of the East. Their jokes displayed an insight into the fail-
ures of the social and political order that indicated a sophisticated implicit
politics and a willingness to enter the uncertain world of spontaneous order. It
was a humour for a future very different from their recent past. It was a hu-
mour of autonomy, based on limited but valued autonomy, and a wish for
much greater autonomy. In the humour of their total disillusionment there
was thus a hope for the future. Every joke was a tiny counterrevolution. Yet
the dreams of the joke-tellers involved a withering away of their jokes. In a
free society there is less work for humour to do and the future of humour is
play — they had only their jokes to lose.
In the 1980s when I went to Bulgaria, the Czech lands, Slovakia and Hun-
gary to study jokes under socialism the subject peoples of the Soviet Empire
often felt trapped in a long dark tunnel with no end and no light in sight. Some
indeed knew only the intermediate stage between socialism and communism
known as alcoholism (see p. 102). Yet many others saw hope in the very
deadliness, indeed decadence, of the system, which was by now displaying
the symptoms of decay that their ancestors had mocked in czarist Russia, and
in the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. In the Czech lands new
Gorbachev was but Old Prochazka and that particular Johnny Walker7 was
clearly growing weaker. In the outposts of empire there was still no freedom
of speech 8 but there was freedom of conversation and in bars,9 cafes and pri-
vate homes jokes predicted the end of Soviet socialism:
A citizen of Moscow went into a restaurant and ordered: "Borsht, veal cutlets,
rhubarb pie, a cup of coffee .... oh and a copy of Pravda please."
"Certainly," said the waiter, "we have all that you have ordered but not Pravda.
That newspaper ceased publication when the old Communist; regime col-
lapsed."
The waiter duly brought the borsht, the customer ate it with relish and said:
"And now bring me the veal cutlets and don't forget my rhubarb pie, coffee
and my copy of Pravda. "
The waiter said patiently, "I'm sorry but I can't bring you a copy of Pravda. It
doesn't exist any more. It died with the Communists."
The cutlets in turn were brought and eaten. "Now said the customer, please
bring me my rhubarb pie and then my coffee and the copy of Pravda. "
"The rhubarb pie is no problem," said the waiter, "and there's plenty of coffee
but there is no longer any Pravda — like the old Communist government, it's
finished, done away with, no more."
The customer consumed his pie and called the waiter over to his table. "That
was excellent," he said, "and now I'm ready for my coffee and the copy of
Pravda. "
The waiter exploded: "How many times do I have to tell you, there is no
Pravda. There is no Communist government. We've got rid of all that!"
"Yes, I know," said the customer, "I just wanted to hear you say it again."
(Told by Alexander Shtromas 1981)
Chapter 7
Ethnic jokes about alcohol:
A study of the humour of ambivalence
Alcohol has long been the dominant legal drug of the industrial societies of
Europe, North America and Australia and a major source of both pleasure and
disaster. In consequence attitudes towards it are varied, unstable and contra-
dictory (which in turn intensifies the problems it causes), with a minority
who extravagantly praise its euphoriant effects, a minority of staunch teeto-
tallers who would like to ban it and an uncertain majority who are beguiled
by alcohol yet recognize that it is also a betrayer. Under circumstances of
such uncertainty and ambivalence jokes about alcohol flourish. By contrast
very few jokes about drinking are told about groups such as orthodox Jews
whose members consume alcohol in a controlled and moderate way accord-
ing to a stable and generally observed set of rules. Jokes about alcohol are
most common under circumstances of moral uncertainty and disagreement
about whether and how alcohol should be consumed. Such jokes are espe-
cially likely to be told about members of ethnic groups whose peculiar, vis-
ible and distinctive patterns of drinking reveal an even greater degree of am-
bivalence towards, and uncertainty and disagreement about alcohol than is
usual in other western societies. Those who have achieved a precarious bal-
ance in their attitude to alcohol tell ethnic jokes about their unbalanced neigh-
bours and the unbalanced tell jokes about themselves that celebrate or wryly
concede the extremes of unbalance displayed by many of their members. Jokes
are ambiguous comic utterances that can be taken in many ways and so they
flourish in relation to an activity whose moral status is itself uncertain and
varied. The purpose of this chaper is to explore this phenomenon in detail and
to explain why certain particular jokes about alcohol are told about specific
ethnic groups.
Ethnic jokes about alcohol are related to the central opposition between
work and non-work that has given rise to the popular ethnic jokes about the
"stupid" and the "canny". The ethnic jokes about stupidity which have been
pinned on the Poles in America, on the Irish in Britain, on the Belgians in
France and the Netherlands, on the Sikhs in India and Pakistan, on the Newfies
in Canada, on the Tasmaniane in Australia, are found literally throughout the
world as are corresponding jokes about the allegedly canny, that is crafty and
102 Ethnic jokes about alcohol
stingy Scots, Jews, Armenians, Auvergnats, Cardis, Paisas, Regiomontanos,

Laihians, Gabrovonians, Gujaratis, etc. (see pp. 2-3). Behind this pair of re-
lated but opposed jokes lies the contrast between the values of skill, compe-
tence, shrewdness and frugality demanded by the purposive and organized
economic activity we call work and the carefree, sociable hedonism associ-
ated with its antithesis, leisure (Davies 1990). The ethnic jokes about stupid-
ity are often pinned on groups whose members are or were peasant rustics or
unskilled labourers on building sites or in heavy industry, i.e. people whose
economic position does not demand a high level of competence, foresight or
ability to adapt to changes in technical or market conditions whereas the "canny
peoples" though manifestly successful in entrepreneurship or the accumula-
tion of wealth are the butt of jokes that allege they have lost out in other ways.
Within the modern industrial societies of Europe, North America and Aus-
tralia the existence and widespread use of the drug alcohol further sharpens
the contradiction between work and leisure that is such a significant feature
of modern industrial society. In most of these societies alcohol has long been
the main permitted drug to which people turn when they seek fun, excite-
ment, conviviality and a release from the anxieties, tensions, worries and in-
hibitions of everyday life. Alcohol is a key element in the culture of pleasure
and hedonism that is one side of life in the advanced industrial societies. It
has often in the past also been referred to more bluntly as a crude means of
escape from tedium and squalor as "the quickest road out of Manchester"
(see Dingle 1976:132), or the title deeds to Glasgow. This dreary and desper-
ate aspect of drinking figured prominently in many of the jokes of the former
communist countries of Eastern European where "the transitional stage be-
tween advanced socialism and full communism is (was) called alcoholism". 1
Alcohol also often has a highly detrimental effect on the kinds of work per-
formance on which industrial societies are based. Alcohol can quickly impair
the workings of a person's mind and powers of co-ordination and concentra-
tion to the point where he or she is unfit to drive a vehicle, operate a machine
or perform complex intellectual tasks. If someone becomes frequently and
seriously inebriated, this will disrupt the regular and disciplined working habits
that are a necessary part of a rational organization based on modem industrial
techniques. Unless the consumption of alcohol is confined to limited amounts,
consumed only on particular occasions set aside for that purpose, alcohol acts
as an unpredictable, disruptive force, quite incompatible with the smooth run-
ning of any form of modern industrial or administrative organization. Indi-
viduals who go on drinking sprees and who then fail to turn up at work or turn
up drunk, useless, helpless or, worst of all, belligerent, undermine all the ba-
Ethnic jokes about alcohol 103
sic values and virtues of the working world. The less spectacular, half-soaked,
addicted drinkers, whose performance at work is consistently impaired, are
just as great a problem. Diligence, prudence, rationality, competence, reli-
ability, perseverance, duty and thrift are all soluble in alcohol (see Bacon
1962: 78-93).
The contradiction between these two aspects and views of alcohol has
often led to social and political conflicts in industrial and industrializing soci-
eties. Historically the pre-industrial tolerance of periodic binges, the alco-
holic celebration of festivals by peasants, artisans and land-owners alike, that
had long existed in many European societies, was bound at some point to
come into conflict with the skills, disciplines and values necessary for the
new forms of work of an industrial society. Although in the long run convivi-
ality at work and drunken and "hangover" absence from work did tend to
decline, the adjustment of the old drinking habits to the new circumstances
was not an easy, automatic or linear process 2 , but a source of uncertainty and
tension — and of jokes.
Temperance societies were formed in America, and in many parts of north-
ern Europe which sought to restrict the sale and consumption of alcohol or
even to ban it altogether. Legal controls were introduced in many countries
and in the United States and parts of Canada and Scandinavia there were
attempts to impose total prohibition. Disagreements about the control of al-
cohol set class against class (the middle classes and the respectable working
class against the lower-class roughs, the raffish rich, and dissolute aristo-
crats), rural areas against cities, women against men, religious denomination
against religious denomination (particularly Protestants against Catholics) and,
in the United States, ethnic group against ethnic group (old stock Americans
against more recent immigrants). 3
In most western societies alcohol is no longer a source of major political
controversy but attitudes to alcohol often remain ambivalent and contradic-
tory with "two directly opposed value systems in relation to the use of alco-
hol operating in the culture at the same time" (O'Connor 1977: 6; see also
Meyerson 1940). Jokes about alcohol, including ethnic jokes, are common in
most cultures 4 but there seems to be a distinctive pattern of jokes in Scandina-
via, the British Isles, the United States and Australia where ambivalent atti-
tudes to alcohol are particularly marked. The inconsistent view taken in these
cultures has led to a fairly high incidence of problem drinking, but it is also
the case that a majority of the citizens of these societies adhere to a balanced
view that regards moderate drinking on suitable occasions as the ideal to be
aimed at and there exist many jokes that mock extreme behaviour in either
direction. Within these "ambivalent" cultures there are innumerable jokes,

both ethnic and non-ethnic, about drunkards and alcoholics on the one hand
and rigid teetotalers and temperance fanatics on the other. There is plenty of
material for such jokes and a strong incentive to tell them, for the uneasy
moderation observed by the majority often represents not a golden mean but
an ambivalent amalgam of incompatible views of alcohol. In these uncertain
cultures both sides of the contradiction between alcohol as a source of con-
viviality, a euphoriant escape from a hard rational and material world, and
alcohol as the underminer of work, rationality and steadiness, are recognized
and indeed emphasized. For this reason the advocates of temperance have
always been unsure how best to employ humour. On the one hand they have
compiled collections of comic anecdotes about drinkers for use by temper-
ance orators (see Duncan [n.d.], Landon 1900: 461-485), on the other they
fear that jokes about drunkenness tend to make it appear a mere comic misde-
meanour rather than a sin (Ford 1959:2). The temperance advocates' dilemma
illustrates yet again that jokes are of necessity ambiguous and cannot be treated
as mere disguised versions of serious statements. We may infer that joke tell-
ers have a common perception of how things are from the relatively consist-
ent content of the jokes they tell about the inebriated, but their feelings about
the real situation behind the joke, and in consequence the use they make of
such jokes, will differ from one individual to another and from one context to
another. Jokes are as usual ambiguous.
Jokes about the inebriated can be interpreted as a warning to people not to
neglect the values of the rational world by allowing a potentially destructive
drug to undermine their reason and self-control, but they can also be seen as
jokes about the benefits of alcohol, as a means of escaping from an oppres-
sively rational and work-obsessed world. The international popularity of Andy
Capp, the feckless, hard-drinking, work-shy, lower-class hero of the cartoon
strip, is one instance of this. The success of this cartoon strip, rooted so firmly
and idiosyncratically in the industrial North East of England, in other quite
different societies throughout Europe and North America demonstrates its
very wide appeal. The comic drunkard (who is not responsible for what he
says) is often a spokesman for ideas that subvert not merely authority but the
entire world of work and even rationality itself. The "drunk" is an especially
useful figure for Swedish comedians 5 to imitate, for in this guise alone can
they safely mock the cold, hard, authoritarian, politically correct "rational-
ity" of official Sweden. In many countries there are also jokes at the expense
of supposedly joyless total abstainers and wowsers who are portrayed as tak-
ing the world of work and self-control too seriously and depriving themselves
and others of an accepted source of enjoyment and conviviality. Many hu-

morists have indeed explicitly sought a balance and mocked both drunkard
and teetotaler together (e.g. Gilbert 1919: 176-181 and Milne 1940: 13-15;
see also Green 1976: 149-158).
In the case of jokes about the traits of "stupidity" and "canniness" it has
been argued that joke-tellers "export" these unwelcome qualities by pinning
them onto other ethnic groups about whom "stupid" and "canny" ethnic jokes
are told (Davies 1982). It would be a neat extension of this argument if in fact
the ethnic jokes about excessive drinking and bigoted abstinence, which re-
flect another facet of the cultural contradiction between the two dominant
secular ethics of industrial society, viz. the work ethic and hedonism, could
simply be added on to this analysis of "stupid" and "canny" ethnic minorities.
If this were the case, the ethnic minorities who are the butts of jokes about
stupidity, such as the Poles or the Irish, would also be the ones saddled with
the jokes about excessive drinking, while those about whom "canny" jokes
were told, such as the Scots or the Jews, would be the butts of jokes about
excessive restraint and control.
There is some truth in this suggestion but the actual relationships between
ethnicity, culture, socio-economic position and patterns of alcohol use is such
as to introduce many complications. Nonetheless there is enough of a corre-
lation between the comic dichotomies, stupid versus canny and inebriated
versus abstinent, to make it a reasonable starting point for disussing ethnic
jokes about alcohol.
Ethnic jokes about stupidity are usually told about a people who are basi-
cally very similar to the joke tellers themselves and tend to be rooted in the
relative position of the joke-tellers and the butts of their jokes — the latter
often live on the geographical, cultural or economic periphery of the joke-
tellers' societies and/or are peasant or lower-class immigrants and their
descendants (Davies 1982 and 1990). Ethnic jokes about drinking are similar
in that the joke-tellers tell them about peoples seen as culturally similar to
themselves. It is the Irish who are the butt of American or Australian ethnic
jokes about alcohol, rather than culturally distant aboriginal groups, even
though, in some areas at least, the aboriginal peoples may get publically and
visibly drunk more often and more completely. Nonetheless the key factor
that has led to the Irish, the Finns, the Australians and the Scots being the
butts of ethnic jokes about excessive drinking is their tendency to occasional,
but public, visible and ethnically distinctive inebriation. It is, though, necessary
to go behind the popular common-sense explanations of these events and to
enquire why they occur. The answers to this question should also help to
illuminate certain details of the jokes themselves.
It is not the size of an ethnic group's consumption of alcohol or even the
incidence of pathological drinking that leads to that group becoming the butt
of ethnic jokes about alcoholic excess, but rather public inebriation to the
point of loss of self-control. There are, for instance, relatively few ethnic
jokes about French drinking despite the existence of a severe alcohol prob-
lem in France, a society whose attitude towards alcohol has been termed "over-
permissive" (see Jellinek 1962: 386-387 and O'Connor 1977: 6-7). Problem
drinkers in France drink heavily but steadily in small quantities, sometimes
in public, sometimes at home, and suffer from "l'alcoolisme sans ivresse"
(alcoholism without drunkenness). Such people are addicts and often in poor
health but their alcoholic behaviour is not particularly visible nor such as to
give rise to jokes. The contrast between this situation and that of the Finns
who are the butts of Swedish ethnic jokes about drinkers can be seen from
Jellinek's (1962: 383) analysis of cultural differences in the meaning of
alcoholism:
In Finland, for example, alcoholic drinks are sold mainly in urban areas and
the violence displayed by Finnish workers when they come to town from some
isolated camps and have a few drinks — nothing that could be called a "drink-
ing spree" — causes such damage and is so dramatic that to the Finnish nation
this type of drinking and this form of damage constitutes alcoholism.
As Jellinek indicates the distinctive Finnish combination of drink and vio-

lence is strongly disapproved of by most Finns, and indeed the Finnish gov-
ernment has tried extremely hard to clamp down on this kind of alcoholic
excess which is seen as deviant and dangerous. The rules that surround the
purchase and consumption of alcohol in Finland are more elaborate and re-
strictive than in most other countries. It is possible that the rules about alco-
hol and even the official obsession with it make the situation worse rather
than better but that is not the point at issue. What is crucial is that there exists
in Finland an occasional but distinctively visible (the author has seen it and
so have the joke-tellers) and dramatic form of deviant behaviour that corre-
sponds closely to the Swedish comic image of the Finns as heavy and danger-
ous drinkers summed up in the phrase "knife, brandy, and sisu [courage]".
Essentially the same argument applies to ethnic jokes about Australians
which depict them as violent and rumbustious when drunk. In Australia in the
days of the "six o'clock swill" the bars in some Australian states closed at
six p.m; their customers rushed in after work to fill themselves up with grog
and shortly after were spewed back out onto the streets angry, drunk and
dissatisfied. Drunken Australian brawls are not limited to Australia itself but
occur when large parties of young male Australians meet up abroad. The kind
of behaviour that reinforces the British (and indeed American, Canadian and
New Zealand) comic image of Australians and leads to ethnic jokes may be
inferred from the extra-ordinary rules introduced by the Flight Stewards
Association of Australia on the Australian airline Qantas in the early 1980s,
impounding all duty-free liquor to prevent "in-flight violence" by drunken
Australians on their planes (Regulations dated 30th November 1980 publically
posted at Heathrow Airport, London, and other airports where Qantas
operated).
Visible public inebriation is the main reason why ethnic jokes about hard
drinking get pinned on a particular ethnic group. It is also the main subject of
the jokes, most of which involve some kind of loss of self-control — merri-
ment, anger, violence, depression or paralysis depending on how much has
been drunk and the effect it has on members of that group. The stages of
drunkenness are comically summed up by the organic chemist's mock alco-
hol sugars, jocose, morose, bellicose, lachrymose and comatose, which cor-
respond roughly to the medieval stages of the drunken "humours", lion drunk
(choleric) ape drunk (sanguine), mutton drunk (phlegmatic) and swine drunk
(melancholic) (Coghill 1960: 523). Drunken comportment is to a consider-
able extent learned behaviour and the point at which an individual loses con-
trol, and what he or sometimes she does at that point, may vary a great deal
between ethnic groups with different cultural traditions.6 Many ethnic jokes
about drinking are at the expense of some "other" group's style of inebria-
tion:
A Swede and a Finn got together to have a drinking night. All they had was
Schnapps and cucumbers. After having sat there drinking for three hours, the
Swede looked up at the Finn and said "Skol" [cheers]. Then the Finn said,
"Are we here to talk or are we here to drink?" (University of California at
Berkeley Folklore Archive Swedish file, collected by Fred Bruderlin 1965)
The one ethnic group that has been the butt of more ethnic jokes about heavy
drinking than almost any other is the Irish. In Australia, Britain and formerly
in America the Irish have also been the butts of jokes about stupidity and it
will be useful at this point to discuss the link between the two kinds of jokes
and the way they are related to ethnicity and social class. In Britain and
Australia jokes about the allegedly hard-drinking, convivial, happy-go-lucky

but quarrelsome Irish simply get added to the familiar and very common jokes
about Irish "stupidity", to give a composite comic picture of a group that is
portrayed as having defiantly rejected the restraining claims of the rational
world of work, skill, thrift and foresight. British and Australian ethnic jokes
about the Irish often show an Irishman doing something foolish while drunk,
or making some comically irrational observation about drink and drinkers.
"Ah," said the Irishman, "it's not gettin' drunk that's the trouble. It's the wak-
ing to all the horrors of sobriety." (Frost 1933: 180)
Irish immigrants Patrick and Michael were staggering home one night after a
convivial session at a Mawbanna pub. Taking a short cut across a farm, they
passed a well. Pat fell in. Mike ran to the farmhouse to get a rope. With great
difficulty he began hauling Pat up. Pat had almost reached the top when Mike
called out, "Hold tight me brave boyo, while I shpit on me hands." (Best Aus-
tralian Jokes 1971: 10)
Essentially similar ethnic jokes about drinking are told about the Irish in the
United States despite the fact that they have long been largely replaced as the
butt of ethnic jokes about stupidity by more recent groups of immigrants,
notably the Poles (see Davies 1990). American ethnic jokes about hard-drink-
ing and inebriation have remained firmly attached to the Irish-Americans and
there are very few jokes about drunken Poles. In William Clements' (1973)
extensive collection of ethnic jokes about the Poles their alleged love of beer
is categorized with their food preferences under "appetite" but there is no
section on inebriation. A rough content analysis of five modern American
ethnic joke-books supports this view.7
Table 2. Ethnic jokes about stupidity and alcohol
American ethnic jokes about the Irish about the Poles
Total 578 666

About drinking 167 (28,8%) 9 (1,4%)
About stupidity 153 (26,5%) 455 (68,3%)
The Irish lag way behind the Poles as butts of American jokes about stupidity
but are easily the leading group to be made the butt of jokes about hard drink-
ing of all kinds. The absence of American jokes about drunken Poles indi-
cates that contrary to Dundes (1971: 199) suggestion ethnic jokes about ex-
cessive drinking are not necessarily part of a general tendency to mock lower
class ethnic groups with jokes about stupidity, crassness, vulgarity, etc. In the
world of American jokes inebriation is not, or at least is no longer classed as,
a specifically lower-class comic attribute. The few American ethnic jokes
about Polish drinking that are told merely indicate a lower-class lack of re-
finement in much the same way as the corresponding jokes about food or
dress (see Dundes 1971: 200-201). Beer is a cheap, coarse, lower-class drink
that goes with cheap, coarse, lower-class food and guzzling beer is a crass,
coarse lower-class habit. It is now one ascribed to the Poles but in the late
nineteenth and earlier part of the twentieth century Americans told very simi-
lar jokes about Germans.
"Do you consider lager beer intoxicating?"

"Veil ash for dat, I gant say. I trink feefty to sixty classes a tay end it tosh not
hurt me, but I don't know how it would be if a man vash to make a hog of
hisself!" (Thousand Witty Sayings [n.d.]: 169)
What is a Polish cocktail?
A mushroom in a glass of beer. (Clements 1973: 13)
What is a Pole vault?

A refrigerator full of beer. (Clements 1973: 14)
The idea for self-opening beer-cans was suggested by watching Polacks tear
the tops off theirs. (Clements 1973:14)
The evidence from the American Polish jokes suggests that the relationship
between stupidity and inebriation in British and Australian ethnic jokes about
the Irish or in Swedish jokes about the Finns may be a largely contingent one,
despite the implicit link between the two themes suggested earlier. The same
peoples happen in these cases both to occupy a social position that leads to
jokes about stupidity and are visibly hard drinkers. As a result of upward
mobility and assimilation the Irish-Americans have largely vacated the class-
based comic position that had led to their being the butts of jokes about stu-
pidity, but this change in their social standing did not affect their position as
the main butts of American jokes about inebriation. The reasons for this seem
to be two-fold. First, some of the links between hard-drinking with public

inebriation on the one hand and ethnicity on the other are independent of
social class. For a long time the Irish-Americans did not fully discard their
traditional pattern of heavy drinking despite their changing position in the
American class-system (see Greeley 1980: 241; Sowell 1981: 42). Indeed,
initially the particular route upwards taken by the Irish-American, may have
tended to preserve existing patterns of hard-drinking (see Stivers 1976: 118-
225), while altering the general style of their occasional inebriation in ways
that made it more acceptable to other Americans, even though it still remained
a subject for ethnic jokes. Secondly the Irish-Americans are said by Stivers
(1976: 169-173) to have seen visible hard-drinking as a means of preserving
and projecting a distinctive national identity in the face of pressures to as-
similate. I am doubtful whether this could have been a significant reason for
the Irish-Americans markedly slow shift towards general American norms of
drinking, but it could well mean that the Irish in America were less concerned
to conceal inebriation and its effects and, when it did occur, more likely to
make it an occasion for proclamations of ethnic identity.
There is abundant evidence to show that Irish-Americans displayed a much
higher incidence of pathological drinking than other American ethnic groups
well into the mid-twentieth century, long after mass immigration from Ire-
land had ceased and upward mobility and social acceptance were assured.
American observers noted that Irish Americans had the highest rates for any
ethnic group of rejection from the armed forces for chronic alcoholism, of
admission to hospital for alcoholic psychosis and other alcoholic disorders
and of rates of arrest and conviction for inebriety (see Glad 1947: 407-409).
The last of these is the visible manifestation of hard-drinking most likely to
be seen by others and the existence of the other data indicates that these rates
of arrest and conviction were not merely a product of selective reporting and
recording. Even when allowance was made for differences in the socio-eco-
nomic position and living standards of the various ethnic groups, the Irish-
Americans still came out way ahead of the Blacks, Italians, Scandinavians,
English, Germans, and Jews on most of these indices (see Glad 1947: 408
and Wechsler et.al. 1973: 274-275, 282). Hard drinking then was an ethnic
and not just a class trait and as such it proved resistant to the changing median
class position of the Irish-Americans. Indeed their predominance among hard-
drinkers was so marked that it was regarded as a sociological problem calling
for an explanation (see Pittman and Snyder 1962: 154-156). The behaviour of
the Irish settled in England and Wales and of their children born in those
countries proved very similar to the pattern observed in America (see
Littlewood and Lipsedge 1982: 8 and 94; O'Connor 1977: 151 -155 and Wilson
1980:14-17). Problems with drinking can, of course, remain hidden, a source
of private tragedy not public celebration, but in the particular case of the Irish
and especially where there are large Irish communities, there has often been
visible and noisy ethnic public inebriation on a scale which is commented on
by their neighbours. By contrast the Poles in America seem to have been
much less likely to strike their fellow citizens as hard drinkers (see Stivers
1976: 12) despite their reputation for drunkenness in their own country and in
France ("Ivre comme un Polonais").
The roots of Irish hard drinking in America and Britain can be seen in
attitudes to alcohol in Ireland itself and in the ways these changed on the
arrival of Irish emigrants in their new countries. Prior to the nineteenth cen-
tury hard-drinking seems to have been common in much of northern Europe
including Britain and Ireland, but Bartley (1954: 195) says of the period 1760-
1800 that "even in that hard-drinking age there can be no doubt that the Irish-
man went beyond his neighbours in exceeding the limits of sobriety".
This fact was reflected in the comic portrayal of the Irish on stage where
the "Irish addiction to strong drink ... (was) an outstanding characteristic"
(Bartley 1954: 195). During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sev-
eral social changes occurred which made the gap between British and Irish
drinking patterns even greater. In Britain, as in America, industrialization and
the rationalisation of work on the one hand and the temperance movements
associated with the Protestant churches on the other, gradually reduced the
amount of hard-drinking and public drunkenness (see O'Connor 1977:56-63).
Most of Ireland remained rural and the Roman Catholic church's attitude to
temperance was itself divided and ambivalent (Stivers 1976: 95-96). The
strength and impact of the temperance movement among Irish Catholics both
at home and in the Irish diaspora (Dunne 1981; Ford 1959; Hayler 1911:
48-61) tends to be almost unknown to outsiders, and even among the Irish
themselves it is commonly thought that the temperance movement is essen-
tially Protestant in nature (Ford 1959: 9; Hayler 1911: 48), probably because
of the much more visible and vociferous endorsement of temperance by Prot-
estant organizations bent on a crusade to save the whole world from alcohol.
Similarly the Irish tend to be seen as permissive and enthusiastic drinkers
when in fact they merely exhibit an exaggerated version of the same ambiva-
lence that characterizes the joke-tellers' own societies (O'Connor 1977; Stivers
1976, 97; Wilson 1980: 14-17). Restraint is much less visible than excess
unless it is very aggressive restraint. The Irish Roman Catholic priest is in
general much more tolerant and permissive towards alcohol (see Bales 1962:
163-166) than the Protestant minister and is able to drink alcohol in public
situations, whereas his Protestant counterparts, even if they are not teetotalers,
are likely to feel inhibited from doing so and also may inhibit others from
drinking by their very presence. The Anglican/Episcopalian clergyman occu-
pies an intermediate position in theology, attitudes to alcohol and popular
humour. The Irish priest does occasionally appear in ethnic jokes about drinking
as a censorious figure admonishing a drunkard, but much less often than Prot-
estant ministers. The Protestant minister sometimes appears in ethnic jokes
about drinking as a secret drinker whose secret is known or is suddently re-
vealed, but the Irish priest is usually portrayed as the bibulous, convivial rep-
resentative of an organization that is tolerant towards alcohol:
O'Hanlihan travelled up and down a train putting his head in every compart-
ment and asking for a priest. He appeared quite upset and when he came back
for a second time, a Methodist minister said: "We are all brothers in the Lord.
Although I am a Methodist Minister, if you will take me to your friend who is
ill or distressed, I will comfort him as well I may."
"It's meself that's after being distressed," said the Irishman.
"What can I do for you, brother?"
"Nothing. I gotta have a priest. I need a bottle-opener." (Wilde 1976: 40; also
in Newman 1966: 13; for the 18th century version about Anglican parsons see
Howe 1892b: 132; Lewis 1979: 38-39)
Pat's Dream
Faith it's myself had a quare dhrame now. I dreamt I was in Rome and that I
called upon his riverence the Pope. I had hardly knocked at the door when his
Holiness himself opened it.
"Ah Pat," says he, "it is you that are come to see me?"
"Faith, your honour and its nobody else." "Come upstairs with me," he cried.
And sure there was the hondsomest room as ever you capped eyes on. "Be
sated now," said his riverence "and what will you be taking?" I was bothered
for the moment, but I just said, "A drop o' the cratur;" when he turns to me and
says, "Shall it be hot or cowld?" "Hot" says I and away went his Holiness to
fetch the hot water and before he came back I awoke. Arrah what a fool I was,
I didn't have it cold. (Cole 1887: 217; also in Wilde 1977: 62)
The mildness and ineffectiveness of clerical disapproval permitted traditional

Irish drinking patterns to persist but the factors that led to their strengthening
and institutionalization in the nineteenth century were economic and demo-
graphic. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Irish peasantry had
been able to marry at a young age, because they had discovered that it was
possible to support a family from the produce of a very small patch of ground
if it was sown exclusively with potatoes. With the encouragement of their
landlords, many of whom were absentees and interested only in their rents,
they married young and divided and sub-divided their tiny farms. The popu-
lation in consequence grew very rapidly (Stivers 1976: 52). Those Irish farm-
ers who saw the dangers implicit in this situation or wished for a higher standard
of living, sought instead to leave their farms to one son only and to enlarge
their holdings. This practice became much more frequent as a result of the
shock effect of the famines of the 1840s when the potato crop failed alto-
gether. From this time onwards the Irish came to see their only hope of attain-
ing a reasonable and secure standard of living as dependent on the consolida-
tion of land holdings into larger units which could not be sub-divided under
any circumstances (Stivers 1976: 52-54). Only one son was allowed to in-
herit the farm on his father's death or retirement and he was not permitted to
marry until he had come into his inheritance. The other sons had either to
remain unmarried or to emigrate. These measures brought about a remark-
able rise in the age of marriage in Ireland and a large proportion of the popu-
lation never married at all ( Stivers 1976: 57). The stern sexual puritanism of
the Irish Roman Catholic Church saw to it that there was very little pre-mari-
tal sexual intercourse or illegitimacy and the Irish birth-rate became, for a
time at least, one of the lowest in Europe despite the absence of contraception
and abortion.
The result of these events was to create in Ireland a large bachelor sub-
culture of unmarried men in their twenties and thirties and even forties and
fifties, some waiting to inherit the farm so that they could marry, some know-
ing that they would never marry at all (Stivers 1976: 77-79). They were free
of the chief restraints that prevent most men from giving themselves up to
regular alcoholic adventures. They had no family responsibilities and little
opportunity or desire for economic betterment. Family life was impossible,
illicit sex was forbidden and the main form of recreation available was a
night out carousing with the lads. In many societies there is a tension between
the demands of family life and those of various all-male groups of friends and
comrades, and members of clubs and gangs from which women are excluded.
However, in Ireland the demographic situation vastly strengthened the posi-
tion of the all-male drinking group vis-a-vis the family. Even after they had
married, men (who, after all, had served a very long apprenticeship in the
bachelor drinking group) would continue to go out drinking with the boys
(Stivers 1976: 77-78), a fact which created tensions within the Irish family.
The love of hard-drinking was continually reinforced by tales that glorified

the irresponsible freedom and adventure loving, happy-go-lucky attitude of
the bachelor culture (Stivers 1976: 88). When Irish men emigrated to Britain
or America the disruptive effect of migration on existing ties would have
further eroded the restraining influence of marriage and family (Stivers 1976:
104). Such a situation is likely to produce not only hard drinking but the
boisterous, reckless and convivial style of inebriation of men who have, for
the time being at least, avoided the shackles of marriage and family:
Mclnnery celebrated the New Year's Eve so well he woke up the next day in
hospital. His friend Sharley came to visit him.
"What happened last night?" asked Mclnnery.
"You had quite a load on," answered Sharley. "You walked over to the win-
dow and climbed out on the sill and announced you were going to fly all over
the borough of Manhatten."
"My God man,"shouted Mclnnery "why didn't you stop me?"
"Tell you the truth," replied Sharley, "last night, I really thought you could do
it." (Wilde 1974: 60-61)
A further economic factor that reinforced the sexual isolation of the male
Irish emigrant was the irregular work on distant and transient construction
sites that unskilled Irish immigrants were forced to take on in both Britain
and America. Unmarried men in large groups doing tough jobs in remote
places where there are few women, whether in the Finnish lumber camps, the
Australian outback or as Irish labourers building canals, railroads and high-
ways, in Britain or America tend to be hard-drinkers. 8 When paid off at the
end of a job, they tend to head for the cities and to go on a drunken spree like
sailors on shore leave.
Ethnic jokes about the Irish portray the all male drinking group, and in-
deed alcohol itself, as having a strong hold on the Irish drinker. It is not a
mere casual assembly of leisure companions but a group commanding its
members loyally and strongly influencing their behaviour.
Fogarty began to drop in at Barney's bar regularly and his order was always
the same — two martinis. After several weeks of this, Barney asked him why
he didn't order a double instead.
"Its a sentimental thing," said Fogarty, "a very dear friend of mine died a few
weeks ago and before his death he asked that when I drink I have one for him
too."
A week later Fogarty came in and ordered one martini.

"What about your dead buddy? Why only one martini today?"
"This is my buddy's drink," came the reply. "I'm on the wagon."
(Wilde 1979: 56)
Naturally problems arise if a man from this kind of bachelor sub-culture mar-
ries and tries to go on living the same kind of life. The wife is likely to resent
the calls on her husband's time, money and loyalty made by the drinking
groups to which he continues to belong. The clash between the demands and
responsibilities of family life and the comradeship, conviviality and wild ex-
ploits of the husband's male drinking cronies is a favourite theme of jokes in
many cultures, another facet of the basic clash between duty and pleasure.
Conflicts between inebriated husbands and nagging wives are also a univer-
sal source of jokes. It is hardly surprising, given the intense contradictory
pulls of bachelor drinking and family duty that clashes between husband and
wife over drink should figure so strongly in ethnic jokes about the Irish:
"Did you hear the news?" asked Reardon of his pal at the saloon.
"Harrigan drank so much, his wife left him!"
"Waiter! Give me six boiler-makers!" (Wilde 1979: 56)
"Have a drink, quick, before me wife comes in, Cassidy!" said Casey.
"What would she do if she caught ye?" enquired Cassidy.
"Break every bone in me body!" explained Casey, adding "eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty, Cassidy!" (Harvey 1904: 176)
Mrs. Murphy was spring-cleaning when a lady called and said: "Mrs. Murphy
will you give me something for the Home for Inebriates."
"Come back this evening", said Mrs. Murphy. "Ye can have Murphy."
(Ferguson 1933: 179)
A particularly good example of this genre of jokes (it also exists as an ethnic
joke about other peoples perceived as hard drinkers) was told to Sarah Bur-
gess (University of California at Berkeley Folklore Archive, Irish file 1979)
in San Francisco by an Irish-American retired railroad executive, who put on
a brogue "for the duration of the joke".
Paddy was walking home from a bar very late one night, more than a little
tipsy. So, he loses his way home, and goes off on a detour through the grave-
yard. As he staggers through the graveyard, he falls into an open grave, and as
he's climbing out, he looks up and sees that the gravestone has his name on it.
Even through his drunken stupor, he's absolutely horrified.
He hears a voice that says, "Paddy, it's time for you to come with me, Paddy,
it's time for you to come with me... Paddy, it's time for you to come with me."
So, Paddy looks up and sees a man with a mustache and a pitchfork in his
hand, and says, "What do you mean? I'm not coming with you, I'm going
home as fast as me legs can take me." But the man repeats, "Paddy you're
coming with me."
Paddy says, "You're mad, I'm not going anywhere with you."
The man says, "Don't you know who I am — I'm the divil!"
And Paddy holds out his hand and says "Oh me god, it's nice to meet you. I've
been married to your sister for 40 years."
T h e Irish-American raconteur's c o m m e n t on his own j o k e is an interesting

one, f o r he added that he believed the j o k e portrays "the typical Irishman who
is always drunk, locked in an unhappy marriage to which he is true due to his
religion." The way he has fitted these different elements together is signifi-
cant, regardless of the overall accuracy (or lack of it) of his description.
All-male drinking groups exist in many societies and there is often tension
between these exclusively masculine groups and the network of family and
kinship to which their members and their members' womenfolk also belong.
T h e balance of influence between these two institutions will differ f r o m soci-
ety to society depending on the relative power of each. W h e r e family and
kinship are the predominant force in m e n ' s lives, as is the case in Italian or
Jewish communities, then men tend to drink moderately, with their meals and
often at home (Glatt 1973:267; Lolli 1963:191-193; Lucia 1963:306,313-314,
320-326). W h e r e historically men and women have been segregated f r o m
each other for long periods of time, either due to delayed marriage as in Ire-
land or due to differential migration as in Australia (Conway 1974: 29), or
due to occupational and geographic isolation, then powerful all-male groups
tend to develop whose central values are "male solidarity and equality" and
the "superiority of men over w o m e n " . The drinking of alcohol together by
the group, often to excess, is the way in which these values are reinforced.
M e n of all strata symbolise their equality and solidarity by drinking together
and by standing drinks for one another on a mutual basis (Oxley 1977: 79 and
Sargent 1979: 24-31). In this way ties are built u p between the members of
the group which c o m e s to form a cohesive though shallow brotherhood. T h e
strength of these groups is shown by the way they have persisted and have
continued to exclude women even after the initial demographic reason for
their existence is long past (Conway 1974: 32, 141). They began as a substi-
tute for the family and remain as a rival to it. As a characteristic ethnic joke
about Australians puts it:
An Aussie loves his beer, his mates and his wife — and in that order.
(British 1970s; see also O'Grady 1965: 97)
In both Ireland and Australia there are many jokes of this kind which stress
the superiority of alcohol to women and which make a man's ability to drink
and to brawl more important criteria of masculinity than his appeal to or suc-
cess with women.
An Irishman has been defined as somebody who would trample over twelve
naked women to reach a bottle of Guinness. (MacHale 1977b: 5)
Definition of an Irish queer — a fellow who prefers women to drink.

(MacHale 1977b: 7)
In the Wild West they like their womenfolk weak and their liquor strong. In
the frozen North they like their women strong and their drink heated up. In
New Brunswick they like their liquor straight and their women wavy. In Aus-
tralia they like their women only when they've got to the state when they can't
see any more liquor. (Cagney 1979c: 25)
A bluff Australian tradesman walked in unexpectedly and found his regular

girl friend on the couch with an Italian cook from the short-order cafe along
the street. There was a heated argument and the Italian said "Angela, she no
longer like-a you. She my girl now. She like lover with Latin blood in his
veins. I got-a Latin blood in-a my veins."
The Aussie said, "Not for long you ain't, Casanova. I'm gonna spill most of it
on the floor." (Cagney 1979c: 80)
Gaffney staggered into a bar crying.

"What happened?" asked Brady the bartender.
"I did a horrible thing," sniffed the drunk. "Just a few hours ago I sold my
wife to someone for a bottle of scotch."
"That is awful" said Brady. "Now she's gone and you want her back, right?"
"Right," said Gaffney still crying.
"You're sorry you sold her because you realized too late that you love her,
right?"
"Oh no", said the Irishman, "I want her back because I'm thirsty again."
(Wilde 1978: 110)
Ireland: As the laureate of the drinkers said, each man kills the thing he loves
— and with that, he opened another fifth of Irish whiskey. (Adams 1975:143)
A wayward son of the Emerald Isle left his bed and board which he and Margaret
his wife had occupied for a long while, and spent his time around rum shops
where he was always on hand to count himself "in", whenever anybody should
"stand treat".
Margaret was dissatisfied with this state of things and endeavoured to get her
husband home again. We shall see how she succeeded:
"Now Patrick, me honey, will ye come back?"
"No Margaret, I won't come back."
"An' won't ye come back for the love of the children?"
"Not for the love of the children, Margaret."
"Will ye come for the love of meself."
"Niver at all. Way wid ye!"
"An' Patrick, won't the love of the church bring ye back."
"The church to the divil and then I won't come back."
Margaret thought she would try one other inducement. Taking a pint bottle of
whiskey from her pocket and holding up to her truant husband, she said, "Will
ye come for the drap o'whiskey?"
"Ah, me darling", answered Pat, unable to withstand such a temptation, "it's
yerself that will always bring me home again — ye has sich a winning way
wid ye!"
Margaret declares that Patrick was "reclaimed" by moral suasion!
(Merry [n.d.]: 124)
According to Stivers (1976: 170-180), as the Irish in America became more

successful and assimilated the negative image of them as violent drunks
changed to a more positive comic portrait of the Irishman as a happy drunk.
He relates this shift to changing American attitudes towards their citizens of
Irish origin and ancestry as they came to appear less alien and threatening,
particularly with the arrival of new and unfamiliar immigrants from Southern
and Eastern Europe. He also advances the argument that the later, more gen-
ial image of Irish drinking, precisely because it was so acceptable to Irish-
Americans as a positive badge of identity, led to the perpetuation of their
problems with alcohol:
As a sacrament in the religion of Irish-American nationalism it (hard-drink-

ing) differentiated the Irish from other ethnic groups. It became a spiritual
value symbolizing Irish group identity. It implied that the more one drank the
more Irish one became. (Stivers 1976: 180)
Stivers has illustrated his thesis with a vivid analysis of the celebration of
Saint Patrick's Day in America:
... everyone wearing something green, maudlin Irish-American songs on the

radio and green beer. In America Saint Patrick's Day also became a celebra-
tion of drinking... What Saint Patrick's Day signifies is the mutual acceptance
of the Irish caricature, the stage/professional Irishman by the Irish and other
Americans. This day is symbolic of the bond of acceptance: "Everyone's got
a little Irish in them, I'll drink to that." But while most Irish-Americans play
out their stage/professional Irish drinking role only on Saint Patrick's Day,
some manage to live out this caricature permanently as happy drunks. (Stivers
1976: 170)
It is doubtful whether Stivers' model does in fact help to explain the persist-
ence of hard-drinking within the Irish-American community long after the
traumatic experience of the initial generations (Greeley 1980: 241; Sowell
1981). Indeed, there will soon be very little left to explain, for Irish drinking
patterns like those of the descendants of other immigrants in America will
have moved towards that unstable average that passes for a norm. However,
this thesis does help to explain the persistence ofjokes about Irish inebriation
in America and the pleasure Irish-Americans take in telling them. What now
keeps the jokes alive is not so much the reality or the extent of Irish-Ameri-
can drinking but its extraordinary visibility, for even in a world where all
groups shared essentially the same drinking patterns, but only one of them
combined drinking in public with a proclamation of ethnicity, then that group
would be the one to feature in ethnic jokes about alcohol.
In 19871 went to Savannah for the Saint Patrick's Day celebrations which
are one of the largest in America, even though Georgia was not historically
one of the main centres for Irish-American immigrants. At several large pri-
vate and semi-public parties I attended, given by and for hospitable Irish-
Americans, there was no excessive drinking or rowdiness but outside the streets
milled with noisy disgusting and puking drunks, most of whom could have
had no connection with Ireland at all. Nonetheless they wore green hair (see
also Linkletter 1967: 92), caps, tee-shirts, and badges proclaiming their tem-
porary affiliation with Irish drunkenness — "I'm Irish, buy me a drink", "Three
beers for the Irish", "Irish whiskey makes me friskey", "Fuck me I'm Irish". 9
It was not the Irish who were drunk, it was the drunks who were "Irish", but
their behaviour helped to keep an old ethnic joke alive and well just as effec-
tively as if they had been genuine Hibernians. The jokes are equally kept
alive on an everyday basis by businesses that seek to exploit the memory and
myth of Irish drinking and conviviality such as the saloons festooned with
painted shamrocks called Paddy's Bar or The Angry Irishman. Even if Stivers
is right in saying that Irish-Americans have accepted the comic image of Irish
drinking as part of their own identity, it does not follow that they need to act
out the jokes about themselves in order to assert their identity; it is quite
enough to tell them. The members of most ethnic groups are quite capable of
using jokes, without being trapped by them. Mr. Dooley saw the point long
ago:
In me day I never knew a great statesman that dhrank, or if he did he niver

landed anny job betther thin clerk in th' weather office. But as Hogan says
Shakespere says, they pretended a vice if they had it not ... His [the Irish-
American politician's] aim was to create an impressyon that he was a gay
fellow, a jovyal toss pot, that thought nawthin iv putting a gallon i ν paint into
him durin' an avenin's intertainment. They had to exercise diplomacy, d'ye
mind, to keep their repytations goin'. Whin Higgins was runnin' f'r sheriff he
always ordhered gin an' I always give him wather. Ye undherstand don't ye?
Ye know what gin looks like? Well wather looks like gin. (Dunne 1942: 114)
Everyone's got a bit of politician in them. I'll appear to drink to that.

If we examine the jokes about the drinking patterns of the two groups
most commonly the subjects of "canny" jokes, namely the Scots and the Jews,
we find a marked contrast between the two groups. There are very few jokes
about Jewish drinking habits and an enormous number about those of the
Scots. Both the absence of jokes about Jews and the peculiar flavour of jokes
about Scottish drinking require an explanation.
In the case of the Jews there is very little to tell jokes about. The Jews are
in general moderate drinkers who have built alcohol into their way of life in a
careful and controlled fashion such that there are definite social rules about
when, where and how much alcohol is consumed. Attitudes "to the use of
alcohol tend to be favourable, but there are strong and consistent sanctions
against intoxication or drunkenness or other forms of deviant drinking"
(O'Connor 1977: 6.) Traditional Jews have long had a stable and uncontro-
versial set of basic rules about drinking which exclude both drunkenness and
militant teetotalism, i.e. both of the extremes that stem from the ambivalence
about alcohol of the wider society (Glad 1947: 265-269). Traditional Jewish
drinking patterns are thus genuinely close to the "golden mean" appropriate
to modern industrial societies (Glad 1947: 408-410). Moderation is not the
stuff of which ethnic jokes are made and there are very few jokes about drunken
Jews (Spalding 1976: 180-181), and practically none about Jews who are
anti-alcohol. It is the Australians not the Jews who are renowned for getting
shikker. For outsiders there is nothing visible or remarkable on which to base
ethnic jokes and within the Jewish tradition, unlike those of the ambivalent
societies, inebriation is unacceptable rather than comic, though it has been
reported that Jews have a particular liking for "ethnic" jokes about non-Jews
being the worse for drink (Wolff et.al. 1934: 357).
The few jokes about drunken Jews that exist are rather forced and artifi-
cial and fall into Raskin's (1985: 205-209) category of pseudo-ethnic jokes.
There is no Jewish style of being drunk as there is for, say, the Finns, the Irish
or the Australians. The increasing numbers of individual Jews who adopt the
mores of the wider society and occasionally get drunk (Glatt 1973:268; Rosten
1983: 283-284) have no Jewish model of drunken comportment to follow —
they can only become shikker as a goy. Most Jewish jokes and comic refer-
ences to drink refer to inebriated gentiles and particularly those whose vio-
lent and even anti-Semitic tendencies are inflamed by alcohol, as in the song
"Shikker iz a Goy [because he is a Goy!]" 10 . The Chinese in America, another
group with rules of moderate drinking, also see drink problems as something
only outsiders have, as in their mocking saying: "Caucasians drink because
they can't cook" (University of California at Berkeley Folklore Archive. Chi-
nese-American file. Collected by Karen Wong 1960s).
Just as there are few jokes about the drinking habits of ethnic groups who
are the butt of jokes about stupidity, but who happen to be relatively moderate
drinkers, so too there are few jokes about the "canny" sobriety of the Jews.
There is some slight evidence that anti-Semites add sobriety to the list of
negative traits that they ascribe to the Jews (Snyder 1962: 211), presumably
because they see it as one more means by which the Jews can take advantage
of others and one more proof of their belief that the Jews remain apart and
aloof in order to gain power over others. Anti-Semites have long since shown
that they are capable of turning the most innocent and even laudable forms of
behaviour into yet more evidence of the Jewish "threat". A few jokes about
canny Jewish sobriety do occur in societies where such beliefs are or have
been widespread, but these jokes are in general part of that aspect of the "canny"
ethnic script which the Jews share with hard drinking groups such as the
Scots who are not the victims of this kind of hostile ideology:
A rabbi and an Irish Roman Catholic priest out driving ran into each other.
The rabbi climbed out of the wreckage of his car and helped the shaken priest
to the side of the road.

"You must have had a nasty shock", he said, offering a flask of brandy to the
priest. The Irishman gratefully took a large swig and paused for breath. "Go
on, have another", said the rabbi.
"But what about you", said the priest. "Don't you want a drink?"
"No", replied the rabbi, "not until after the police have been."
(British 1970s; see also Kilgariff 1974: 54; for the same joke with the Scots
replacing the Jews see Thomas [n.d.]: 11)
American jokes contrasting Jewish moderation and Irish conviviality can be

linked to a suggestion made by Glad (1947: 458-459) about the relationship
between differences in basic Irish and Jewish values and their markedly dif-
ferent rates of inebriation:
... the Irish ideal boy is more happy-go-lucky than the Jewish ideal boy who is
serious-minded. These suggest that general values in the Irish group conform
to the "drinking values". The same may be said of the Jewish group. It seems
possible that the attitudes towards drinking upon which emphasis is placed in
this study are merely auxiliary attitudes linked to more central values in the
cultures considered; that is the affectivity purposes of drinking among the
Irish may be an expression of a general cultural valuation of proximate goals,
such as friendliness, sociability, good-naturedness as more important than more
ultimate goals of understanding, recognition and achievement.
If Glad's view of the contrast between the Milesian and the Smilesian virtues
is correct, it would account for differences in the patterns of drinking and in
the routes of upward mobility taken by the two groups and the ethnic jokes
that stem from this. The initial success of the Irish in America was in politics
where the Irish personal qualities and virtues listed above are at a premium,
rather than in entrepreneurship or scholarship which require the pursuit of
"more ultimate goals". Acccording to Glad (1947:448-449,461 ) the purposes
of drinking for Irish-Americans (at least in the late 1940s) were excitement
and conviviality, both of which are visible and feature strongly in ethnic jokes
about them. Conviviality and excitement also tend to lead to drinking in ex-
cess, since they are relatively boundless qualities. How much excitement and
conviviality is enough? These qualities, known in Ireland as "crack", are a
source of enjoyment, which may account for the gradual growth of an essen-
tially benign humorous image of Irish-American drinking postulated by Stivers.
However, they are qualities incompatible with a canny calculating outlook
and this may help to account for the persistence and popularity in America of
jokes about the alleged irrationality of the Irish long after they had become
visibly successful through politics. Only the subsequent success of the Irish-
Americans in other fields has undermined the social bases of these jokes and
it would be interesting to know the extent to which this second stage of Irish-
American upward mobility has been accompanied by changes in both their
"general" and their "drinking" values. By contrast, Jewish drinking has been
described as instrumental, as a means to the attainment of goals remote from
the effects of alcohol per se. Such a view of alcohol is likely to lead to mod-
eration and self-control and indicates a cultural emphasis on the "canny" vir-
tues so vital to entrepreneurial success.
The case of the Scots is a particularly interesting one because they are the
subject of ethnic jokes both about canniness and about hard-drinking and
drunkenness, both about sober, hard-headed self-control and about drunken
loss of self-control. There is a contradiction between these opposed comic
images but it is one rooted in a real contradiction within Scottish culture and
indeed the jokes dwell on this contradiction and its various manifestations. In
contrast to the moderation of the Jews, the Scots have a culture which is
exceedingly ambivalent about alcohol and the result is a combination of ex-
cess in both directions, with gross and visible public drunkenness on the one
hand and strident denunciations of the evils of drink on the other. Jokes about
the Scots refer both to over-enthusiastic whisky drinkers and to hard-faced
Calvinist teetotalers, particularly clergymen who see drink as an invention of
the devil. Some of the most characteristic ethnic jokes about the Scots in-
volve confrontations between members of these two opposed, yet equally
Scottish, groups, while yet other jokes refer to Scots who have a foot in both
camps and who have become secret drinkers, hypocritical drinkers or peri-
odically lapsed teetotalers. Similar divisions existed among the Welsh who
were traditionally divided between "chapel people" and "tavern people", and
yet who also included a number of chapel-goers known secretly to enter the
pub (saloon) by the back-door if they became afflicted by a thirst after right-
eousness. All of these groups figure in jokes about Welsh drinking and there
are similar jokes about New England Yankees.
The Scots have a long tradition of heavy drinking and historical accounts
of Scottish life depict people of all classes regularly and routinely drinking to
excess. The triumph of a particularly severe form of Calvinism at the time of
the Reformation, though it made the Scots a remarkably sober people in many
other respects, does not seem to have moderated their weakness for dram
drinking even among the clergy, nor their willingness literally to drink one
another under the table." Only in the nineteenth century did industrialization
and Victorian respectability produce a move towards temperance and absti-

nence (Geikie 1904: 317-318). Many of the advocates of temperance, whose
cast of mind was anyway shaped by a dour and relentless Calvinism, felt that
the only way to defeat the squalor produced by the continuation of the tradi-
tional pattern of hard-drinking in the new urban industrial Scotland was to
impose an unyielding narrow teetotalism on themselves and everyone else.
They had a fair degree of success in some sections of the middle-classes and
the respectable working class, but other Scots remained hard-drinkers and
were frequently, publicly and visibly drunk. Those Scots who had been brought
up in teetotal families also had problems with alcohol, for drink remained a
strong temptation in an ambivalent culture and they had never learned how to
drink or any rules about drinking other than total abstinence. For people brought
up in a teetotal sub-culture, whether Scots, Welsh, Ulster, or Mormon, the
initial drink really can be the first step down the road to alcoholic self-de-
struction.
Many ethnic jokes about Scottish drinking emanate from Scotland itself,
and they are both a means of exploring a distinctively Scottish problem and a
way of asserting Scottish identity, but outsiders consume Scotch jokes as
eagerly as Scotch whisky. In this respect Scottish jokes about drinking are
like those enjoyed by Irish-Americans, though it would be interesting to know
whether insiders and outsiders differ in their mode of appreciation of such
humour and if so how much. In the case of the Scots it is quite clear that the
jokes about drinking are the result of observed behaviour and are but an inci-
dental means of proclaiming a national identity.
The drinking patterns of the Scots are also visible to others, a fact which
renders ethnic jokes about them plausible and comprehensible. As Kessel and
Walton (1960: 54-55) have noted: "gross public drunkenness, people lying
paralytic in the streets, is now a rare sight in England, although it can still be
seen in parts of Scotland." Visitors to Scotland are naturally taken aback by
the visibly greater incidence of public drunkenness there and the curious way
in which it co-exists with strong moral disapproval of drinking. Also when
Scots emigrate they take their drinking patterns with them. Excessive drink-
ing among the Scots has not excited quite as much comment or interest as that
of the Irish-Americans, but studies of alcohol problems among the Scots liv-
ing both in Scotland and outside show that they provide a quite dispropor-
tionate number of problem drinkers. 12 In the past, the Scottish commemora-
tions of Rabbie Burns when "Freedom and whisky gang togither", and cel-
ebrations of St. Andrew's Day (St. Andrew the disciple who discovered the
wee lad with the loaves and the fishes is the patron saint of Scotland) and
Hogmanay (New Year), abroad as well as at home, were often occasions when
high ethnic visibility was combined with hard-drinking and drunkenness. This
made Scottish dram drinkers the butt of foreign "jokists" as early and as far
afield as Calcutta in 1881 (Robert Ford 1901: 158-161).
The people most aware of Scottish drunkenness have long been their neigh-
bours the English, who see not only the distinctive celebrations of Scottish
immigrants and their descendants but also the wild and visible behaviour that
accompanies sports contests between the two countries and particularly foot-
ball matches. Hooliganism has become a general problem at English football
grounds, but the Scottish fans tend to get drunk as well. The author once tried
to drive through London on the day of the football match between Scotland
and England, when the entire city seemed to be clogged with reeling, turbu-
lent, tartan-scarved, bonnet-wearing drunken Scottish fans. The press and tel-
evision used to give a lot of coverage to the antics of these Scottish crowds,
not because they were biased against the Scots nor because anything impor-
tant happened, but because their visits were a visible spectacle, a four-day
orgy leaving its trail of havoc from Glasgow Central Station to Wembley
Stadium. One consequence of this formerly biennial Scottish invasion of Lon-
don was that a number of Scottish football fans were tried for minor offences
committed while drunk. The English press naturally tended to report those
ethnic incidents which were most likely to amuse their readers, such as the
case of a Scotsman in a kilt prosecuted for indecent exposure while drunk.
Scottish hard-drinking at football matches itself became a subject for ethnic
jokes:
At a football match in Scotland, members of the crowd began hurling empty

beer cans onto the pitch. Every time a can whizzed overhead a man near the
front ducked. "Don't worry," said his neighbour," it'll only hit you if it's got
your name on it".
"That's just it", replied the fearful one — "My name's McEwan [McEwan is
the name of a popular brand of canned beer in Scotland]." (British 1970s; see
also Hodes 1978: 5)
The people of England and Wales also know that the Scots can impose tough
prohibitions on the use of alcohol including a ban on drinking at sporting
events, and coach-loads of English and Welsh supporters have been stopped
by the Scottish police on their way to sports fixtures in Scotland and their
supplies of alcohol confiscated. Visitors to Scotland soon become aware of
the existence of local legal restrictions on drinking and of the moral disapproval
that underlies them as well as of the high rate of drunkenness. The tension in
Scotland between inebriation and teetotalism is a visible one and every so
often there are widely reported angry altercations between Scots who hold
divergent views on the alcohol problems. The only prohibitionist party can-
didate ever to be elected to the British parliament had a Scottish constituency;
Mr. Scrymgeour defeated Winston Churchill, the previous holder of the seat.
Thus the inhabitants of other societies that are ambivalent about alcohol have
come to use the even greater ambivalence of the Scots as the basis of ethnic
jokes about exaggerated versions of their own failings. Many of the jokes
come from Scotland itself, but there is a ready market for them not only in
lands with Scottish settlers and their descendants but even in countries with
little direct experience of Scotland and the Scots.13
Out of the tension between Scottish hard-drinking and teetotalism, be-
tween wild conviviality and Calvinist attempts to dedicate life exclusively to
serious things, four types of ethnic joke about the Scots and alcohol have
emerged. The first of these consists of jokes about enthusiastic dram drinkers,
that have much in common with those widely told about the Irish:
A Scot with a bottle of whisky in his pocket was in a railway collision in New
York. As he crawled from the wrecked compartment, he felt something wet on
his trousers and exclaimed: "My God! I hope it's blood." (Ferguson 1933: 42;
also in Hodes 1978:41)
As the night advanced, one after another slipped in below the table until there
was only one left. "Bob I'm slippin' !" Voice from below: "Weel, Jock if yer
slippin', bring the bottle wi' ye!" (Ferguson 1933: 42)
There are also distinctive categories of ethnic jokes about the Scots that re-
flect the Scots' attempts to add sobriety to the "work" virtues of rationality,
thrift, diligence and perseverance. These jokes refer to:
a) the conflict between the teetotal and the convivial,

b) the lapses of would-be teetotallers, and
c) secret drinkers, and especially those who get found out.
In the classic Scottish jokes of this type the ministers of the Scottish Presby-
terian churches play an important role. Jokes often depict either the minister
or an elder of the kirk attempting to admonish a lapsed or habitual drinker or
else being himself revealed to be a secret tippler. Ethnic jokes of this type are
also told about other Protestant groups who value work and abstinence, such
as the Welsh or the N e w England Yankees.
(a) Ethnic jokes about teetotallers and their struggle with the convivial:
"Ah Donald", said the Minister, "I hear they've gone dry in your brother's
village".
"Dry", remarked Donald. "Dry! why, man, they're parched. I've just received
a letter from Sandy and, believe me, the stamp was stuck on wi' a pin'."
(Ferguson 1933: 30)
Tammas (to friend who has joined the teetotal):

"There's nae doot, Jeems, ye're a much improved man, — but I've lost a
freend!" (Ferguson 1933: 46)
A Perthshire blacksmith whom I knew intimately was once remonstrated with

by the Free Church minister who lived nearby about his frequent and exces-
sive indulgences.
"Was ye ever drunk, Sir?" inquired the smith.
"No, Donald", said the minister, "I am glad to say, I never was".
"I thocht as muckle", said the smith, "for man if ye was once rieht drunk, ye
was never like to be sober a' your days again." (Ford 1901: 126-127)
"It's an awful thing that drink," exclaimed a clergyman when the barber, who
was visibly affected, had drawn blood from his face for the third time.
"Ay", replied the tonsorial artist, with a wicked leer in his eye, "it maks the
skin tender." (Ford 1901: 127)
"You are reeling, Janet," remarked a country parson, meeting one of his pa-
rishioners carrying more sail than ballast, as a preliminary to lecturing her on
the evils of her conduct.
"Troth, an' I canna aye be spinnin', sir," retorted she, casting anchor in the
middle of the road, and leering blandly up into the face of her interrogator.
"You do not seem to catch my meaning clearly, Janet," continued the divine.
"Do you know where drunkards go?"
"Indeed, they generally gang whaur they get the whisky cheapest and best,
sir."
"Yes, Janet, but there is another place where they go. They go where there is
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."
"Humph!" sneered the case-hardened old sinner. "They can gnash teeth that
have teeth to gnash. I hav'na had but a'e stump for this forty year."
(Ford 1901: 127-128)
(b) Ethnic jokes about lapsed teetotallers and lapses from temperance:
A Highland schoolmaster having become too fond of the national drink, a

deputation from his townsfolk called to remonstrate, while a select committee
awaited the result at the inn.
Hours passed in suspense. At last on the still night air came the sound of
horses feet and bacchanalian song. A vehicle drew up at the door and the
landlord hastened out.
"Preserve us a' !" he exclaimed in dismay, "it's the dipitation !" (Robey 1920: 55)
The minister spent spent six months trying to make John the gardener a
teetotaler. It was a hard struggle. One evening the minister rushed up to John
and seized him by the hands. "John, the victory is in sight. We are going to
win. John, it was the happiest day in my life when I saw you at our prayer-
meeting last night."
"By heavens, minister, is that where I was?" (Ferguson 1933: 24)
The Minister (reproachfully): "Ah James! I'm sorry to see you like this! I
thought you were a steadfast teetotaller".
James: "Sho I am, sir. But I'm no a bigoted one!" (Ferguson 1933: 29)
Scotch Sunday Drunk: A very unmanageable condition of spiritual ecstasy.

(Levinson 1963: 205)
(c) Ethnic jokes about secret drinkers:
Scene: Licensed Grocer's shop. Enter Mrs. Johnston.

Mrs. J.: "Gie's a pund o' yer ham."
Lard: "What kind wad ye like?"
Mrs. J.: "Oh, just the kind that Mrs. Thompson gets."
Lard: "A' rieht! Whaur's yer bottle?" (Ferguson 1933: 5; also in Robey
1920: 59)
A young countryman went a considerable distance to pay a visit to his uncle

and aunt and cousins, who were reputed a family of strict teetotallers. During
his first meal at his kinsman's table, the young man commented on the ab-
sence of spirituous liquors.
"We are a' temperance folk here, ye ken," interrupted the old man. "No spir-
ituous liquors are allowed to enter this house."
After dinner the old man went upstairs to take his customary "forty winks,"
the girls started off to Sunday school, and the boys lounged away to smoke in
the stable. As soon as Aunt Betty found herself alone in the kitchen she put her
initial finger to her lips, to enjoin silence on the part of her youthful nephew,
and going to a dark nook in the pantry she drew therefrom a little black bottle,
and filling a glass held it out to him and said,
"Here, John, tak' a taste o' that. Our gudeman's sic a strict teetotaller that I
durna lat him ken that I keep a wee drap in the hoose —just for medicine. So
dinna mention it."
A few minutes later the old man cried from the stairhead,
"Are you there, John?"
The nephew went upstairs, when the head of the house took him into his own
bedroom, where he promptly produced a gallon-jar of whisky from an old
portmanteau under the bed, and, pouring out a hearty dram, said — "Teetotallin'
doesna prevent me frae keepin' a wee drap o' the 'rale peat reek' in case o'
illness, or that; so here, lad, put that in your cheek; but (confidentally) not a
word aboot it to your auntie, or the laddies."
Strolling out of doors soon after this second surprise, and entering the stable,
the cousins beckoned their relative into the barn, where, after fumbling among
the straw for a few seconds, they handed him a black bottle, with the encour-
aging words —
"Tak' a sook o' that, cousin, ye'll find it's gude; but not a word to the auld
fouks, mind ye, for twa mair infatuated teetotallers were never born?" (Ford
1901: 134-135)
Jokes involving the secret drinking of a minister, elder or deacon of a Protes-

tant church have of course long been popular even where there is no ethnic
component (e.g. Cobb 1925: 70-71 ; The New Joe Miller 1801: 186) and the
Protestant minister of religion as a secret drinker who gets caught out appears
in Scottish jokes, much as the Roman Catholic priest sleeping with his young
housekeeper is a figure of fun in jokes from Bavaria, Austria and Central
Europe (Ranke 1972). That a drinking minister can be as much a comic scan-
dal as a randy celibate indicates the force of Scottish teetotalism and the role
of the Protestant churches in enforcing it. The lapses of moral mentors are
always good for a joke. Jokes about secret drinkers among Scottish ministers
are also distinctively ethnic for the most significant mark of the difference
between the Scots and their more numerous English neighbours is religion.
The established church in Scotland is Presbyterian and its ministers have of-
ten disapproved strongly of alcohol, in contrast to the more relaxed attitude
of the English clergy of the episcopalian Church of England. Indeed the Very
Reverend John Gillespie ( 1904: 204-205), a former Moderator of the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, has ruefully related how fiercely he was
once condemned by his fellows for drinking whisky and, worse still, for jok-
ing about the fact in a speech. Accordingly, it is easy to see why the ministers
in the jokes are shown as keeping their love of whisky a dark secret:
Stationmaster rings up manse in Dumbartonshire.

The minister anwers the phone.
Stationmaster: "There's a box for you here, minister."
Minister: "Yes, John, that's all right. It's a few hymn books from Princes Street,
Edinburgh."
Stationmaster: "Ay, weel ye'd better hurry up, yer hymn books are leakin."
(Ferguson 1933: 30, 121; also in Hodes 1978: 37)
The ethnic jokes about covert drinking in Scotland have their counterparts in
Wales where the politics of alcohol has been mainly concerned with whether
public houses (bars) should be allowed to open on Sundays. The national
identity of the Welsh in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twenti-
eth became closely tied to a militant and puritanical form of Nonconformist
Protestantism. As in Scotland this led to an extreme Sabbatarianism. Practi-
cally all secular activities were banned on the Welsh Sunday, a distinctive
institution that set the Welsh apart from their English and Irish neighbours. In
particular, all bars, saloons and public houses were closed by law on Sun-
days, a rule that long persisted in some of the more traditional and least An-
glicized parts of the country (Davies 1992).
Then there was this Welsh couple who were always arguing about religion.
She was Presbyterian and he was Sunday Opening. (See Kilgarriff 1974: 49)
In practice the Welsh drank in clubs that were exempt from the law and also
drank quietly and illicitly behind closed doors in public houses that officially
were shut. National pride and religious morality were satisfied by the fact
that the public houses of Wales, unlike those of sinful England, were closed.
So long as appearances were maintained, the Welsh did not seem to care very
much about what happened in reality. The situation was a highly visible one
to English visitors who felt frustrated because they did not know how to work
the system, though if they had Welsh friends, they were often introduced to
the subtle delights of evading rules that everyone pretends to uphold. The
witty English mathematician Lancelot Hogben (1967: 9) in a work written
entirely in monosyllables, noted that "one Law in Wales is quite out of step
with what you or I may well think of when we think of crime as such. In
Wales you can buy no Strong Drink on the Lord's Day. So the ones who live
near the edge of Wales may have to walk miles and the ones who live near the
coast have to slip in by the Back Door when no one can see them." Another
English humorist William Hardcastle (1972:270) added that "to be smuggled
into the back entrance of a Welsh pub on a Sunday morning is as thrilling in
its way as brushing against the underworld in the seedier quarters of
Marseilles." (The fictitious) George F.Babbitt, who survived Prohibition in
Zenith City with the help of the local boot-leggers, would no doubt have
agreed with this sentiment (see Lewis [1922] 1974: 88-90). Solid joys and
liquid pleasures none but Zion's children know.
English satirists, though, still remained baffled by the sheer span of Welsh
and Scottish ambivalence about alcohol. The English were bemused by Wales
which they saw as a society in which preachers could declare that "Any thought
that gets young people nearer to drink, is a thought from Hell" (Hardcastle
1971: 270. See also Bradbury 1960: 58), and yet where an English woman
who had formerly been a publican in West Wales could write of "the drinking
habits of Wales, the alcoholic landlords, the record convictions for drunken-
ness, the all day drinking in most towns (legal) followed by the popular all
night sessions (illegal but accepted)", and of "men pretending to a massive
respectability while believing anything goes in drink preferably after hours
and behind locked doors" (Cook 1979). A situation like this is of course a gift
to the inventors and tellers of ethnic jokes and anecdotes about the allegedly
devious Welsh:
A widowed licensee in a North Wales resort when fined £20 for selling liquor
out of licensed hours, produced a diary and, counting up dates, said to the
magistrate: "Well, yiss, sirr, I will pay the fine whateffer, if only you will
perhaps give a little time say in which to pay the whool fine."
The magistrate replied: "That's all very well, Mrs. Jones; but what do you
mean by a little time?" Again glancing at the calendar, Mrs. Jones made a
statement. "Well sirr", she said, "look you, it's Thurrsday today, isn't it? Well,
then, our honour, sirr, I will pay you five pounds coming Monday and the
other fifteen pounds Monday week. Will that do?" The magistrate agreed that
such an arrangement would suit the court, provided she gave an assurance as
to how she could positively pay up. Unabashed, with a smile as broad as Car-
digan Bay, Mrs. Jones declared: "Oh, judge anwyl bach, sirr! Tha's as easy as
easy, look you. Cos the university football match is played here on Saturday
coming, and the Temperance Conference is here all next week."
(Miles 1926: 9)
An English lawyer who used to take her holidays in Cardiganshire was sitting
in a Welsh pub one Sunday, drinking with the landlady when an English tour-
ist came in through the front door and demanded a drink. "I'm sorry, sir, we
are closed on Sundays," said the lady behind the bar as she continued to pull
pints for her Welsh customers. After the visitor had left she turned to her Eng-
lish guest and said: "Now if he had come round the back like a Christian, I'd
have been willing to serve him." (English 1980s but refers to 1966)
The gradual secularization of life both in Scotland and Wales and in the coun-
tries where ethnic jokes about the Scots and Welsh are told have rendered
jokes about the clashes between the drinkers and the clergy somewhat old-
fashioned, though similar or parallel basic themes still underpin many later
ethnic jokes about the Welsh and the Scots:
"Hey, Jimmy, ish thish Alcoholics Annonymush?"

"It is indeed. D o you wish to join?"
"Naw — tae resign!" (Hodes 1978: 92)
Another facet of the contradiction between the Scots' love of drink and their
reputation as a canny group has, however, remained ever popular — the Scots
alleged unwillingness to pay for their own drinks or for other people's, and
the cunning measures they take to obtain free or cheap drinks, to avoid buy-
ing drinks for others and to guard their own stock of alcohol in a world of
potential free-loaders. Scotch means tight but Scottish means tighter. Jokes
about the canny attitude of the Scots towards alcohol possess an extra twist
relative to other jokes about these alleged Scottish traits, derived from the
fact that alcohol is in many western societies a drug associated with convivi-
ality and hospitality and is exchanged as a gift within a group or between
households. As such it differs from say, shoes, dishwashers, shirts, tranquil-
lizers or orange-juice which will be bought by individuals or families for
their own particular use and enjoyment. Alcohol is a shared good and people
are not supposed to make the same rational individual calculations about the
costs and benefits of alcohol consumed in a group context that they apply to
other purchases and forms of enjoyment. The exchange of alcohol within a
group based on the purchasing of rounds of drinks, with each man having his
"shout" in turn, holds the group together and gives it an identity. For the
drinkers, their willingness to relax the usual individualistic rules concerning
consumption and payment is an indication of the importance they attach to
their membership of the group and a means of asserting their temporary so-
cial equality within it (Sargent 1979). The canny behaviour of the alcohol
craving comic Scotsman of the jokes breaks the rule that alcohol is exchanged
and is not made the subject of strict calculation. Many of these jokes belong
to the twentieth-century phase of conventionalized ethnic jokes about the Scots.
The joke-tellers have seen the comic possibilities of combining the comic
convention that the Scots are canny with the equally well-known convention
that the Scots like whisky to produce a joke focussed on the conflict between
thirst and thrift that exploits both at once.
Englishman: "What is the difference between a Scotsman and a coco-nut?"

Scotsman: "I don't know".
Englishman: "You can get a drink out of a coconut" [see also Frost 1933: 22].
Scotsman: "Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Now would you like something to drink?"
Englishman: "That's very kind of you. Yes I would."
Scotsman: "Go and find yourself a coco-nut." (British 1970s)
How much whisky can a Scotsman drink?

Any given quantity. (Copeland and Copeland 1939: 714)
A few of Sandy's pals conspired together to force him to stand a drink. There
were four of them, so they agreed to stand drinks all round in succession,
leaving Sandy to do the same, but just as the fourth round was being drunk,
the steward entered the room. "Is Sandy Macpherson here?" he enquired.
"That's me," said Sandy.
"Yer wife's wantin' ye."
"That's feenished it, boys," said Sandy. "We've had a grand time — guid
nicht." (Ferguson 1933: 180)
Pat was taken up for being drunk. "Who gave you the whisky, Pat?"
"Please sir, it was a Scotsman who gave me this big drink."
"You are fined fifty dollars for perjury!" said the Judge. (Ferguson 1933: 130;
also in Copeland and Copeland 1939: 723)
McTavish was so tired of hearing jokes about mean Scots in a New York
saloon that he stood drinks all round. He took a heart attack when he learned
they had imagined he was an Irishman. (Hodes 1978: 75)
Four men in a crowded bar were standing rounds of drinks. The Aberdonian's
turn came five minutes before closing time. He want up to the crowded bar
and shouted to the barman: "Four pints of beer, you ugly bastard." (HHGBA.
Collected 1968)
Jokes, alcohol and ethnicity: A summary
1. Jokes about the consumption of alcohol are extremely common in all west-
ern industrial societies, for these societies share a common ambivalent
attitude to alcohol, which is both an important source of pleasure as a
recreational drug and the cause of many severe social problems. Jokes
about alcohol mock both the excess that leads to drunkenness and the op-
posite "excess" of an unstable and intolerant teetotalism. The jokes are
often pinned on ethnic groups whose alcohol problems are more severe
than those of the joke-tellers but the members of the groups who are the
butt of the jokes are (i) even more ambivalent about alcohol and therefore
more prone to joke about it themselves, (ii) aware of the peculiar role
alcohol plays in their own society and of the greater probability (relative
to neighbouring societies) of their members departing from moderation.
Often such departures are regarded as a part of their own national identity
and since such behaviour is not clearly and universally abhorred (in the
way that, say, murder, blackmail, or cruelty are), the members of groups
that are the butts of the jokes will be happy to tell jokes aboout their own
group that interpret our shared moral uncertainty and ambivalence about
alcohol in a way that is almost boastful.
2. Ethnic jokes about excessive drinking have been pinned on groups such as
the Irish, the Scots, the Finns and the Australians who get publicly and
visibly drunk more often or more spectacularly than their neighbours.
3. Ethnic jokes about excessive drinking often reveal the importance of the
all-male drinking group and the conflicts between this group and the wives
and families of its members. These drinking groups have proved extremely
strong in societies where men are, or have been, isolated (Finland, Aus-
tralia) or insulated (Ireland) from women.
4. Groups who drink moderately (Jews, Chinese, Italian-Americans) are rarely

the subject of jokes about alcohol. Ethnic jokes about peoples from socie-
ties which have in the past had strong temperance movements linked to
the Protestant Churches (Scotland, Wales, parts of the United States) tend
to focus on the cultural clash between hard-drinkers and teetotallers. The
latter are depicted as bigoted, likely to lapse or even as secret drinkers. In
Protestant societies the tippling minister is a comic figure comparable to
the unchaste Roman Catholic priest of Central Europe or Italy.
Concluding thoughts about alcohol 135
5. The drinking patterns of a group also often incorporate other comic at-
tributes conventionally ascribed to that group, such as stupidity or canni-
ness to provide highly distinctive ethnic jokes often told about that group
alone.
Concluding thoughts about alcohol
Jokes about alcohol are common in western societies because it is both the
main accepted legal euphoriant drug of these societies and a source of prob-
lems because it undermines the qualities upon which the modern world of
work (and indeed urban life generally) depends. As such it both symbolizes
and accentuates the clash that exists in modern societies between the calculad ve
values of work, production and achievement and the opposed hedonistic val-
ues of consumption, leisure and conviviality. The links, however, are not al-
ways simple and straightforward, as can be seen from a detailed study of the
jokes about the Scots and the Irish which incorporate other comic traits con-
ventionally attributed to these peoples. Alcohol as a drug is both prized and
feared and attitudes towards it are uncertain and ambivalent, a situation which
provides ample material for jokes. Jokes about alcohol including ethnic jokes
mock the excess that leads to drunkenness and the opposite "excess" of an
unstable and intolerant teetotalism. The essentially ambiguous nature of jokes
in general including jokes about alcohol, though, means that such jokes can
be used to celebrate as well as to criticize alcoholic excess and ethnic identi-
ties linked to such excess. In consequence those who take a moral stand against
alcohol are often uneasy, lest what they see as disgusting behaviour be re-
garded as merely amusing, a venal fault to be indulged in and laughed away
(Ford 1959).
The ethnic jokes about alcohol unlike, say, those that ascribe dirtiness to a
particular ethnic group (Davies 1990) are very much rooted in direct observa-
tion of the real world. Many of the members of the ethnic groups parodied in
the jokes really do or did in the past tend to regard alcohol, and to behave in
relation to alcohol, in the ways described in the jokes. The jokes are often
ludicrous exaggerations but they are based on social realities that are or were
highly visible to the casual observer and which have been confirmed by care-
ful studies of alcohol and ethnicity carried out by social scientists. There may
well exist a number of serious stereotypes about ethnic styles of drinking that
correspond to the ethnic scripts of the jokes but it is unnecessary to invoke
these to explain the jokes. It would also be irrelevant to do so, since jokes are
an end in themselves, whereas serious stereotypes are only of interest if they

are used as a guide to purposeful action. The confusion of comic script (Raskin
1985: 180) and serious stereotype has long bedevilled the study of ethnic
humour and it makes more sense to explain them separately. It may well be
that in some cases a corresponding serious stereotype exists and is employed
in ways that, though rational, are unfair to particular individuals, as in the
past when Cumberland employers in Carlisle refused to engage Scotsmen
because of their reputation for heavy drinking. However, this does not di-
rectly concern the humour scholar, for comic ethnic scripts can exist in the
absence of serious stereotypes and vice versa. Should the analyses of ethnic
scripts presented here also explain the nature and existence of particular stere-
otypes that is merely an incidental bonus and in general the link between the
two phenomena remains problematic.
Chapter 8
"Nasty" legends, "sick" humour and ethnic jokes about
stupidity
Nasty modern legends, sick humour and ethnic jokes have many themes in
common but two in particular stand out, namely the consumption of objec-
tionable foods and disasters involving modern technology.
Objectionable food
Western societies with a Christian tradition lack a comprehensive set of food

taboos (see Acts 10: 9-16; 11: 1-11; 1st Corinthians 10: 25-26). No system
may be discerned in, and little significance attached to, the odd assortment of
foods which Westerners view as disgusting and inedible, or at least uneatable
and undrinkable, such as fried wood-lice, rat sandwiches, genuine hedgehog-
flavoured crisps, bovine urine, bear's paw, snake soup, curried spiders and a
variety of harmless synthetic food additives used as flavouring, colouring or
preservatives and known only as a mysterious magical cipher of letters and
numbers.
The only coherent pattern that can be found is that relating to the taboo
against cannibalism and its curious extension to cover pet animals. The most
common humorous references to cannibalism occur in cartoons, where one
familiar theme is the missionary or explorer in a cooking pot surrounded by
fat dark strangers in grass skirts and with bones through their noses. How-
ever, there are also many corresponding ethnic jokes' in circulation, which
are usually pinned on distant exotic peoples from Africa or the islands of the
Pacific:
President Nyerere of Tanzania was flying to the United Nations on a mumbo-

jumbo jet. He scanned the lunch menu and said "I don't like any of this. Bring
me the passenger list." (British 1980s; see also Abrahams 1961: 246)
Question: What is the African counterpart of a vegetarian?

Answer: A humanitarian. (American 1980s)
138 "Nasty" legends and "sick" humour
There's a great export trade from Golder's Green [Crematorium], They send
ashes out to the Congo as instant people. You just add water.
(Newall 1985: 143)
Foreign news, Uganda. At the state luncheon to welcome the German delega-
tion today, General Amin ate a hamburger, two frankfurters and a young man
from Heidelburg. (Vincent 1977: 28)
In nasty urban legends, by contrast, the cannibalism is accidental and unwit-

ting and involves, not distant and exotic people, but local individuals similar
to the teller and his or her audience, often the familiar but anonymous "friend
of a friend". The persons taking part in the contemporary legendary tale are
deceived, because the food of human origin that they consume is formless
and thus unrecognizable — the usual versions being cremation ashes and
person-sausage. 2 "A mix up in the mail" is a characteristic example:
Grandmother had gone out to spend Christmas with her cousins who lived in
the Far East. She had not seen them for several years and was very excited
about the trip. They had always been very kind to her and each Christmas
used to send a present of ajar of special spices to go in the Christmas cake her
daughter made.
About two weeks before Christmas, a small airmail parcel arrived from the
Far East. It had been posted on 1 December and contained what appeared to
be the special spices for the Christmas cake. There was no note with it nor,
surprisingly, any Christmas card. Not wanting to delay any longer, the daugh-
ter got on with the baking and produced a magnificent cake for the Christmas
festivities.
It was the day after Boxing Day that a letter arrived from the cousins in the Far
East. Also dated I December, it expressed how sorry they were to have to
break the news of grandmother's death — the excitement had been too much
for her. They also wrote that, because of all the arrangements that had had to
be made for the cremation, they would not have time to send over the special
spices for the cake this year. However, they had airmailed grandmother's ashes
home and they should arrive shortly. (Smith 1984: 106)
Tales such as this are often told as if true (indeed the narrator and/or audience
may believe them to be true and it is just possible that they are rooted in an
actual incident, though this cannot usually be demonstrated). They are very
similar to sick jokes that everyone regards as amusing fiction. A skilled joke-
teller who wanted to use the legend, "A mix up in the mail" as a sick joke
Objectionable food 139
would alter it very little, as it already has the basic structure and ingredients
of a joke. He would begin telling the story poker-faced, as if describing a real
event that had happened to a "friend of a friend", and would maintain the
listeners' attention by skillfully adding plausible, though this time deliber-
ately mendacious, details. Once the audience was in a suitable state of belief,
or at least suspended disbelief, then it would be time for him suddenly to
unleash the punch-line that revealed the comic shock-horror information that
"people just like us" unwittingly ate their own grandma! At thi's point, the
joke-teller could relax his serious visage in delight at the mixture of conster-
nation and hilarity produced in the listeners.
It is easy to see why this "charming story of family life has circulated,
both in the form of a joke and a legend for many years" (Smith 1986: 106).
The fact that it has circulated in both forms indicates that jokes and legends
are overlapping sets. The area of overlap contains a large number of items
that are recounted mainly in order to amuse. Whether we class a particular
telling of a tale as a joke or as a legend presumably depends on the rather
arbitrary and subjective question of what is in the mind of the raconteur at the
time and how his audience perceive and classify his account. If he is know-
ingly purveying an amusing piece of fiction, albeit one that is initially plausi-
ble and which connects with the listeners' own experience and values, then it
is a joke. Presumably legends begin at the point where there is some small
degree of real belief in the truth of the entire narrative, including the final
shocking and comic denouement. Even so, it is difficult to draw a clear line
between jokes and amusing legends, and often quite impossible to do so on
the basis simply of a particular written or recorded text.
A related group of ethnic jokes and nasty legends/jokes involves the eat-
ing of animals such as dogs, cats or horses that are kept as household pets or
as working partners. Such animals are in some respects treated almost like
human beings. They are given individual, although on the whole appropri-
ately canine, feline or equine, names such as Rover, Rags, Cymro, Tiddles,
Felix, Paisley, Chitty-Whiskers, Hervey, Rosinante, Silver Blaze, which of-
ten reflect their owner's view that they are valued individuals and not mere
replaceable surrogates. Cat owners have been known to pay a $ 1000 vet's bill
or a hefty feline medical insurance premium for a used cat whose historic
cost, replacement cost, resale and scrap value were all well under $5 and may
even have been negative. Because of their peculiar position in the homes and
affections of human beings, to eat pets would be, in the eyes of "petishists" at
least, almost a minor form of cannibalism. Perhaps in consequence, there are
many ethnic jokes about distant peoples (usually from the Orient such as
Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese but also Australian aborigines, who are said to
relish a meal of "putjikata" (Greenway 1976)) alleged to be pet-eaters. 3
Q.: What do you call a Vietnamese with a dog?

Α.: A vegetarian.
Q.: What do you call a Vietnamese with two dogs ?
Α.: A rancher. (American 1980s)
Provincial tourist (to kellner who offers him sausages): "I say old feller, any
'osses died about 'ere lately! Chevals morts, you know!" (Mr. Punch on the
Continong 1908: 111)
Yakob Smirnoff: "After I left Russia for the United States I went shopping for
food in a Los Angeles super-market. There were lots of tins of dog food. There
were none in Russia. There dogs are food. In America there is such variety of
dogs — poodles, chihuahuas, pekinese — but they all taste the same." (British
Television, 22nd August 1984)
These ethnic jokes about distant foreigners eating pets occur alongside jokes
and nasty legends about pet-loving peoples eating cats or dogs (often their
very own), either unknowingly in a restaurant run by members of an ethnic
group with a different pattern of squeamishness, or from sheer hunger in war-
time:
One evening several friends went out to a local Chinese restaurant for a cel-
ebratory meal. Half way through the meal one of the party suddenly started to
cough and choke. Thoroughly alarmed they rushed her to hospital and she had
to undergo minor surgery to remove a small bone stuck in her throat.
The surgeon who removed the bone was somewhat perplexed as he did not
recognize the type of bone found. He therefore sent it off for analysis. The
report came back saying that it was a rat bone.
The public health department immediately visited the restaurant to inspect the
kitchens and in the fridge they found numerous tins of cat food, half an Alsa-
tian dog and several rats all waiting to be served up. (Smith 1984: 54)
During the siege of Paris in the Franco-German war when everybody was
starving, one aristocratic family had their pet dog served for dinner. The mas-
ter of the house, when the meal was ended, surveyed the platter through tear-
dimmed eyes and spoke sadly: "How Fido would have enjoyed those bones."
(Jokes for All Occasions 1922: 50, see alsol95) 4
Objectionable food 141
Both of these tales can be treated as either joke or legend, depending on the
view taken of them by the tellers. Either way, they lack practical importance,
for only very peculiar and eccentric individuals are going to act on the infor-
mation they contain — for example, by refusing to eat in all restaurants run
by members of ethnic minorities who feature in such stories. The crucial point
is not whether the members of the community in which the tale circulates are
or are not prejudiced against any of the minorities who run restaurants, but
that legends of this type are not going to trigger off a pogrom against the alien
restauranteurs: the themes that they embody do not occupy a central or im-
portant position in the tellers' dominant patterns of thought and action. These
tales are for amusement only, and the listeners can afford to laugh at them
because they play with, rather than seriously embody, the breaking of food
conventions.
The contrast to this occurs in communities where the holy or defiling quali-
ties of an animal — with all the implications this has for what may or may not
be eaten — are central to the definition of a religious or ethnic identity. When
the author lived in Bombay, a cafe where he occasionally took his meals dis-
played a large and prominent notice in the front window saying "No beef
served here". One of the reasons for the owners placing it there was to avoid
having his café wrecked by irate and pious Hindus in the course of a commu-
nal disturbance. In Gujarat, the rumour (which may or may not have been
true) that the Muslims had chosen to kill a cow (rather than, say, a goat or a
sheep) as part of the celebration of their 'Id festival has been known to trigger
a violent conflict between the Hindu and Muslim religious communities, in
which a large number of people have lost their lives. The combination of the
proximity of the two groups, and the intense moral outrage caused if the mem-
bers of one group should flout the food taboos or related sensibilities of the
other, means that the telling of a "nasty legend" on this theme is likely to be
inflammatory rather than amusing. The nearest parallel in Europe would be
the murderous anti-Semitic pogroms set off by mendacious and often mali-
cious accounts of Jews carrying out the ritual murder of a Christian child or
stealing, profaning and mutilating the Host.
I stress these extreme cases in order to indicate the relatively trivial prac-
tical implications of the individual legends and jokes that I have quoted. In
consequence, it is difficult to see why anyone should find it necessary to deny
the existence of cannibalism or the possibility that those in charge of "ethnic"
restaurants should have served meals containing animals regarded as unsuit-
able for food by the indigenous population. Cannibalism, though rare, is well
documented and ethnic minority restauranteurs have indeed sometimes been
convicted of serving various items of food which are deemed "unfit for con-
sumption" (Daily Mail 3 Sept 1988: 3). Neither of these phenomena consti-
tutes, or is seen as constituting, any real threat to those who enjoy jokes and
legends about them, and there is no reason to suppose that such tales cause, or
in any significant sense express, hostility towards the various ethnic groups
who figure in them. The real significance of these stories lies in what they
reveal of the joke-tellers' view of themselves and what they see as essentially
alien patterns of eating (which have an especially strong potential to shock
when foisted on people like themselves).
Disasters involving modern technology
Legends and jokes that deal with modern technology going wrong need to be
approached with a similar degree of caution. The prevalence and popularity
of disaster jokes, particularly among young people, is neither evidence of
their extreme callousness nor of the use of jokes as cartharsis, i.e. as a means
of coming to terms with the pain of tragedy. There is no independent support-
ing evidence for either of these views. Neither is there any justification for
reducing these forms of humorous communication to serious ones, or for as-
suming that they can be assimilated to patterns of serious behaviour — such
as grief, mourning and recovery — that are also associated with sudden loss
or tragedy. Such jokes are best seen as related to the reporting of these events
in the mass media rather than directly to the events themselves (see Oring
1987).
Television in particular, but also radio and the press, have created a possi-
bility that did not exist in the past. Millions of people are able to see or hear a
disaster (often as it occurs) from a safe distance and in the tranquility of their
own homes. They are exhorted by reporters and commentators to respond to
a tragedy in the same way as the eye-witnesses, victims and their families
themselves do. Also, as Elliott Oring (1987) has shrewdly pointed out, the
insistent demands for shared sympathy and sorrow, and the harrowing pic-
tures or accounts of the disaster, are incongruously sandwiched between trivial,
banal and light-hearted items such as advertisements, quiz-shows, mundane
soap operas, page three trips down mammary lane, sport and gossip.
Incongruity of this type is the very stuff of which humour is made, as
shown by the old joke about the Scotsman sending a telegram to his brother
that read: "Wife killed in motor accident. Come at once." The clerk looked at
the form and said, "You can have another four words for the same money."
Disasters involving modern technology 143
The Scotsman thought for a moment and added, "Rangers two, Celtic one." It
is not surprising, then, that media disasters produce sick jokes, usually of a
question and answer kind:
Q.: Where do Piper Alpha oil-rig workers take their holidays?

Α.: Burnham on sea. (British 1980s)
Q.: What is the weather forecast for Chernobyl?

Α.: 8000 degrees and cloudy. (American 1980s)
Q.: What's black and goes to school?

Α.: A coal-tip. (British 1960s)
Q.: Have you heard that they are going to rename King's Cross underground
station?
Α.: They're going to call it Black Friars. (British 1980s)
Q.: What's worse than glass in baby food?

Α.: Astronauts in tuna. (Oring 1987)
Q: Why is the Herald of Free Enterprise like sex?

A: Roll on, roll off and it's full of dead seamen. (British 1980s)
The case of sick jokes that grow out of the paradox of real disasters viewed
from a safe and uninvolved distance is paralleled by that of nasty legends
(imaginary, though plausible, disasters that are alleged to have overtaken the
"friend of a friend"). Such legends are almost part of that chain of events
experienced by individuals known personally to us, which make up the ordi-
nary everyday world. A reliance on such people as regular and trustworthy
sources of information, combined with an ignorance of how and why sophis-
ticated modern machines and artifacts work, gives the legends their plausibil-
ity. Many of the tales collected by Paul Smith come in this category and he
notes that "our dependence on technology and its consequent dangers are
encapsulated in tales such as 'The Auto-pilot' and 'Dangers of the microwave
oven'" (1984: 10).
I once heard of an elderly lady who used to breed pedigree cats and exhibit
them at shows. She specialised in Persian cats and their long hair always made
it a difficult task to clean and groom them for showing. In order to cut down
the effort involved, the old lady had evolved the practice of first washing the
cat, towelling it dry and then, finally, giving it a very brief warming in her
electric oven.
One Christmas her cooker developed a fault and so her son, by way of a Christ-
mas present, bought her a brand new microwave oven. On the day of the next
cat show, not understanding the basic difference in the technology between an
ordinary electric cooker and a microwave oven, the old lady industriously
washed her prize-winning Persian cat and popped it into the oven for a few
seconds. There really was no miaow, nor any noise at all from the cat, for the
poor creature exploded the instant the oven was switched on. (Smith 1984: 65;
Brunvand 1981: 62)
The flight ran several times a week taking holiday-makers to various resorts
in the Mediterranean. On each flight, to reassure the passengers all was well,
the captain would put the jet on to auto-pilot and he and all the crew would
come aft into the cabin to greet the passengers.
Unfortunately, on this particular flight the security door between the cabin
and the flight deck jammed and left the captain and crew stuck in the cabin.
From that moment, in spite of their efforts to open the door, the fate of the
passengers and crew was sealed. (Smith 1984: 63)
When hearing or reading the latter tale, it always puzzles me how anyone
would ever know what had happened, given that the radio microphone is in
the cockpit, that any written account is unlikely to survive the crash and that
the flight recorder will offer no explanations of the cause of the mysterious
accident. It is not that I wish to attack a good tale with pedantic objections,
but simply that I cannot understand why it is ever seen as an even faintly
plausible legend, rather than an amusingly shocking acknowledged fiction.
Paul Smith (1984: 63) comments on it that:
this well-known tale echoes the joke regarding the fully automatic computer-
controlled pilotless plane which, when in flight, welcomes the passengers on
board and assures them nothing can possibly go wrong ... go wrong ... go
wrong ...
Once again, there is shown to be an overlap between, on the one hand "nasty
legends", which are half-believed, are told about people like the tellers them-
selves, have a narrative structure and are shocking and, on the other hand,
"jokes", which are known to be inventions, often ascribed to members of
other classes, ethnic groups and nations and have a narrative or a riddle-like
structure: both are built around a sudden switch between two opposed scripts
and are comic, at least in intention. This should not surprise us, for some
modern legends are highly polished inventions intended to amuse as well as

shock, and some jokes are true anecdotes that have been merely reshaped and
restyled in order to maximize their comic effect, an effect that may well rely
on a sudden revelation that is funny because it shocks, as well as surprises,
the audience.
Ethnic jokes often depict the members of another (but usually familiar and
neighbouring) group as causing a disaster through their stupid ignorance of
the nature of technical devices. 5 They are often set in submarines (Steeman
1977: 95), planes or space-rockets; that is, artificial capsules in which human
beings can only survive if they obey a new set of technically determined rules
that are not part of the traditional taken-for-granted world of walking, jump-
ing and swimming. The foolish ethnic ignoramus of the joke naturally gets it
wrong:
Q: Why are people from Aarhus not allowed to become sailors in submarines?
A: Because they like to sleep with the windows open. (Yearhouse 1979)
Q: How can you tell a Belgian in a submarine?

A: He's the one with a parachute on his back. (Isnard 1979: 109)
A qualified Belgian pilot was explaining to a new trainee how to fly the plane
at night: "You see that red light on the left wing?"
"Yes."
"You see that green light on the right wing?"
"Well night flying is very easy. You just fly between the two lights."
(Van der Boute and Hen Train 1978: 19)
A Sop astronaut went to Russia for training. He came back with very red
hands. When asked why, he said, "the Russian pilot kept slapping my hand
and saying, 'Don't touch that! Don't touch that!'" (Bulgarian 1980s)
Q: How do you tell an Aer Lingus Pilot?

A: By the three gold rings on his wellies. (British 1970s)
These ethnic jokes which export stupidity to another group, like the nasty
legends and the sick jokes cited earlier are often seen as expressing, as Holbek
states:
Our own feeling of inadequacy in coping with modern life: technology, social
organization, etc .... [such jokes] express a widespread but not admissible
anxiety caused by the rapid development of our society. The anxiety is

temporarily relieved by making jokes about dupes too stupid to adapt to
progress. (Holbek 1975: 33)
It is doubtful whether such anxiety is either widespread (except in a rather

m o r e superficial sense than Holbek implies) or inadmissible. Most people
have other more immediate worries than technical change, though a minority
find such anxieties sufficiently admissible to demonstrate in public against
nuclear power stations, airports, chemicals believed to be carcinogens (Efron
1984) and synthetic food additives, even though such preservatives help to
ward off cancer by acting as anti-oxidants and mopping up dangerous free
radicals. These anxieties are not merely admissible but fashionable especially
a m o n g dangerous free radicals.
At another level, it is easy to show that many individuals can feel uneasy
at the extent to which they are dependent on machines that they do not under-
stand and on the competence of specialists the nature of whose expertise is
beyond their comprehension. The disasters of the past, such as famine, plague
and pestilence, though far greater, were in the main allied to what the insur-
ance companies in their wisdom call "Acts of God". Today's well publicized
disasters that end u p as jokes are often the result of human error in the con-
struction or management of a complex machine or system.
B o b Ward's (1982) collection of j o k e s about, and on-the-spot observa-
tions of, those involved in the pioneering, and thus hazardous, journeys into
space shows that those directly involved and at risk were very conscious of
their dependence on the technical skills and knowledge of others — and that
they j o k e d about it. W h e n Gus Grissom was asked what he thought would be
the most critical part of the Apollo space mission, he replied jokingly, yet not
altogether jokingly, "the part between lift off and splash d o w n " (Ward 1982:
141). In a similar vein, John Glenn commented, "I looked around m e and
suddenly realized everything had been built by the lowest bidder" (Helitzer
1987: 31). Much of the joking by the astronauts and the engineers alike took
on an ethnic form, as in the j o k e s about a fictitious, pusillanimous Puerto
Rican astronaut called Jose Jimenez, which were said by the real astronauts
to relieve pre-launch jitters (Ward, 1982: 39-44). Other ethnic j o k e s were told
about the German, and sometimes World War II origins, of many of the lead-
ing rocketry experts, including the man they termed the "pad fuehrer" (Ward,
1 9 8 2 : 2 2 , 7 2 , 9 1 ). The director of the National Space Administration's Marshall
Centre, w h o was f r o m West Tennesee, would say of dubious or inadequate
scientific data:
That's like the East Tennesee [hill-billy country] method of weighing hogs.
You place a log across a fence, put the pig on one end of the log, then pile
rocks on the other end until the two loads balance. At that point you guess how
much the rocks weigh. (Ward 1982: 82)
It is these observations of jokes told in a specific context that give substance

to the otherwise speculative view that joking about technical disasters is linked
to the unease which we are all at some time likely to feel about our depend-
ence on new artifacts designed and constructed by teams of specialists, most
of whose expertise is unfamiliar to us.
Joking about potential disasters, however, is not quite such a new phe-
nomenon as Holbek implies, for both the jokes and the apprehensions began
with the steam-powered technology of the nineteenth century (though, ad-
mittedly, this may have arrived a little later in Denmark than elsewhere). In
the early nineteenth century those who feared the physical, as well as eco-
nomic, railway juggernaut declared that the human frame could not survive
these new and "unnatural" speeds. Later, when trains were first introduced
into Spain, peasants would trespass casually on to the track and be run down
by the engine, to the anger of their families, who would blame the driver,
because they could not understand that the momentum of a heavy, fast-mov-
ing train was such that it could not stop quickly enough to avoid a pedestrian.
(Spencer 1969: 88). Today the steam engine and the railways are regarded as
slow and comic ("British Snail", "Steam Radio") and small and nostalgic
("Ivor the Engine", "Little Snoring", "The Fat Controller"), but when first
introduced they represented a more decisive technical and economic change
than anything that has happened since (Russell 1988: 15, 24). In the 1840s
the Rev. Sydney Smith became concerned with the risk of passengers being
burned to death in a railway accident while locked in their carriages, and
wrote a series of letters criticizing the directors of the Great Western Railway,
which expressed a general concern rather than merely personal fear and anxi-
ety (Bell 1980: 204-205). As a noted humorist, Sydney Smith could not resist
illustrating serious arguments with comic images, and considered a scene in
which:
the directors gazed with satisfaction on a burnt train-load of captive passen-

gers including a stewed Duke... two Bishops done in, their own Gravy ... Two
Scotchmen dead, but raw, sulphuric acid perceptible. (Bell 1980: 205)
Elsewhere he declared that "A burnt bishop" might console himself that "his
death will produce unspeakable benefit to the public. Even Sodor and Man
will be better than nothing" (Bell 1980: 671). The mass-media, represented at
that time by the press, thrived on the sale of accounts of accidents which
mingled sympathy and ghoulishness (Spice and Spice 1987). It is not surpris-
ing then that there are many jokes about anxious travellers, unduly nervous
about the prospect of an accident:
(Railway) Bookstall Keeper: "Book, ma'am? Yes ma'am. Here's a popular

work by an eminent surgeon, just published, 'Broken legs and how to mend
them': or, would you like the last number of The Railway Operator?"
(Mr. Punch's Railway Book 1908: 95) 6
Shrewd Clerk (with an eye to his percentage), "Take an accident insurance

ticket, sir?"
Passenger (nervously), "Wha' for?!"
Clerk, "Well, sir nothing has gone wrong 'twixt this and London for the last
fourteen months; and by the haverages, the next smash is hoverdue exactly six
weeks and three days! !"
Old gent forks out with alacrity. (Mr. Punch !y Railway Book 1908:45; Ferguson
1933:251)
Nervous Party: "The train seems to be travelling at a fearful pace, ma'am."

Elderly Female: "Yus ain't it? My Bill's a-drivin of the ingin, an' 'e can make
'er go when 'e's got a drop o drink in 'im!" (Mr. Punch's Railway Book 1908:
29; Ferguson 1933: 233)
These jokes (like legends about ghostly trains that rush towards a real ex-
press) once again play with fear and danger, with anxiety and aggression. The
jokes do not express any of these qualities but simply use them as counters in
a verbal game that is an end in itself, a form of paratelic amusement. Babies
do not like being frightened or attacked, but they chuckle with delight at
games of peek-a-boo or tickling, which they know are merely mock aggres-
sion and pretend frights. In this case at least, wisdom does come from the
mouths of babes and sucklings. The same point is true in relation to ethnic
jokes about railway accidents, in which disaster strikes allegedly slow-witted
"dumb Svenskas" in Minnesota or "Paddies" in Scotland:
... the Swede farm-hand in Minnesota who on the witness stand was called
upon by the attorney for the railroad to furnish details touching on the tragic
death of a companion.
"Aye tell you," he answered. "Me and Ole bane walkin' on railroad track.
Train come by and Aye yump off track. By and by, when train is gone, Aye
don't see Ole any more, so Aye walk on and pretty soon Aye see one of Ole's
arms on one side of track and one of Ole's legs on other side of track and then
pretty soon Aye see Ole's head but Ole's body is not there, so Aye stop and
Aye say to myself, 'By Yupiter, something must a' happened to Ole!'" (Cobb
1923: 27, Lang [n.d.]: 48-49) 7
Up in Minnesota a railroad train killed a cow belonging to a Scandinavian

homesteader. The tragedy, having been reported at headquarters, a claim-agent
was sent to the spot to make a settlement of damages ... "Mr. Swanson," he
said with a winning smile, "the company wants to be fair with you in this
matter. We deeply regret that your cow has met her death on our tracks. But,
on the other side Mr. Swanson, from our side there are certain things to be
considered. In the first place, that cow had no business straying on our right of
way and you, as her owner, should not have permitted her to do so. Moreover,
it is possible that her presence there might have caused a derailment of the
locomotive which struck her and a serious wreck perhaps involving loss of
human life. Now, such being the case, and it being conceded that the cow was,
in effect, a trespasser on our property, what do you think, as man to man,
would be a fair basis of settlement as between you and the railroad company?"
For a space Mr. Swanson pondered on the argument. Then, speaking slowly
and weighing his words, he delivered himself of an ultimatum: "I bane poor
Swede farmer," he said. "I shall give you two dollars." (Cobb 1923: 104-105;
Copeland and Copeland 1939: 757)
T h e nursery r h y m e "Paddy on the R a i l w a y " is essentially similar:
Paddy on the railway picking up stones.

Along came a railway train and broke Paddy's bones.
"Hey," said Paddy, "that's not fair."
"Well," said the driver, "you shouldn't've been there."
(British traditional; see also Montgomerie and Montgomerie 1948: 12)
T h e idea that those w h o find such tales and r h y m e s amusing would be over-
j o y e d at the sight of a real Ole or Paddy being m o w n d o w n by the train is
absurd. T h e j o k e s simply draw on, and c o m b i n e , t w o well-established genres
of h u m o u r namely: playing with images of accident, death and disaster; and
the stupidity (and corresponding lack of technical and commercial a c u m e n )
of a familiar neighbour or ethnic minority.
It is difficult to establish detailed comparisons between the j o k e s and leg-
ends of the railway era and those of today because we lack a representative
recorded sample of the material in oral circulation in the past. However, the
general similarities between them show that the derivation of amusement from
mock horror-tales about technical disasters and from the anxieties the latest
forms of technical innovation produce is only modern in the sense that it
could only occur after the industrial revolution.
Conclusions
In the legends, sick jokes and ethnic jokes, both about food and about disas-
ters, certain patterns seem to be discernible — namely:
1. They all play with things that shock — cannibalism, "peticide" (espe-
cially "canicide" and "felicide"), aggression, the threat or the reality of
death and destruction. However, they are not usually tendentious: that is,
they do not have a purposed tendency. On the contrary, they are a pleasing
switch to a paratelic mode of behaviour that is an end in itself and which
constitutes a welcome relief from the telic tedium of much of our every-
day existence in which all our activities are but a means to some other
serious end.
2. Legends are tales whose capacity to shock depends on the casual way they
drop a horrid surprise into the everyday world of the audience. They are
told about people who resemble those who tell and listen to the story, and
their plausibility depends on yet another such person — the "friend of a
friend".
3. Outsiders are brought in to provide a plausible explanation for a bizarre
episode in a legend, or alternatively as the key to a joke whose punch-line
is going to switch a plausible narrative into palpable farce. The mecha-
nism that does this is a conventional comic script in which qualities that
the joke-teller and audience would reject as foolish (for example, stupid-
ity) or repellent (for example, cannibalism) are pinned in a humorous way
either upon neighbours (who are made to look like a foolish version of the
joke-tellers themselves) or upon a distant people (who can be safely por-
trayed as behaving in a peculiar and shocking manner).
Chapter 9
Making fun of work: Humour as sociology in the
humorous writings of H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells' early comedies such as Kipps, The History of Mr Polly, and

Bealby1 make fun of work as Wells had known it. It is a measure of his genius
that he was able to transmute the underlying bitterness of his own experience
into his skilled comic accounts of Kipps and Mr. Polly working as draper's
assistants, of the little shopkeeper of Fishbourne, and of Bealby's rebellion
against domestic service. In Wells' comedies, the rationalizing forces of the
market place, of competition, of organization — which have marked the service
sector of retailing as much as any other branch of a modern economy — are
mocked and ridiculed for having shaped the unsatisfactory working lives of
Kipps, Mr. Polly, and their colleagues. Indeed, The History of Mr Polly is
Wells' comic masterpiece, and the adventures of Mr. Polly debunk work as
effectively as those of The Good Soldier Svejk (Hasek 1974) debunk warfare.
The success of Wells' comedies of work raises two sets of questions. First,
how does he depict work, and in particular work as experienced by a particu-
lar sector of the lower-middle class in the early years of the twentieth century,
and how does he set about arousing the insightful laughter of his readers, not
just at individuals, but at an entire social process? Second, how can Wells'
levity be related to that of later literary mockers of and scoffers at the pieties
of work, and how can the underlying gravity of Wells' comedy be linked to
the subsequent evolution of the sociology of work?
In all complex industrial societies, the work of individuals is coordinated
and constrained by the forces of the market-place, the. interplay of supply
and demand, and the edicts, instructions, and regulations of bureaucratic or-
ganizations. These are the essential mechanisms of any rational large eco-
nomic system — rational in the narrow sense of economizing, of endlessly
squeezing more out of less to produce greater economic efficiency (see Bell
1979: 10-11; Herzberg 1966: 1-4; Kumar 1978: 83-88,227-228). The culture
of most modern societies is only partly in harmony with these processes, for
these societies have cultures that also tend to stress the values of hedonism,
individual self-expression, and self-realization and which lead individuals to
experience the forces of rationalization as oppressive (see Bell 1979: 14-18,
53-54, 69-74). It is this cultural contradiction that lies at the heart of Wells'
152 Making fun of work: H. G. Wells
comedies of the life of the English lower-middle class in the early twentieth
century. Wells wrote about what he knew, but his was a happy choice for it
was the members of this class who were most likely to embody the contradic-
tion between the values of work, thrift, and efficiency and those of individual
self-realization and yet whose constrained and precarious economic circum-
stances left them with little room for manoeuvre.
Wells' comic heroes are lower-middle class misfits whose vague and in-
choate but nonetheless real wish for self-expression is in conflict both with
the constraints of their economic position and with the limiting, economizing
creed of work held up to them as an ideal even by other members of their own
class. Their case is not that of peasants shrugging off the exhortations of a
distant landlord, or of factory workers bitterly resentful of the Stakhanovite
hectoring of the commissar, but of people uneasily aware of the discordant
views within their own group and even within their own minds:
He [Mr. Polly] could not grasp what was wrong with him. He made enormous
efforts to diagnose his case. Was he really just a "lazy slacker" who ought to
"buck up"?... He made some perfectly sincere efforts to "buck up" and "shove"
ruthlessly. But that was infernal, impossible. He had to admit himself miser-
able with all the misery of a social misfit. (Wells 1928: 434)
Wells used the position of lower-middle-class misfits such as Kipps or Mr.

Polly as a pivot for his comic attack on the organization and mythology of
work of his time. It is a mark of Wells' comic talent that he could build com-
edy out of the twin threats of failure in a market economy — unemployment
and bankruptcy — and use them to ridicule the myths of enterprise.
Unemployment for Mr. Polly meant loneliness, frustration, anxiety, and
humiliation as he sought to sell himself to a new employer. Yet even as Mr.
Polly was squeezed by economic circumstances and tried to squeeze himself
even further to fit those circumstances, a part of him, the marvellous phrase-
making Mr. Polly, remained free to subvert through humour the forces press-
ing in on him. In this way, Wells was able to show Mr. Polly in comic conflict
not merely with other individuals but with the harsh impersonal constraints
of his social and economic world. Given his powerless and precarious situa-
tion, Mr. Polly did not dare to assail his competitors and opponents directly to
produce one of Wells' characteristically ludicrous fights between individuals
that accelerate into farce and sometimes tragedy. Nonetheless, Mr. Polly's
unspoken phrases entangled them as thoroughly as their economic pressures
entangled Mr. Polly. In the back of his mind, competitors were labelled "Smart
Making fun of work: H. G. Wells 153
Juniors" full of "Smart Juniosity," devotees of the "Shoveacious Cult," and

he termed his own outward demeanour "Obsequies Deference." Behind this
servile pose, the irrepressible phrase-making part of Mr. Polly's brain sought
to encapsulate the very employer he needed to impress:
"Chubby chops? Chubby Charmer? . . . Chump chops! How about chump

chops?" said the phrase-maker with an air of inspiration. (Wells 1928: 428)
Phrases were for Mr. Polly, as in a later generation hidden grimaces were for
Kingsley Amis' (1953) "Lucky Jim" Dixon, a secret defence against and defi-
ance of a world outside his control (see Parrinder 1970: 81).
Wells was equally successful in his humorous undermining of an uneasily
held business ethic in the revealing scene where the shopkeepers of Fishbourne
are gathered after the fire started by Mr. Polly had demolished their premises.
In theory their shops are a source of livelihood, ambition, identity, and oppor-
tunity; in practice an irksome road to inevitable bankruptcy:
"It's cleared me out of a lot of old stock," said Mr. Wintershed; "that's one
good thing."
The remark was felt to be in rather questionable taste, and still more so was
his next comment.
"Rusper's a bit sick it didn't reach 'im. "
Every one looked uncomfortable, and no one was willing to point the reason
why Rusper should be a bit sick. (Wells 1928: 563)
The committing of arson by small shopkeepers seeking to defraud the insur-

ance company has long been a subject of ambiguous ethnic jokes (Davies
1986), but Mr. Polly alone knew the truth about his own arson. The humour
of the other traders' uneasiness lies in the gap between their wish to uphold
the conventional view that they were victims snatched from their callings by
fire and their own strong but private and unstable sense of having escaped
from a commercial trap.
These are the ways in which Wells gets the reader to laugh at the grim and
cheerless face of failure in the rational world of the market-place. His com-
edies are built on the crushed fate of men who have been "whittled down"
(Wells 1969: 70) and are now "crawling along a drain pipe until (they) die"
(Wells 1928: 543), "going down a Vorterex" (Wells 1928: 493), caught in
"the hard old economic world, that enacts work, that limits range, that dis-
courages phrasing and dispels laughter" (Wells 1928: 493).
It is perhaps not surprising in the circumstances that many of Wells' comic

assaults are directed against small entrepreneurs who had succeeded, or those
keen white-collar workers w h o had allowed the copper of the currency to
penetrate their souls. Perhaps Wells' best attack on the reduction of work to a
"system" is the portrait of that muddled exponent of a kind of proto-Taylorism,
Kipps' employer Mr. Shalford. As a satire on the successful, rationalizing
entrepreneur, it is something of a cheat, for there are more of the slogans than
the substance of efficiency about Mr. Shalford. Mr. Shalford may have con-
sidered himself "the Napoleon of haberdashers" (Wells 1969: 71), but it was
by m e a n s of fraudulent bankruptcy and marriage for money that he had risen
in his chosen trade. Mr. Shalford's tour of his store with Kipps in tow and his
exposition of his "system" governed by minute rules and heavy penalties,
where assistants slave like machines (but only when watched) is a mockery
of efficiency rather than the real thing, though this naturally adds to the hu-
m o u r of Wells' observations.
Mr. Shalford's comically oppressive system is easily shown by Wells to
b e a mere mixture of petty cheeseparing and bunkum. This makes for endless
f u n at his expense, but it does mean that Wells (here at least) evaded the
problem of the residual but very real oppressiveness of a genuinely efficient
system run by a more intelligent, numerate, rational and innovating Shalford.
Were Shalford stripped of his vanity, pettiness, muddle and other all too hu-
man weaknesses, he would be a less comic but possibly an even more threat-
ening figure, and Wells would have to distinguish much more clearly than he
does between the pains of inefficiency and the pains of efficiency. Shalford
and his system are a sham; increased entropy disguised as constructive mo-
mentum, "by order" mistaken for order:
Once a year came stock-taking... Then the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being
shone with oppressive brilliance. "System!" he would say, "System. Come!
'ussel" and issue sharp, confusing, contradictory orders very quickly.
(Wells 1928: 53)
S o m e of the successful small businessmen in Wells' comedies show a more

genuine gift for rational economy and entrepreneurship than Mr. Shalford.
O n e such figure is the aggressive Mr. Benshaw, the hoe-wielding small-holder
in Bealby w h o plays such a m a j o r part in the Battle of Crayminster, another of
Wells' ludicrous fights between and among, or at least involving the respect-
able. Mr. Benshaw is a stock comic figure w h o is placed there only so that
Wells can satirize a social type, albeit with great success:
Mr. Benshaw was considering very deeply the financial side of a furious black
fence that he had at last decided should pen in the school children from further
depredations. It should be of splintery tarred deal, and high, with well-pointed
tops studded with sharp nails, and he believed that by making the path only
two feet wide, a real saving of ground for cultivation might be made and a
very considerable discomfort for the public arranged, to compensate for his
initial expense. The thought of a narrow lane which would in winter be char-
acterized by an excessive sliminess and from which there would be no lateral
escape was pleasing to a mind by no means absolutely restricted to considera-
tions of pounds, shillings and pence. In his hand after his custom he carried a
hoe, on the handle of which feet were marked so that it was available not only
for destroying the casual weed but also for purposes of measurement.
(Wells 1928: 818-819)
M u c h of W e l l s ' c o m i c portrait of Mr. B e n s h a w c o n s i s t s m e r e l y of the stand-

ard e s t a b l i s h e d ingredients of old satires of hard j o y l e s s t r a d e s m e n in the g r i p
of t h e P r o t e s t a n t ethic a n d its utilitarian s u c c e s s o r s . It is the stuff of w h i c h
ethnic j o k e s about canny, calculating Scotsmen, Gabrovonians, R e g i o m o n t a n o s
o r N e w E n g l a n d Y a n k e e s are m a d e (see D a v i e s 1982, 1987a, 1988, 1990).
N o n e t h e l e s s W e l l s m o v e s w i t h skill b e t w e e n B e n s h a w ' s real e c o n o m i c
a c h i e v e m e n t s , his j o y l e s s personal existence, and his a g g r e s s i v e a n g e r against
t h o s e w h o i m p i n g e on his d o m a i n o r the literal f r u i t s of his labour. B e n s h a w
is a b o v e all a m e a s u r i n g , calculating, e c o n o m i z i n g m a n , w h o s e h o e is a g a u g e
as well as a tool and a w e a p o n , and w h o s e ideal r e v e n g e is to c r a m p his
unruly n e i g h b o u r s into a n a r r o w path of "considerable d i s c o m f o r t " f r o m which
" t h e r e w o u l d be n o lateral e s c a p e " . B e n s h a w ' s ideal of a c o m p l e t e l y f e n c e d -
in c o u n t r y s i d e is, of course, the antithesis of Mr. P o l l y ' s r e s e n t m e n t of a w o r l d
w h e r e all r o a d s s e e m to b e " b o r d e r e d by i n f l e x i b l e palings o r iron f e n c e s o r
severely d i s c i p l i n e d h e d g e s " (Wells 1928: 4 6 1 ) .
T h e i d e a that a strong c o m m i t m e n t to the c a l c u l a t i v e rationality of w o r k
d r i v e s out t h e c a p a c i t y f o r the c a r e l e s s e n j o y m e n t e v e n of leisure hours is o n e
of W e l l s ' f a v o u r i t e t h e m e s . In Mr Polly e v e n the elderly g o l f e r s of W i m b l e d o n
" s m i t e h u n t e d little w h i t e balls with the utmost bitterness and dexterity" (Wells
1 9 2 8 : 4 6 1 ). It is this notion, too, that underlies Wells' use of the well-established
c o m i c national script of eager, earnest, hustling A m e r i c a n tourists in E u r o p e ,
a l w a y s p u r s u i n g h a p p i n e s s but n e v e r quite c a t c h i n g u p with it. W h e n M r .
Polly w o r k e d in C a n t e r b u r y , h e w a s suitably i m p r e s s e d by the A m e r i c a n
tourists' d e t e r m i n e d , methodical, hurried attempt to " d o " C h a u c e r and M a r l o w e
in an a f t e r n o o n , to g r a s p only the " B r o a d E l e m e n t a l C a n t e r b u r y P r a h p o s i t i o n "
stripped of its " s i d e - s h o w s " and " s e c o n d - r a t e stunts." T h i s attempt to m e a s u r e
leisure as if it were work, in a sort of Baedeker productivity drive, Mr. Polly

termed "Cultured Rapacacity and Voracious Return to the Heritage" (see Wells
1928:431 ).
One of Wells' best portraits of a member of the lower-middle-class held
fast in a niche is that of Mr. Polly's cousin Harold Johnson, who to his regret
was not a small businessman but a railway ticket clerk on a fixed salary.
Johnson's life is ruled by grey, distasteful figures and by an obsessive hatred
of waste that far exceeds his wish for profit. Like Mr. Benshaw, Johnson is a
gardener with a real but also symbolic liking for narrow, waste-free paths. By
contrast, Mr. Polly's most vivid, affectionate and human memory of his re-
cently deceased father was of an angry and violent confrontation with just
such a physical constriction, as his father struggled to lug a jammed sofa up a
narrow winding staircase:
A weakly wilful being, struggling to get obdurate things round impossible

corners — in that symbol Mr. Polly could recognise himself and all the trou-
ble of humanity. (Wells 1928: 438)
Johnson has no such passions, he has become a mere projection of the routine
methodical world of the ideal typical petty bureaucrat, much as the thriving
tradesman whom Johnson urges Mr. Polly to emulate — "Rymer, Pork Butcher
and Provision Merchant, The World Famed Easewood Sausage" — has be-
come a "distinguished comestible" (Wells 1928: 444). To use Max Weber's
(1948: 228) phrase, the bureaucratic Johnson "is chained to his activity by his
entire material and ideal existence ... a single cog in an ever-moving mecha-
nism which prescribes to him an essentially fixed route of march."
In these various ways Wells' comedies repeatedly caricature the rational-
izing work ethic and its deleterious effects on successful and failed alike.
However, the cage-like nature of work in Wells' comedies is also indicated by
his portrayal of various antitheses to it. The simplest of these is escape, the
brief escape of a holiday or temporary affluent unemployment; the flight of
Bealby, the final release of Kipps through chance inheritance, and of Mr.
Polly by successful arson and bungled suicide. Holidays are unwork, days
free from routine and regularity, compulsion and the clock. Holidays shine
out "like diamonds among pebbles" (Wells 1928: 407), in contrast to a life
dominated by work that has "the hue of one perpetual dismal Monday morn-
ing" — "no adventure, no glory, no change, no freedom" (Wells 1928: 55) in
which even food becomes "the rope of meal-times" (Wells 1928: 52). For Mr.
Polly, "Holidays were his life, and the rest merely adulterated living" (Wells
1928:459). The contrast is particularly well drawn by Wells at the point where
Mr. Polly realizes that his father's insurance money cannot last forever and
he is d o o m e d to return to the dismal life of a small draper. Mr. Polly knows
that the time has c o m e to "get off his bike":
The happy dream in which he had been living of long, warm days of open
roads of limitless, unchecked hours, of infinite time to look about him, van-
ished like a thing enchanted. He was suddenly back in the hard old economic
world that enacts work, that limits range, that discourages phrasing and dis-
pels laughter. He saw Wood Street [where unemployed shop assistants sought
work] and its fearful suspenses yawning beneath his feet. (Wells 1928: 493)
For Mr. Polly and Kipps alike, there is a key turning point in their relationship
with work — the big escape where they simply walk away from it. In The
Wealth of Mr Waddy, Kipps on inheriting the fortune of the late Mr. Waddy
sees the money above all as the end of work:
The Emporium was over forever. Forever!.... HOLIDAYS! HOLIDAYS! All

the year was to be one long Holiday now, the Sundays OF HIS FUTURE,
THE EARLY CLOSING AFTERNOONS had spread out and touched one
another. (Wells 1969: 114)
Mr. Polly as a successful arsonist and failed suicide likewise learns that
when a man has once broken through the paper walls of everyday circum-
stances, those insubstantial walls that hold so many of us securely prisoned
from the cradle to the grave, he has made a discovery. If your world does not
please you, you can change it. He could, for example, "clear out." It became a
wonderful and alluring phrase to him — "Clear out!" (Wells 1928: 566-567)
For the next month, Mr. Polly becomes a wanderer and, instead of working,
leads a healthy o u t d o o r life, seeking out the interesting in a timeless,
unbusinesslike way.
However, it is significant that Wells does not allow his heroes to take to a
permanent life of idle wandering and squandering. 2 Bealby eventually crawls
back hungry, frightened and repentant to the tasks of a steward's room boy at
Shonts; Kipps loses most of his first fortune and ends up running a small
bookshop in Hythe; and Mr. Polly becomes odd-job man at the Potwell Inn.
Only Bealby, though, is really defeated — both Kipps and Mr. Polly enjoy
curiously unrealistic happy endings, back once again in the uncertain world
of the small businessman. These unreal endings immediately pose the ques-
tion: why should our heroes feel more content or fulfilled running a bookshop
in Hythe or a pub in Potwell than a draper's shop in Fishbourne? The answer
is partly an economic one. Neither Kipps' bookshop nor the Potwell Inn are
under financial pressure. Kipps is sufficiently well off not to have to worry
about the solvency of his bookshop thanks to his lucky investment in
Chitterlow's distant theatrical speculations. Wells tells the reader even less
about the finances of the Potwell Inn, but one may infer from the final note of
fluvial security that closes Mr. Polly's history, as it does that of Kipps, that
there is no fear of the Potwell Inn's ever-plumpening landlady losing her
shape or her licence. Somehow the fictitious Potwell Inn is immune from the
kind of memorable slide into debt and disaster that had overwhelmed Wells'
own maternal grandfather, George Neal, who had kept the Fountains Inn in
Chichester and the New Inn at Midhurst with an equal lack of success (West
1984: 161-162). For unexplained reasons, the Potwell Inn, like Kipps' book-
shop in Hythe, is exempt from the harsh economic generalizations that Wells
put in the mouth of a "gifted if unpleasant contemporary" about the slow
inevitable slide into bankruptcy and ruin of the small retailer (Wells 1928:
524-526).
Because Kipps' wealth frees him from the economic anxieties and pres-
sures of a small trader with little capital, he is able to survive the collapse of
his sponsor (and in effect partner), the Associated Booksellers' Trading Un-
ion, and float alone buoyed up by his liquidity. Kipps is depicted as a man
able to relax and potter about his shop chatting idly to non-customers dis-
guised as potential customers about matters unrelated to his business.
For Mr. Polly, work at the Potwell Inn was larger, more active, more var-
ied than it ever had been in the cramped little shop in Fishbourne. Although
his tasks at the Inn are listed rather than described, the list conveys an impres-
sive disregard for specialization or the division of labour. Mr. Polly runs a
small ferry, hires out boats, drowns cats, and looks after poultry, ducks, gar-
den, picnickers and an orchard as well as the Inn itself.
In addition to these images of ideal work as an activity both relaxed and
varied, Wells also briefly shows his readers the joys and perils of work as
self-expression. The events that led to the dismissal of Mr. Polly's close friend
Parsons from the Port Burdock Bazaar can be seen as a comment on this as-
pect of a man's working life. Parsons' manic excitement when dressing a
shop window, and his principled but unwise defence of his creation against
higher authority led to one of Wells' characteristically ineffective lower-middle
class brawls that accelerate from farce to social rather than physical tragedy.
In this way, Wells was able to give comic expression to the inevitable conflict
between individual self-expression and the workings of a hierarchical
organization designed for more mundane ends. Parsons' fight with his employer
Mr. Garvace (and Mr. Garvace's minions) ends in disaster as the frustrated
artist, when ordered out of what Parsons sees as "his" window, smites the
"sacred" "autocratic" bald head that symbolizes Mr Garvace's authority with
a thin cylinder of rolled huckaback (see Wells 1928: 413-419). Parsons is
sacked and Mr. Polly also subsequently leaves the tedium of work for the
anxious humiliation of unemployment. The fundamental contradiction of the
modem world between the "economizing," rationalizing pressures of a hierar-
chical organization and the limitless anomic individual drive for self-realization
(embodied in Mr. Garvace and Parsons respectively) can have no easy or
peaceful resolution. It is no wonder that Mr. Polly puzzled about the incident
for years afterwards, trying to decide who had been in the right.
Wells' insights into "work and its discontents" (Bell [ 1956] 1960:222-262)
may be found today in studies of work satisfaction and dissatisfaction by
industrial sociologists and social psychologists. The importance of factors
such as variety, job rotation, autonomy and creativity in improving levels of
work satisfaction are repeatedly observed (Cooker 1973: 387-413; Porter et.al
1975: 277-298), though it has proved extremely difficult to establish exact
relationships between the objective aspects of a task and the subjective as-
sessment of that task by the person performing it. Also the expectations that
individuals bring to their work are very varied and modify the degree to which
a particular task is found to be rewarding or frustrating.
The widely held view first propounded by Maslow ( 1943: 370-396, 1970)
that as societies become wealthier and more secure, so that in consequence
the individual's most basic physiological needs and requirements for safety
and security are met, "higher order needs" for autonomy or self-actualization
emerge is intuitively plausible but has not been empirically validated. There
have been many studies to test Maslow's hypothesis, but the results of these
have been contradictory (see Kokkilaet.al. 1972:5-9; Porter et.al. 1975: 35-47;
Hirszowicz 1981: 71-97). There seems to be some truth in Maslow's thesis,
but it is difficult to know how much — and much of its popularity is due to
the congruence between Maslow's progressive humanist values and those of
even the most number-crunching of social psychologists. It can be plausibly
argued that the insights into the nature of work to be found in Wells' com-
edies are supported by the later findings of the social psychologists and soci-
ologists — but only with caution, for such people are likely to share many of
Wells' values and will shape and interpret their findings accordingly. Also
I have of necessity tended to select those aspects of Wells' treatment of work

that can be viewed within conventional sociological and social psychological
frameworks. To cite the findings of the practitioners of the latter in support of
my interpretation of Wells is dangerously close to becoming a circular argu-
ment.
One of the most striking of the social psychologists' findings is the insa-
tiable character of the "need" for "self-actualization or growth", "in the sense
that the more it is satisfied the more important it becomes" (Porter et.al. 1975:
45). When this finding is placed alongside another seemingly limitless phe-
nomenon that can be readily observed pressing hard on the working indi-
vidual, namely, the economizing rationalizing drive for efficiency, productiv-
ity and results in order to produce enhanced profitability or the meeting of
ever higher quantifiable bureaucratic targets, it is clear that there is ample
empirical support for the view of the macrosociologists that our anomic mod-
ern societies are characterized by major, irresolvable cultural contradictions
(Bell 1979, and for an earlier period Durkheim 1933).
Scientific discoveries, improvements in technology, and the automation
of routine tasks lessen the pressures of scarcity and remove obstacles to job
enlargement; but they also create — or, more accurately, permit — new pres-
sures for greater standardization and specialization of work roles. Those with
power are able to monitor and control certain kinds of work with ever greater
precision, and this has led them to attempt to grade and sieve ever less easily
quantifiable human activities and achievements such as military credibility
(a bigger bang for a buck), scholarship (the citation index), or even religion
(Herzberg 1966: 1-5). Those without power are encouraged to assent to this
through an invoking of the politics of egalitarian envy by their rulers (Schoeck
1969: 105,134,207). In the past, the central ideological demand of the egali-
tarians was for equality of material resources and possessions, but now it has
been extended to cover non-material aspects of satisfaction from work, by
the imposition of arbitrary bureaucratic rules of accountability on those whose
autonomy and self-realization in their work appear higher than average
(Schoeck 1969: 93,175,191,234, 308, 379). They should be, must be, made
as disciplined and as bored as the rest. Alienation cannot be abolished so it
must be universalized. On this point at least the view of work held by both the
levellers and the bureaucratic centralizers is consistent with the ideology of
their common Jacobin ancestors.
There is one striking weakness in Wells' thinking that he shared with many
of the reformers and radicals of his day. They assumed that the painful clashes
between the individual's quasi-romantic demands for self-expression and the
economizing constraints of the market-place could be abolished by changing

the forms through which these clashes found expression. Hence their rejec-
tion of the dominant institutions of the nineteenth century: capitalism, volun-
tary organization, middle-class respectability and family authority in favour
of the fallacies of the twentieth: socialism, enhanced central and local gov-
ernment power, more stringent bureaucratic controls, the politicization of the
everyday world, and authoritarian levelling. Wells was in fact wiser than most,
as readers can see from his satire of the Webbs as Oscar and Altora Bailey in
The New Machiavelli or his quarrel with the inanely blind and authoritarian
George Bernard Shaw about the true nature of Soviet Russia (West 1984:
135-142). Wells' mockery of the Baileys is worth quoting in this context for
its accuracy and prescience:
If [the Baileys] had the universe in hand, I know they would take down all the
trees and put up stamped-tin green shades and sunlight accumulators. Altiora
thought trees hopelessly irregular and sea cliffs a great mistake....
[At the Baileys'] you felt you were in a sort of signal-box with levers all about
you, and the world outside there, albeit a little dark and mysterious beyond the
window, running on its lines in ready obedience to these unhesitating lights,
true and steady to trim termini. (Wells 1966: 165-166)
Richard Remington in The New Machiavelli can dismiss the work of Herbert
Spencer, much as the narrator in Mr Polly shrugs aside Samuel Smiles, even
though it is doubtful whether Wells had read either of these nineteenth cen-
tury prophets of individualism and self-help with any thoroughness or under-
standing. 3 Indeed Remington clearly sympathizes with his father's diatribe
against individual ownership:
Property's the curse of life. Property! Ugh! Look at this country all cut up into
silly little parallelograms .... It isn't a world we live in, Dick; it's a cascade of
accidents, it's a chaos exasperated by policemen!.... the folly and muddle that
come from headlong, aimless and haphazard methods. (Wells 1966: 37)
Remington himself says of the Victorian epoch:
That age that bore me was indeed a world full of restricted and undisciplined
people, overtaken by power, by possessions and great new freedoms, and un-
able to make any civilized use of them whatever. (Wells 1966: 40)
For Remington this is indeed the essential nature of late nineteenth-century

England. Like the Wells who created him, he failed to recognize that the spon-
taneous order emerging from the market-place, from a system of law grounded
in precedent, from the unforseeable process of discovery and invention is as
structured and necessary as the planned order of corporate decision-making,
statute law or the deliberate design and replication of a machine (Barry, 1982:
7-58; Polanyi 1951: 156, 185).
The odd phrase "restricted and undisciplined people" Wells uses to de-
scribe his contemporaries is an attempt to slide across and evade the essential
nature of the contradiction necessarily at the core of all large-scale urban
societies based on modern technology. It implies that if only these people
would embrace science, civilization and socialism, then in that great Wellsian
Utopian ideal of order and economy, they would become more disciplined
and yet, by some mysterious dialectical alchemy, also less restricted! You
will want to do what they tell you to do. Members of the Progressive League
unite, you have but your parallelograms to lose. Wells' choice of this regular
but unpleasing shape to symbolize people who are trapped, enclosed, restricted
in a confined and inefficient world that provides minimal space for maximum
boundaries is a shrewd one. If only these randomly shaped and sized paral-
lelograms could become a disciplined lattice of squares or hexagons, indi-
viduals would have more room to expand! Yet Wells is wrong both about
means and about ends. Planning and Fabian socialism with their "administra-
tive fizzle and pseudo-scientific chatter" (see Wells 1966: 166) have not in
the long run improved the sprawling streets and suburbs of South London so
disliked by Remington and Wells. They have merely destroyed their human
scale and undermined the involved spontaneous order that Wells failed to
recognize and appreciate, in order to build alien tower blocks and bloated
schools, divided by areas of (in both senses) indefensible space deserted at
night save for the vandals and the occasional mugger or rapist (Davies 1983).
Even if the "human splendours" of Wells' "justly organized state" (see Wells
1966: 13) were possible, individuals would still be trapped in the disciplined
grid it would require. Indeed human beings may well feel more free in and
therefore prefer an untidy heap of parallelograms to the square cages of bat-
tery chickens or the hexagonal symmetries of the beehive. Even in a properly
planned, surveyed and measured excavation, many a Mr. Polly will cry out:
"Hole!... Ole!... Oh! Beastly Silly Wheeze of a hole!... Roootten Beeeastly
Silly Hole!" (Wells 1928: 391, 395).
Indeed, it is Wells' Edwardian holes that have survived and not his brave
new worlds; the holes have proved to be greater than the sum of Wells' paths.
It is not Wells' Utopian rhetoric but the frustrations of his ordinary heroes
trapped not by introspective existential doubts but by external circumstances

that remain vivid today. We laugh at their antics, and rejoice when they es-
cape. Readers are as much moved by their unformed, clumsy but intense sense
of beauty and adventure as by any detailed self-conscious account of the ex-
otic sensations of an aesthete or explorer at the limits of human experience.
Yet Wells could only have achieved all this within the framework of a com-
edy. In any other setting Wells' exploration of the feelings and perceptions of
a Mr. Polly, a Kipps, or a Bealby trapped in the mundane world of work of the
lower-middle classes would risk appearing sugary, mawkish, condescending,
and emetic. Wells' greatness lies in his ability to judge exactly the degree of
comic distance each situation requires — an achievement that places him
alongside Cervantes, Dickens or Hasek — and not in his flawed and contra-
dictory grand ideas. If Wells' novels were, as is often claimed, only a dustbin
for ideas, it is the dustbins that have survived (as any literal-minded person
would expect, for that is what dustbins are built to do). It doesn't matter that
Wells' bubbling thoughts and images are inconsistent, for the business of the
novelist is to explore our contradictory world, not to resolve it.
Wells' comedies have also influenced and inspired other gifted writers of
humour. George Orwell (1961) is often cited as a savage critic of Wells' later
grand schemes, but he was also the imitator of The History of Mr Polly in
Coming up for Air (Orwell [1939] 1980). Orwells' hero George Bowling ac-
tually read The History of Mr Polly (Orwell [1939] 1980: 120-121), prior to
his own failed break through the "paper walls of everyday circumstance".
Mr. Bowling experienced but a few days on the other side of those insubstan-
tial walls — to find that his childhood home, Lower Binfield, had become a
depressing version of Wells' Bromstead — before returning to his everyday
tasks at Flying Salamander Insurance. (Mr. Polly's neighbour, little Clamp of
the toyshop, was insured with Royal Salamander.) The Royal Salamander has
flown, and so has the Wellsian joy and optimism of Mr. Polly's escape; George
Bowling will become Winston Smith.
The most important offspring of Wells' comedies though is Sinclair Lewis'
Babbitt (1922), an American version of Mr Polly. Babbitt, unlike Mr. Polly, is
a successful businessman, but he is rendered equally discontented by the in-
cessant pressures of and for efficiency and productivity, and in his own way
he also tries to escape. The contradictions of success can be as disturbing as
those of failure and are just as rich a source of comic action, description, and
comment. Sinclair Lewis (1954:158) greatly admired Wells and indeed named
his eldest son after him. He called Tono-Bungay "the liveliest of novels" (Lewis
[1946] 1954: 160) and found "in the early Wells, especially in Mr. Polly, such
a sensational gaiety" (Lewis [1946] 1954: 161). It is difficult to believe that

the creation of Babbitt was not influenced by the example of Mr. Polly and
Uncle Ponderevo.
Lewis, like Wells, wrote too much, and his later work is better forgotten, if
only that we may concentrate our attention on his early comedies where he
employed his "vigorous and graphic art of description to create, with wit and
humour, new types of people" (Citation for 1930 Nobel prize in Lewis 1954: 3).
This comment made at the time of the Nobel award to Lewis applies with
equal force to the author Lewis so much admired, H. G. Wells.
Chapter 10
Conclusion
In each of the previous chapters about jokes and, to some extent, other forms
of humour as well, certain common methods and principles have been ap-
plied. Perhaps the most important of these is the comparative method which
has been used to seek reasons for the existence of particular types of jokes in
a culture or society, by looking at other societies where similar jokes exist
and, even more important, at yet further societies where they do not. In either
case it is also necessary to look at other empirical data about what these soci-
eties, cultures and relative positions of jokers and the butts of their jokes have
in common and also how they differ. Explanations that stem from this ap-
proach are superior to attempts to provide one-off explanations for the exist-
ence of a specific genre of jokes in one particular society. Those who fail to
use this method all too often impose their own theoretical framework on the
data, either directly, or by eliciting comments from the joke-tellers that fa-
vour their thesis by asking them leading questions or by selecting those as-
pects of the joke-tellers-answers that happen to fit. It is not possible to avoid
this problem by using questionnaires because the very act of asking people a
series of structured questions in a formal setting itself biases the answers in a
particular direction; it encourages respondents to reduce humorous commu-
nications to their supposed serious equivalents. The problem is even worse if
the group sampled consists of students', since their very role as students,
especially if they are studying a subject such as psychology, sociology, an-
thropology or folklore tends to bias their answers in a particular way. Obser-
vation of joke-tellers in situ followed by neutral questioning does provide
useful data but only in regard to those particular individuals in that particular
context. It may well be illustrative of a much broader pattern but cannot be
used on its own as proof that a pattern exists.
Even the most gifted and skilled of observers such as Kravitz or Holbek
have been apt to make mistakes on the basis of studying the jokes of one
country at a time. Thus Kravitz (1977) in his study of joke-telling in London
in the 1970s was able to find informants who thought that the Irish really
were stupid because of the chronic and irresolveable conflict over the
sovereignity of Northern Ireland between the Protestant Ulster Unionist
majority and the Roman Catholic supporters of Sinn Fein and the IRA,
166 Conclusion
a conflict which had spilled over into mainland Britain. No doubt there are
some individuals who hold this view or who will express such a view, rather
than any other views they may hold, if questioned in a particular way, but
there is no evidence that they were opinions representative of the British people
as a whole. However, the central objection to Kravitz thesis is that exactly the
same jokes are told in Spain about the Leperos of Lepe or in Canada about
Newfoundlanders, countries in which there are no conflicts between these
peoples and the rest of the population.
The same criticism may be made of Bengt Holbek's (1975) otherwise
shrewd and well informed thesis about the telling of Aarhus stupidity jokes in
Denmark. Holbek discovered that a key group disseminating jokes about
Aarhus stupidity was composed of broadcasting staff in Copenhagen, who
were resentful at the build up of a rival regional broadcasting organization in
Aarhus with corresponding job-losses in Copenhagen. They adapted many
German jokes about stupid Ostfrieslanders and older Danish jokes about the
Molboer and helped to bring about a joke-cycle of Aarhus stupidity jokes in
Denmark. The problem with Holbek's argument is that many other broad-
casters and comedians have tried arbitrarily to pin jokes on particular places,
such as the seaside towns of Morecambe and Torquay in England, but the
jokes have never really caught on with the public. Likewise Jasper Carrot, a
British comedian as well as a red vegetable, told stupidity jokes about the
readers of the Sun newspaper, one of Britain's more exuberant and protuber-
ant tabloids over a long period of time, but the jokes never went into oral
circulation. The mass media do not necessarily have the power to mould popu-
lar humour, as can be seen from the popularity among the relevant publics of
jokes that have never been broadcast because of censorship, such as jokes
about AIDS, Brezhnev, Black Afro-Americans, Dr. Goebbels, famines, sexual
assaults on youngsters by Roman Catholic priests and Christian Brothers or
the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The important question, which can
only be answered from comparative data is "Why did the Aarhus jokes suc-
ceed among the generality of the Danish population?" The answer lies in the
provincial and peripheral position of Aarhus in relation to Copenhagen the
metropolitan centre of Denmark. Aarhus may not be as rustic as Ostfriesland
but it is separated from Copenhagen and Odense by water and the people
speak with a distinctive regional accent. Also it is located within a few miles
of Mols, the fishing village that was the butt of the Molboer stupidity jokes in
nineteenth century and early twentieth century Denmark and even Norway.
This evidence, and other comparative and historical data from all six conti-
nents to the effect that in stupidity jokes the centre laughs at the periphery,
Conclusion 167
demonstrates that the involvement of the Copenhagen broadcasters, though

interesting, was merely an epiphenomenon.
The strength of the comparative method as a means of demonstrating the
failure of widely-held theories about ethnic humour should now be apparent;
it is appropriate at this point to make fully explicit the comparative method
underlying the analysis of a diversity of material in earlier chapters. The cen-
tral methodological principle employed may be termed, in honour of Sherlock
Holmes, "the dog that didn't bark in the night" 2 , i.e. why is it that certain
jokes that could easily be invented and circulated are not? Why is it that cer-
tain possible kinds of jokes do not exist?
It is not an easy test to apply, for it requires a thorough knowledge of the
jokes in oral circulation in a society. In the case of past societies this is often
not possible because all that is available to us is the written record. We do not
have access to the full range of jokes that were told in past societies; we know
only those that someone thought worth writing down and which, by chance,
have survived. Even then they may only be accessible to and understood by
those who know the relevant language and perhaps also something of the
conventions of that society in regard to humour. In commenting on jokes that
originally came from ancient Greece or the time of the Chinese dynasties of
the past, I have been sharply aware of how much anyone doing comparative
work is forced to depend on the translations and editorial selection of others.
Under these circumstances it is very difficult to state with any great degree of
certainty that a particular genre of jokes did not exist at a particular time and
in a particular place in the past.
With the invention of printing and the mass production of jokebooks the
task of the scholar of comparative humour has become easier, but it is still the
case that jokes that cannot be found in printed form may well have been in
oral circulation in a particular society, but that due either to censorship by the
state or to pressure from influential institutions they were prevented from
appearing in print. Many grossly obscene or blasphemous jokes of the past
may have disappeared altogether or else have only been preserved in some
hand-written compilation put together by a tenacious antiquarian, a faithful
folklorist or a dirty old man. Even today certain very popular jokes do not get
into print.
This is probably the reason for the apparent shortage of American jokes
about blacks that led Dundes ([1971] 1987: 137) erroneously to suggest that
ethnic jokes about Poles or Italians flourished in America because they took
the heat off the blacks. Yet jokes about blacks are very numerous and popu-
lar in the United States, as can be seen from the content of many scholarly
168 Conclusion
American dissertations (Katz 1979; Kimmel 1977). The absence or paucity

of such jokes in print merely reflects the fact that American publishers and
book retailers have been leaned on not to publish collections of jokes about
blacks by powerful upper-middle-class groups in strategic positions, even
though it would have been profitable to market such books. Before the 1960s
there were very many American joke-books about blacks (Cobb 1923, 1925;
Ernst 1927; House 1943,1944,1945), but were scholars of the future looking
back at the latter part of the twentieth century to confine their attention to
printed sources, they might falsely conclude that these jokes about blacks
were no longer frequently told. Unpublished dissertations based on jokes in
oral circulation in America contain far more jokes about blacks than do
published collections of jokes but future historians who neglect to examine
these scattered manuscripts might well end up supporting the mistaken thesis
that the rise of the Polish joke in America was accompanied by or even caused
by a collapse in popular joke-telling about Afro-Americans.
Throughout the previous chapters the emphasis on the near universality of
stupidity jokes has carried with it an implicit statement about jokes that do
not exist and it is this that makes the entire thesis falsifiable and thus mean-
ingful. The empirical generalization that ethnic jokes about stupidity are told
about familiar groups living on the periphery of the society where they are
told leads to the prediction that if ethnic stupidity jokes are discovered being
told in some as yet unexamined society, then the same pattern will apply, thus
confirming the view that the basis of stupidity humour lies in the seeing of
some other group as being a comically distorted version of the joke-tellers
themselves. The theory would be falsified if it was discovered that ethnic
stupidity jokes were discovered being invented and circulated under converse
circumstances, i.e. if they were told about a completely alien group or about a
culturally and commercially dominant ethnic or regional group at the centre
of the society. This is not a crude power-relations model for it specifies the
nature of the power held by the group about whom stupidity jokes are never
told, even though the joke-tellers are at liberty to do so. By contrast a group
whose dominance and power is political or military in character may well be
the butt of such jokes, even though it tries to repress them.
Since this thesis was formulated (Davies 1982a, 1990a) many cases have
been discovered that continue to confirm it but none that would overturn it.
Thus, for example, when Professor W.M.S.Russell, the distinguished former
President of the Folklore Society in London, told me in 1996 that he had
learned that Peruvians told ethnic stupidity jokes about the Arequipeños, the
people of Arequiba in Peru, I predicted (on the basis of the centre-periphery
Conclusion 169
thesis and in particular by analogy with Colombia) that they would live on
the periphery of the country, speak Spanish with a distinct accent and be con-
servative and very Catholic. Professor Russell checked with his Peruvian in-
formant and reported back that these predictions were correct.
In 19961 was also able to collect in situ many versions of the jokes told in
Syria and particularly in the capital Damascus about the regional towns of
Horns, Hama and Aleppo that were cited in Chapter two on fooltowns:
A man from Horns found £500 Syrian in very new notes lying on the ground.
He looked around carefully to make sure nobody was watching, took them
and put £500 down in old notes instead. (Damascus 1996)
A Homsiot took part in a race in which he was the only competitor. He came
in second. (Damascus 1996)
Why does a Homsiot put a cucumber under his pillow but not a tomato?
A tomato would get squashed. (Damascus 1996)
The people in Horns decided to save time by giving all their jokes numbers
and shouting out the numbers. Someone shouted Number 6 and everyone
laughed. Another person shouted Number 9 and everyone laughed. Some-
body then shouted Number 27 and everyone laughed for a short time but one
man went on and on laughing. The other Homsiots asked him why he laughed
so much. He replied, "because I had never heard it before." (Damascus 1996)
Why does a Homsiot sleep with one eye open and the other closed?
He took half a sleeping pill. (Damascus 1996)
A man from Horns and a man from Hama quarreled. The man from Horns
unscrewed the man from Hama's door and ran away with it. The man from
Hama chased after him. The man from Horns got tired and stopped, putting
the door down in the road between them. The man from Hama caught up with
him and knocked on it saying, "Open the door". The man from Horns refused
to open it.
Just then a man from Aleppo came along who was carrying a large jar of olive
oil. He asked the man from Hama, "Why do you want him to open the door?"
"Because he stole it," came the reply. He then asked the man from Horns if
this was true. "Yes", said the man from Horns, "it is — so I'm not going to
open the door." The man from Aleppo poured all the olive oil out of his jar
onto the ground banged the empty jar and said, "Your heads are as empty as
my jar." (Damascus 1996)
170 Conclusion
These in the main highly original local jokes, which exist in both narrative
and riddle form, demonstrate that the ethnic/fooltown stupidity joke is alive
and flourishing in Syria and indeed these jokes are also told in the Lebanon.
They are told in the capital Damascus, where two million people live, about
the people on the periphery in smaller towns such as Horns, Hama and Aleppo.
They are not told about complete outsiders such as the Turks, the Israelis or
the Iraqis (with all of whom the Syrians have had military and/or territorial
conflicts) nor are they told about warring factions in the Lebanon such as the
Maronites, or the Hizbollah. None of my informants considered the people of
Horns to be in any sense really stupid, indeed they said that the town was
known for providing excellent high-school teachers for both Syria and Leba-
non. Rather the jokes stemmed from the towns' distance from and contrast
with the centre, the great cities of Damascus in Syria and Beirut in the Lebanon.
The absence of any indigenous ethnic or regional pattern of jokes about
stupidity in Japan is a puzzle, given that these jokes are so widespread in the
rest of the world. It does not disprove the thesis that these jokes are a way in
which those at the centre of a nation or culture laugh at the people of the
periphery, for the thesis does not state that all peoples will tell stupidity jokes,
it merely specifies about whom they will be told, if and when they are told. If
the Japanese were to tell stupidity jokes about the people of Tokyo or Osaka
or about Americans, Germans, Chinese or Persians, then it would create se-
vere problems for the central thesis of this book, but in point of fact such
jokes are not told about particular groups. All gaijin [foreigners i.e. non-Japa-
nese] are "funny" to the Japanese but none are singled out as the butt of stu-
pidity jokes, nor are such suitable regional groups as the people of Tohoku. It
still remains to be explained, though, why the Japanese do not tell the kinds
of jokes about the stupid and the canny that are to be found in other industrial
and industrializing countries. Neither recourse to the well-worn notion of Japa-
nese uniqueness and exceptionalism nor the observation that there is a gen-
eral lack of jokes in Japan provide an entirely satisfactory explanation.
The linking of the ethnic stupidity jokes and the ethnic canniness jokes to
the development of industrial society in countries other than Japan itself re-
lies on a particular joke not being told. Before the late eighteenth century
there is an absence or apparent absence of ethnic jokes about the canny. Jokes
about the canny Scots have not been recorded prior to the beginning of the
transformation of Britain into a predominantly urban and industrial society,
even though the Protestant Ethic pattern of canny behaviour had taken hold in
Scotland much earlier, following the Reformation and the formation of the
distinctively Calvinist Church of Scotland in the sixteenth century. As the rest
Conclusion 171
of the world in turn became commercial, capitalist and industrial so the jokes
about the canny calculating Scots spread to other countries or else local equiva-
lents were devised, as in the case of the Paisas, Regiomontanos or
Gabrovonians. Only with the development of a capitalist society in which the
possession of the Protestant ethic or its local equivalent was a means of achiev-
ing financial success through the adoption of a somewhat over-controlled and
joyless life-style did the ethnic jokes about the canny flourish. It is the ab-
sence of these jokes in earlier societies that is crucial to the argument that the
ethnic jokes about the canny and the stupid are the product of a modern or
modernizing society in which these qualities are two key opposed modes of
failure. By contrast, the other prop of the theory, the observation that ethnic
stupidity jokes multiplied enormously in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-
ries in Britain and America, is weaker, for it is open to the objection that jokes
of all kinds multiplied and were recorded more effectively in this period. Of
all human failings stupidity is perhaps the best suited to the construction both
of jokes that resolve incongruity and of jokes that end in nonsense, as can be
seen from the Syrian stupidity jokes about Horns quoted above. It would be
difficult to construct as many good jokes around other negatively-viewed
qualities such as cowardice or impiety. Only ethnic jokes about the canny
rival the stupidity ones in numbers and skill of construction and it is this that
has prompted the view taken here that these jokes reflect the nature of mod-
ern society.
It is difficult to assess the extent to which those who tell stupidity jokes
are anxious about the technical complexity of the modern world as suggested
earlier. It is easy to provide illustrations of people using appropriate jokes
under conditions where the use of new technology provokes anxiety as with
the jokes collected by Bob Ward (1982) from around the launching pads of
the United States, when America first put human beings into space, or with
the Rev. Sydney Smith's use of humour to back his campaign for greater
safety on the early nineteenth century railways in Britain. However, these are
only illustrations. The feelings and attitudes in this respect of the people in
general who tell, listen to or enjoy ethnic stupidity jokes are largely unknown.
We know the social circumstances that give rise to the jokes in aggregate but
we cannot easily infer from this the subjective perceptions of particular joke-
tellers.
Similarly it seems likely that the joke-telling Damascenes from the capital
of Syria feel superior to the inhabitants of the smaller provincial towns of
Horns, Hama or Aleppo who are the butts of their stupidity jokes, since those
at the centre are better placed than those at the periphery. However, if such a
172 Conclusion
sense of superiority exists, it will have preceded the joke-telling; it is not a

result of it and would exist whether the jokes were told or not. Perhaps it is
this sense of superiority that enables the Damascenes to enjoy a brief Hobbe-
sian burst of glory at the expense of the Homsiots when the jokes are told but
that again is an empirical question that could only be answered by studying
these particular joke-tellers. It is very difficult for the sociologist to bridge
the gap between (a) the macro-level correlations between particular genres of
jokes and corresponding configurations of the social order on the one hand
and (b) the perceptions, attitudes and beliefs of individuals enjoying these
jokes in specific contexts (which are likely to be very varied and changeable).
Likewise my extension of the general thesis put forward concerning the gen-
esis of jokes about the stupid and the canny to cover also disaster jokes, mod-
ern urban legends and literary texts such as the comedies of H. G. Wells has
to be tentative. Whilst it is pleasing to be able to treat such diverse items
within a single straightforward framework in a way that makes sense, this is
no guarantee of its being right, nor do the links that I have sought to establish
between this work and the findings of Max Weber or of modern industrial
sociologists underwrite the truth of my argument; they merely show that my
analysis of the societies in which the jokes are told is not a strange or eccen-
tric one. The jokes I have analysed can in turn, of course, be used as empirical
evidence to support, criticise or revise the theoretical, historical and com-
parative sociology that has been used to analyse the jokes as in Chapter 4,
where the canny jokes were employed in an assessment of Weber's Protestant
Ethic thesis. It is not circular to do so since (a) my suggestions concerning the
general significance of the widespread popularity of ethnic jokes about can-
niness do not depend on the truth or falsity of Weber's thesis and (b) Weber's
original study is based on an immense variety of source material, only a very
tiny proportion of which consists of humorous items.
Three further examples of genres of jokes that do not exist have been
directly or indirectly referred to in earlier chapters. The first of these is dis-
cussed in Chapter Two where reference has been made to the crucial absence
in British ethnic stupidity jokes about the Irish of the quality of dirtiness that
is so prominent in American jokes about Poles and Italians. It is this absence
that enables us to use the jokes as a means of analysing cultural differences
between the two countries on matters as diverse as orthodontics and the dis-
posal of the bodies of the dead (Davies 1995). A further question that then
arises is whether Canadian humour, and thus by implication Canadian cul-
ture, is more similar to that of Britain (and of France and Ireland where stupidity
Conclusion 173
j o k e s also do not deal with dirtiness) or to that of the United States, a country
obsessed with rational hygiene and physical perfection.
Paradoxically, such jokes do not exist in print in Canada but are c o m m o n
in oral circulation, whereas they are to be found in print in Britain, though in
one source only, but they have not gone into oral circulation. Had I relied
only on printed joke-books for the study of Canadian jokes, I would have
c o m e to the false conclusion that there were no Canadian j o k e s about dirty
N e w f i e s comparable to American j o k e s about dirty Polacks and would have
wrongly categorized Canadian jokes as being similar to British and French
j o k e s rather than to those of the United States. Fortunately, I was able to study
the Canadian folklore collections at the Memorial University of N e w f o u n d -
land, York University, Université Laval and the Université de Moncton, which
revealed that the Canadians do tell such jokes; in addition the Québécois, like
the Americans of N e w Jersey tell jokes about dirty Italians. These ethnic jokes
are either censored out of existence by the Canadian publishers and editors of
j o k e b o o k s or else appear in print in so highly bowdlerized a form as to be
unrecognizable, as can be seen f r o m the (earlier) oral and the (later) printed
versions of particular jokes cited below:
Do you know why there are only two Newfie pall bearers at a funeral?
There are only two handles on a garbage can. (MUNFLA file 69-F, collected
by Bernice Bartlett, recorded as told by one Newfoundlander to another in
Toronto before 1969)
I know Henry wasn't well-liked, but why was there only two pall-bearers at
his funeral?
There are only two handles on a garbage-can. (Tulk 1971: 33)
What is the best way to get a Newfoundlander out of a swimming pool?

By throwing in a cake of soap. (MUNFLA file 69-25C, collected by Lionel
Strong 1969)
Dirty joke: "The best way to get my buddy out of a swimming pool is to toss
in a bar of soap." (Tulk 1971: 76)
Whether the Canadian joke-books were censored because of the general Ca-
nadian obsession with political correctness, or because most of the books
were brought out by small publishers in Newfoundland subject to local social
pressures, is difficult to say. Jokebooks published in Québec in French are
174 Conclusion
noticeably less apologetic and evasive on the theme of dirt and the existence
of these jokes shows that the Québécois have acquired an Anglophone North
American obsession with rational hygiene quite alien to les vieux français de
France. For our present purposes, however, the methodological moral is that
it is dangerous to assume that a particular genre of jokes does not exist until
the oral record has been checked.
The existence of dirtiness jokes about the Irish in Peter Hornby's (1978:
23-24) collection The Official Irish Jokebook No.3 (Book 2 to follow) para-
doxically confirms that they are not part of the British tradition. The absence
of such jokes in Britain in oral circulation had been demonstrated earlier by
McCosh (1976). Hornby tried to introduce dirtiness jokes into Britain by tak-
ing a set of American jokes about "filthy Polacks" from an American jokebook
by Macklin and Erdman (1976) and substituting the word "Paddies" for
"Polacks". Since the Futura paperback books of jokes about the Irish includ-
ing those written by Hornby, were sold in large numbers in Britain it meant
that British readers must have known that such jokes could exist. However,
the British did not go on to use this as the basis for creating new jokes about
the Irish on the same theme, any more than they would have considered ap-
plying East European jokes about Brezhnev, Ochab, Zhivkov or Gierek to
their own politicians of various persuasions such as Heath, Thatcher, Wilson,
Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock or Thorpe, even though they made fun of them
extensively in other ways. In British culture filthiness is not a sub-category of
stupidity the way it is in America and Canada.
Similarly the analysis of the political jokes of the former socialist coun-
tries of Eastern Europe in Chapters 5 and 6 is based not only on the produc-
tion and circulation of these jokes in large numbers in countries of this type
but also on the absence of such jokes in the Western democratic countries.
Why did the citizens of the democratic capitalist countries not invent and tell
such jokes, given that many Westerners would have been aware of the exist-
ence and nature of such jokes in Eastern Europe from translations made into
their own languages (see pp. 80-81, 87-98 and 198-199)?
Alan Dundes ([1971] 1987: vii) has noted:
In the United States we have relatively few orally transmitted political jokes.
Why? Because we have a relatively free press. It's easy to hear or read edito-
rials lambasting political figures on a daily basis; we have little need for oral
political jokes. It is in countries without a free press that a multitude of politi-
cal jokes can be found.
Conclusion 175
Elsewhere Dundes ([1971] 1987:160) suggests that "hypothetically, the more

repressive the regime, the more jokes there will be about that regime."
The first proposition is clearly true but the second requires clarification.
The richest flourishing of political jokes in Eastern Europe dates from the
1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a time of repression but not of terror, a time when
there was no freedom of speech but some freedom of conversation. In the
time of Stalin there may well have been fewer jokes because the careless use
of a joke could lead to anonymous denunciation and disciplinary action
(Deriabin and Gibney 1960:173). Such a denunciation concerning jokes made
in private could lead not merely to the loss of political office, or of one's job
or university place, as in those politically correct sections of the United States
where racial or sexual jokes are taboo, but to the loss of one's freedom and
even the slavery of a labour camp. By the same token jokes about Franco
seem to have flourished more in the last years of the ageing Caudillo (Ferrer
1978), when considerable liberalization had taken place, than in the harsher
period that followed his victory in the Spanish Civil War. The pre-eminence
of East European political jokes owed more to the breadth of repression in the
socialist countries than to its intensity, to the fact that the politicians and the
partocrats claimed to control the entire society including its economy, moral-
ity, physical sciences, culture, art and thought — all of which were politicised
— on the basis of an all-inclusive and intrusive ideology. By contrast the
more limited repressive rule of an opportunist thug such as Galtieri in Argen-
tina did not generate anything like as many jokes. The larger the ambit of a
repressive polity, the more things there are to tell political jokes about.
Where I am forced to disagree to some extent with Dundes' otherwise
very insightful analysis of the political humour of socialism is when he writes:
Political jokes in Iron Curtain countries frequently express what many indi-
viduals feel but dare not utter. Jokes are, by definition, impersonal. They pro-
vide a socially sanctioned frame that normally absolves individuals from any
guilt that might otherwise result from conversational articulation of the same
content. Thus jokes provide a much-needed vent for emotion. (Dundes [ 1971 ]
1987: 160)
This statement is both too strong and too weak to apply to the humour of the
anciens régimes of Eastern Europe. Very few people in Eastern Europe felt
guilty about having negative thoughts about their political systems; these sys-
tems possessed no legitimacy, as can be seen from the speed with which they
collapsed once the crude might of the Soviet armed forces was no longer
176 Conclusion
there to prop them up. The utterances of ordinary citizens were not held in
check by their consciences or even by the shame they would feel if their
neighbours knew what they really felt about the system (many of their neigh-
bours would have felt the same way) but by fear that those in power would
take action against them. What was involved was an external not an internal
repression of anti-socialist statements. The jokers had never internalized the
ideological views of their rulers in the first place. The mechanisms by which
these jokes worked can be explained entirely in terms of conscious mental
processes. The joke-tellers were not in any sense tormented by their own
anti-socialist notions in the way that, say, a Victorian clergyman might have
been tormented by religious doubts or impure thoughts that kept him awake
at night.
At the same time it must be stressed that the ambiguity of humour is such
that the jokes could be enjoyed not just by those who were opponents of the
regime but by those who held positions of power and privilege and were
beneficiaries of the regime (Deriabin and Gibney 1960: 38, 61, 141, 175,
220, 227) and by the vast alienated mass of the population who lived from
one grey socialist day to the next without thinking much about politics. A
great deal of humour consists of playing with the forbidden. In a society where
it is forbidden or even dangerous to express political dissent, people will take
a delight in telling jokes that seem to evade this prohibition, whether or not
they themselves are strongly critical of the regime. Jokes are not necessarily
expressions of aggression or of a wish to embrace or perpetuate the prohib-
ited, for the joke-tellers may well simply be playing with aggression or with
that which is prohibited, whether by external force as in Eastern Europe or as
in many other cases by their own conscience or inhibitions. Laughter is often
purposeless paratelic time off, in this case an agreeable respite from the com-
pulsory and turgid ideological rhetoric of a socialist society (for an example
of how turgid, see Panova et al. 1981).
It is unlikely that the political jokes of Eastern Europe played any major
part in undermining the anciens régimes nor, even if they did "provide a much-
needed vent for emotion," as Dundes suggests, did this help to stave off the
final collapse. Neither the functionalist nor the conflict theories of humour
have any part to play in explaining the sudden final and fatal crisis of social-
ism. My prediction on the basis of a study of East European political jokes
made during the 1980s (some were collected in various Eastern European
countries, others were acquired outside) that the regimes were unstable was
based not so much on the view that the jokes provided "a genuine expression
of sentiment" (Dundes [1971] 1987: 160), as on the realization that the jokes
Conclusion 177
revealed the regimes' total lack of legitimacy. Sometimes the joke-tellers were
opponents of the regime and used the jokes to illustrate a political point and
sometimes they were apolitical individuals who enjoyed the jokes for their
own sake. What was clear to m e was that no one felt guilty about telling them,
any more than American "good old b o y s " feel remorse after a session of tell-
ing j o k e s about blacks. To tell such jokes might be imprudent or unwise but
very few of the joke-tellers would have been violating any kind of inner loy-
alty, such that they might feel bad about their joke-telling the morning after.
It is the jokes cited in Chapters 5 and 6 about the general stupidity of
Eastern European politicians that revealed the lack of legitimacy of the former
East European governments. Such jokes existed in Britain and America, only
at the expense of a small number of particular politicians who had not been
properly elected to the office they held such as Gerald Ford or Sir Alec Douglas-
H o m e (see pp. 88-90), or even Dan Quayle who rode in and out of office on
George Bush's coat-tails. In Eastern Europe by contrast stupidity j o k e s were
bestowed on anyone who held office, thus implying a lack of legitimacy for
the social and political system that had put them in power.
M a n y of the East European j o k e s of the 1980s were prescient in that they
described revolutionary events that may have seemed unlikely at the time,
but which have c o m e about in the 1990s. By contrast those sociologists and
political scientists w h o perceived the old communist order as providing a
stable and legitimate alternative form of industrial society to capitalism have
been made to look extremely foolish. The jokers have proved to be the better
predictors. Take for instance the following j o k e told to the author in Bratislava
in Slovakia, when Gorbachev was still securely in charge in the Soviet Union
and trying to implement glasnost and perestroïka:
What is the difference between Gorbachev and Dubcek?

There isn't any. But Gorbachev doesn't know it yet.
[Dubcek was the would-be reforming leader of Czechoslovakia in 1968, who
was over-thrown by the armies of the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw pact
countries.]
This j o k e came true when communist hard-liners in the Soviet Union kid-
napped Gorbachev and seized key buildings in Moscow. Their coup failed
but it is quite possible that the present political and economic chaos in Russia
could lead to the hard-liners returning to power. The Soviet empire is in ruins
but Russia itself may well revert to authoritarian rule involving communist,
nationalist and anti-Semitic elements.
178 Conclusion
A second joke that has come true is a Russian anecdote from the 1980s:
Census enumerator: Where do you live?

Soviet citizen: Leningrad.
Census enumerator: Where were you born?
Soviet Citizen: St. Petersburg
Census enumerator: Where did you go to school?
Soviet citizen: Petrograd.
Census enumerator: Where would you like to live?
Soviet citizen: St. Petersburg.
In the 1980s most so-called experts on the Soviet Union would have claimed
that this was impossible but Leningrad has now been renamed St. Petersburg
by a free vote of its citizens. We will know that things have gone badly wrong
in Russia should it revert to being called Leningrad following a decision taken
in Moscow.
Even the most virulently "anti-Soviet" jokes at the expense of the found-
ing fathers of the Soviet Union, who were the heroes of its supposed civic
religion, can and could be told in a way that merely played with the absurd
heroic official view of these icons, though it is easier to do so with the first of
the two jokes cited below than with the second:
A priest went to heaven and was asked by St. Peter if there was anything he
wanted before he entered heaven. "Yes", said the priest, "I'd like a conducted
tour of hell." He was taken to the very worst circle of hell and there was Hitler
in boiling shit up to his nose and Stalin up to his waist in the same over-heated
ordure. The priest immediately protested at this, saying, "Why is that scroundrel
Stalin only in shit up to his waist? He was just as bad as Hitler!" "Yes", said
his guide, "but he is standing on Lenin's shoulders." (Russian 1980s)
Krupskaya [Lenin's widow] was giving a talk about Lenin at a school. "Lenin
was a very kind man," she said, "One day he was shaving outside his dacha
[villa in the country] with an old-fashioned razor. A little boy came to watch
him and asked Lenin, 'What are you doing?'
'I'm shaving, little boy', Lenin replied."
"Why does that make him a kind man?" asked one of the children.
"Can't you see", said Krupskaya, "he could have cut the little boy's throat, but
he didn't." (Told to the author by Alexander Shtromas in the 1980s)
Both of these anecdotes refer to the brutal realities of Soviet history. On the
basis of census and documentary evidence Rummel (1990) has calculated
Conclusion 179
that Lenin and his party probably murdered over three million people down
to 1922 and approaching a further two million were killed in the NEP period,
prior to the murder of tens of millions more during collectivization and the
purges. Rummel quotes Steinberg, Lenin's Commissar of Justice as asking
him in exasperation " 'Why do we bother with a Commissariat of Justice?
Let's call it frankly the Commissariat for Social Extermination and be done
with it.' At which Lenin's face brightened and he replied, 'We'll put... that's
exactly what it should be ... but we can't say that.'" (Rummel 1990: 33).
Lenin, like Hitler and Stalin, was evil. For such a man to refrain from cutting
one more child's throat was indeed an act of amazing kindness.
The first joke cited about Lenin is, though, much funnier than the second
because it is indirect and set in fantastic surroundings. There is a degree of
ambiguity about it that would have enabled even an East European lecturer in
Leninism to laugh at it, if the tone and context were right. By contrast the
joke about the razor is too close to being an unambiguous, serious if sym-
bolic, statement about Lenin's democidal tendencies and about the ideology
that inspired them. As Lenin himself declared "When we are reproached with
cruelty, we wonder how people can forget the most elementary Marxism"
(quoted Rummel 1990: 1). Quite so. The razor joke makes a very clear point
but its very strength in this respect undermines its potential as a joke. Once
again we can see that there is necessarily a trade off at the margin between
didacticism and humour (see Davies 1994: 75).
It must then be stressed that the Eastern European political jokes are pri-
marily jokes', they were constructed with ingenuity and were an end in them-
selves. The humorous frame was not just an excuse for making covert criti-
cisms of the regime but was essential to the enjoyment of these anecdotes,
which had the same structure as jokes told about other subjects or jokes told
in other freer countries. The skill with which political jokes, like the example
below from the 1960s retold by Emil Draitser in England in 1995, were con-
structed indicates that they were primarily intended to amuse:
Three men were having an argument about whose wife had the best ass. The
first man, a Nigerian, said: "My wife has got the biggest ass in the world, no
one can beat it". Then a Frenchman said, "Who cares about size? My wife has
got the most shapely ass in the world and in Paris that's what counts". Finally
the Russian said: "When I leave to go to work in the morning, I slap my wife's
ass and it is still vibrating when I come home; but that is only because we have
the shortest working day in the world."
180 Conclusion
When I asked Emil Draitser, who had been living in the Soviet Union at the
time, what the standard working week had been, he replied that it had been
shortened from forty-one hours to forty hours in order to provide two days off
at the week-end but that the working day had actually been lengthened to
compensate for this. A working week of five seven-hour days and a six-hour
day on Saturday (total 41 hours) had been replaced by a week of five eight-
hour days (total 40 hours). The change certainly did not justify the boastful
official slogans about shorter hours but it must have been quite possible for
someone who was satisfied with what is, on the face of it, a modest improve-
ment, to enjoy the joke. Indeed, it must have even been possible for someone
who was a true believer in the sloganeering of the country's bosses and
ideologues to find it amusing, simply because it is such a well-made joke.
Good jokes cannot be reduced to what seem to be equivalent serious state-
ments; they have an essential ambiguity all of their own. This ambiguity is
apparent in the ethnic and national jokes of the communist era. Take for ex-
ample the following:
Hungary and the Soviet Union have signed a treaty for the navigation of the
Danube. The Soviets are to be allowed to navigate it lengthways and the Hun-
garians cross-ways. (East European 1980s)
A Soviet agronomist was boasting that his country had five wheat crops every
year. "How do you manage that?" he was asked. "Easy", he replied, "One
from Poland, one from Hungary, one from Czechoslovakia ..." (East Euro-
pean 1970s)
Viewed from the standpoint of the people of the former Soviet dependencies
in Eastern Europe, such jokes can be regarded as a means of revealing the
way in which these countries were exploited by the Soviet Union. The peo-
ples of the lesser countries of the Russian empire were trapped in three cages;
two of them, (as described on pp. 81-82) were the supposedly "rational" bu-
reaucratic cage and the irrational ideological cage, but for the subject peoples
there was a third, the cage of national subordination, the knowledge that a
powerful foreign nation controls and exploits your native country for its own
ends. However, a Russian laughing at these jokes might well understand them
in the same way, but take the view that his country was a powerful nation,
indeed one of the great powers, and was justified in its harsh treatment of
these lesser nations. A Russian could laugh at such jokes and incorporate
them into an intensely chauvinistic Weltanschauung. Even today many Rus-
Conclusion 181
sians see it as their right to dominate other nations, as the unfortunate Chechens
have learnt to their cost.
The ambiguity of the political jokes of Eastern Europe can be particularly
well seen in the jokes about Jews/Jewish jokes that were told there. How, for
example, can the jokes below be interpreted?
Two Jews who had not seen each other for some time met by chance in the
streets of Warsaw. One of them asked the other how his three sons were pros-
pering in their chosen careers.
"Well", said the second Jew, "My eldest son, Moishe, has a very well-paid job
in Russia helping to build socialism. He's really very successful there. And
there's my second son Chaim, he's got an equally good job in Prague. He's
helping to build socialism, too."
"What about your third son, Isaac?" asked his friend. "He was a very able
boy."
"Oh, he's emigrated to Israel", he said, "He's done very well too. He has an
excellent job in Tel Aviv."
"And is he also helping to build socialism?"
"Oh no, he wouldn't do a thing like that; not to his own country." (Told to the
author by a British Pole in 1979)
A Soviet Jew was applying for a position. He filled in an application form on

which he included the fact that he had a brother in Israel. In the interview he
was asked if he had any relatives outside the motherland and replied, "None".
The interviewer pointed out that there was a discrepancy, since on the applica-
tion he wrote that his brother was in Israel.
The applicant replied: "Oh, he's not outside the motherland, I am outside the
motherland". (Kolasky 1972: 49)
It is impossible to say whether these jokes are anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic.

They could be told in quite different ways to different audiences with quite
different implications. The Jews of the jokes are shown as outwitting the com-
munist bureaucracy, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on the
social position and political sympathies of the joke teller. The Jews are shown
as an ethnic minority whose sympathies lie with another country. This could
be interpreted as support for the official anti-Zionist (and in practice often
anti-Semitic) line taken by the relevant governments or as sympathy for any-
one able to win against the illegitimate rule of the communist hierarchy, or as
both, or as neither. The more these jokes are analysed, the more possibilities
become apparent and each possibility is itself irreduceably humorous and not
182 Conclusion
in any sense a clear serious statement. Indeed, this ambiguity is one of the
factors that makes the first of the jokes in particular an exceptionally well
made joke.
A further significant category of jokes that do not exist are the missing
jokes about drunken Jews discussed in Chapter 7 (see pp. 120-121). Apart
from occasional anecdotes about toping schoolmasters in the old shtetlach,
there are few jokes about Jews getting drunk and none about them becoming
rowdy and rumbustious as in the jokes about drunken Irishmen, Finns, Scots-
men or Australians. Historically, observant Jews only drank in moderation,
with meals and usually at home with their families. Even at Purim when it is
a Jew's duty to mellow himself (with wine) until he cannot tell the difference
between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai", this would have
occurred in a manner and a context limited and bounded by custom and tradi-
tion. Likewise it was customary to drink heavily on Simchat Torah at the end
of Sukkot [Tabernacles] but the deliberate controlled suspension of modera-
tion on these holidays alone merely serves to emphasise the strength of the
taboos against any kind of drunkeness and loss of self control during the rest
of the year. There is no Jewish equivalent of the Irish or Australian bachelor
culture of hard-drinking and brawling that even continues to be strong after
marriage, causing friction and even violence between husband and wife. This
particular war of the sexes (which in Scotland and America led Protestant
women to campaign for the total prohibition of alcohol) was not fought in
Jewish households. Jewish males dutifully married Jewish wives and set an
uxorious example to the notoriously shikker goyim.
This constraining framework of duty and relative female power in turn
gave rise (particularly in America) to a rich pattern of Jewish jokes about
Jewish women, notably the JAP jokes, Jewish wife jokes and Jewish mother
jokes (Davies 1990b). That such jokes stem from a uniquely Jewish set of
social circumstances is shown by the absence of similar jokes about Scottish
mothers, Costa Rican American Princesses or Polish wives. There is a gap
where the GAP (Goyisher American Princess) jokes ought to be; this is yet
another set of jokes which could be told but are not.
Nonetheless, as Alan Dundes ([1985]1987: 73) has pointed out, the JAP
jokes are understood and laughed at by Protestants and Catholics as well as
Jews and in Britain as well as America. Here I wish to suggest that the reason
for this can be understood if we oppose them to a more recent set of quasi-
ethnic jokes popular in both countries, the British Essex girl jokes, known in
the United States as Blonde girl jokes. This provides a female version of the
Conclusion 183
two opposed sets of ethnic jokes about the canny and the stupid on which
much of the previous analysis of this book has been based.
The Essex/Blonde girl jokes depict the butt of the jokes as having two
main qualities: stupidity and promiscuity. The stupidity jokes overlap consid-
erably with the earlier ethnic stupidity jokes told about the Irish and the Poles
respectively, but the promiscuity jokes are quite new. The implication is that
the Essex/Blonde girl is not merely stupid within the world of work but also
in the marriage market-place, where she is unlikely to succeed in any attempt
to obtain a worthwhile marriage partner through the selective use of allure.
If the Essex/Blonde girl is foolish in being stupidly unthinking and (possi-
bly in consequence) in dispensing her sexual favours much too readily, the
opposite error is portrayed in the JAP jokes and jokes about Jewish wives,
who are shown as lacking in interest in sex and as using sex in a calculating
and begrudging way, as a means of obtaining material goods or a combina-
tion of attention and subordination from their men-folk. The opposition be-
tween the two kinds of joke is clearly brought out by mingling them:
Q: What's the difference between an Essex girl and the Grand Old Duke of
York?
A: He only had 10,000 men. (Don 1991: 65)
Have you heard of the Jewish nymphomaniac. No matter what, she had to
have a man at least once a month. (Triverton 1981: 247)
Q: What do most Essex girls do for a living?

A: Temporary sees. (British 1990s)
While Mr. and Mrs. Blumstein were gaping at the gorilla in the cage the huge
animal became sexually aroused, reached through the bars, pulled Mrs.
Blumstein into the cage and began ripping off her clothes. "What should I
do?" she screamed hysterically to her husband. "Do what you do with me,"
replied Mr. Blumstein, "Tell him you got a headache".
(Raskin 1985: 218)
Essex man on phone: Ello, Darlin ... it's me.

Essex girl: Who?
Essex man: The bloke that 'ad yer behind the pub last night.
Essex girl: Er, was it the Red Lion, Rose and Crown or the Bull?
(Don 1991: 34)
184 Conclusion
How do you know when an American Jewish princess has an orgasm?

She drops her nail file. (Eliezer 1992: 15)
What is the difference between a JAP and a Puerto Rican woman?

The Puerto Rican woman has real orgasms and fake jewelry. (American 1991 )
How many Essex girls does it take to screw in a light bulb?

None. Essex girls only screw in (Ford) Cortinas.
(The Official Essex Girl Joke Book)
What is the similarity between an Essex girl and Gorbachev?

They both got f****d by seven men when they were on holiday.
What is the difference between an Essex girl and Gorbachev?
Gorbachev knew their names. {The Official Essex Girl Joke Book)
What is Jewish foreplay?

Thirty minutes of grovelling. (American 1980s)
Essex man in restaurant: D'yer fancy coq au vin?

Essex girl: No, ta! I fink 'aving sex in the back of a transit is really tacky!
(Don 1991)
The possible existence of these two opposed genres of jokes about women,
i.e. jokes about the over-sexed and the under-sexed, was predicted by Anton
Zijderveld (1983) on the basis of my original theses (Davies 1982a) that eth-
nic jokes came in opposed pairs, such as stupid/canny and cowardly/milita-
ristic. At the time it was uncertain whether or not he was right (Davies 1984:
308), because the necessary pairs of jokes did not yet exist. However, the
invention of the Essex/Blonde and JAP jokes shows that the theory can be
used to predict jokes that will be invented in the future. It is also significant
that they are related to the much earlier stupid/canny opposed pair of jokes.
Essex/Blonde promiscuity jokes and JAP/Jewish wife frigidity jokes are
the equivalent of the stupid and the canny jokes in a further sense, in that they
represent the two opposed modes of failure that exist in the realm of female
sexual behaviour, which is both a source of pleasure for women and a way of
manipulating men. The JAP or the Jewish wife as depicted in the jokes is
canny in using sex and the with-holding of sex as a means of controlling the
Jewish male and extorting material goods from him, but is herself losing out
on pleasure, including sexual pleasure, by being a begrudger. In being a
begrudger, she loses out in her own area of activity (sex and family) in the
Conclusion 185
same way that the over-calculative persons of the ethnic j o k e s about canni-
ness d o in theirs. By contrast, the Essex/Blonde girl is depicted as stupid in
exactly the same way as the butts of the ethnic j o k e s about stupidity and like
them, she has no chance of making a successful career. 3 In addition, the Es-
sex/Blonde girl is unlikely to succeed at the more traditional female goal of
using sexuality to obtain and retain a worthwhile husband. Thus the Essex/
Blonde j o k e s and the JAP/Jewish wife jokes once again represent two op-
posed f o r m s of failure in a modern society, this time in the sphere of female
sexuality. Neither j o k e could have been told in the past when female sexual
behaviour was much more tightly controlled by traditional morality.
T h e title of the American Blonde Girl jokes probably refers back to a time
when w o m e n used peroxide to appear the kind of d u m b blonde that peroxide-
gentlemen preferred. It may even be the case that the ever-available but not
very bright Blonde girl of the j o k e s was originally invented by American
Jewish humorists, who called her into existence as the antithesis of the JAP/
Jewish wife joke. She represents forbidden pleasure, as opposed to moral
duty, the moral duty of marrying a J A P to turn her into a JAW at the moral
urging of a J A M in order that the Jewish community may survive and thrive.
She is the desirable but deplorable golden shikse whom Jewish joke-tellers
are not allowed to marry (Davies 1990b), who has been humorously described
in Richman and O ' D o n n e l l ' s (1978) comic work The Shikse's guide to Jewish
men:
To a Jewish man, the Shikse is:

Desirable because she is non-Jewish.
Inferior because she is non-Jewish.
Wonderful because she is non-Jewish.
Forbidden because she is wonderful.
Wonderful because she is forbidden.
Given the substantial size of the American Jewish community and its genius
for comedy, the American Blonde Girl jokes like the JAP/Jewish wife jokes,
may well have begun in this way but then escaped into the larger world of the
gentiles, where they become popular because they touched on a theme central
to the entire society. Jokes that had begun as a comic meditation on Jewish
endogamy took on a wider meaning for a larger audience because the time
was right. In Britain the Essex Girl jokes are, like many British jokes, related
to a question of social class. The girls of the j o k e s lived in Essex because that
is w h e r e girls of plebian origin w e r e and are recruited f o r lower level
186 Conclusion
white-collar work in the City of London, the home of banking and finance,
where the jokes first circulated. Essex Girl jokes are the female successors of
Britain's still thriving "stupid Irish" joke-cycle that was linked to the recruit-
ment of unskilled Irish labourers to work on British building sites. The other
commuter counties around London such as Surrey, Kent, Berkshire and Hert-
fordshire were much too middle-class and their girls far too ambitious to be
the subject of such jokes. It may well have been British social class endogamy
that put the sex in Essex.
What do you call a Surrey girl between two Essex girls?

An interpreter. (The Official Essex Girl Joke Book)
The implication is that a man of securely upper-middle class status working

in the City of London might well have sex with an Essex girl, but he wouldn't
marry one because of the difference in their social origins. The Essex Girl
was much more likely to marry a Dagenham man living on the vast Dagenham
municipal estate in Essex and working on the assembly line at the Dagenham
factory producing Ford motor cars. Hence the jokes:
Q: Why does Essex girl get on so well with Dagenham man?

A: Because they spend so much time in Fords.
(The Official Essex Girl Jokebook)
How does an Essex girl turn off the light after sex?
She slams the door of the (Ford) Cortina. (The Official Essex Girl Joke Book)
It is worth noting that most of those who figure in the earlier ethnic stupidity
and canniness jokes discussed in previous chapters are male. It is possible to
view the Blonde and Essex Girl jokes on the one hand and the JAP and Jew-
ish wife jokes on the other as an extension of the stupidity and canniness
jokes into the area of traditional female roles, at a time when these roles have
been challenged both by the movement of women into skilled and responsi-
ble positions in the labour force and by the decline of traditional social con-
trols over female sexual behaviour. The JAP and Jewish wife jokes emerged
before the Blonde/Essex Girl jokes; they came initially from within the Jew-
ish community, as an extension of the existing jokes about canny Jews to
create a new script about Jewish women, who were comically depicted as
being canny about sex. For once the canny jokes preceded the stupidity jokes,
but not for long, as the corresponding opposed joke about female stupidity
Conclusion 187
including sexual stupidity soon followed, as might be predicted from the

"linked and opposed pairs" model of joking used throughout this book. Some
of the Essex/Blonde Girl jokes were standard stupidity jokes and some were
focussed on stupid (i.e. unthinking and reckless) female sexual behaviour. In
both Britain and America they were pinned on suitable groups. In Britain,
Essex girl jokes were fastened on a plebian group on the edge of London who
commuted into the City of London, the heart of a key financial district, to
work; they were the successors of the earlier British jokes about the Irish,
which mocked a plebian group from the edge of the British Isles that had
travelled to the economic centres of Britain in search of employment. The
American Blonde Girl jokes make use of an earlier image of the dumb blonde,
but it is possible that the Blonde jokes are in a direct sense the opposite of
JAP and Jewish wife jokes, i.e. "the Blonde Girl" is their non-Jewish oppo-
site number. The Blonde girl combines the goyisher kop of Jewish stupidity
jokes about gentiles with a comic, reckless, uninhibited sexuality that is the
exact opposite of the comically manipulative and canny attitude to sexual life
ascribed to the JAP or to the Jewish wife in Jewish jokes. Once again the
assumption that ethnic and other jokes ascribed to particular groups occur in
opposed pairs enables us to explain several joke cycles with very few vari-
ables.
Such a model also explains why the jokes have become universally popu-
lar beyond the boundaries of the groups where they originated. American
Protestants and Roman Catholics laugh at JAP jokes and people from Wales,
Scotland and Northern England, laugh at Essex girl jokes, even though there
is no connection (in either sense of the word) between the joke-tellers and the
butts of their jokes. The reason for this is that the jokes tap broader social
questions, ones that must impinge on the thinking of anyone who has experi-
enced some aspect of the very large change in female sex roles that has taken
place in modern industrial societies in the last forty years.
It has thus been possible to identify four opposed pairs of jokes, if we
include the drunken/teetotal jokes analysed in Chapter 7 and the cowardly/
militaristic pair discussed in an earlier work (Davies 1990a). Jokes about (for
example) cowardly Italians and militaristic Germans are about male roles in
society, so they complement the pair of jokes about females in the JAP/JAW/
JAM and Essex/Blonde girl jokes. Work, war, alcohol and sex are all central
aspects of human behaviour, each of which gives rise to two opposed patterns
of jokes corresponding to two possible antithetical forms of failure as shown
in Table 3.
188 Conclusion
Table 3. Opposed sets of ethnic jokes
Human activity underlying Comically defective attributes displayed

the joke in opposed sets of ethnic jokes
Activity Activity
is not taken seriously is taken too seriously with
enough too much emphasis on
long-term goals at the ex-
pense of present pleasure
Butt of jokes Butt of jokes
is inept, heedless, is too calculative
reckless
Consequence Consequence
is crass failure is joyless failure
Work and other similar

purposive activities Stupidity Canniness
Sex, family, female roles Reckless and stupid Calculated and begrudg-
promiscuity ing sexlessness
Consumption of Alcohol Drunkeness Bigoted Teetotalism
War Cowardice Militarism
The advantage of grouping jokes in pairs in this way is threefold: first it is

economical; it provides a common explanation of pairs of jokes rather than
having to explain each kind of joke separately. Second, it links separate and
disparate pairs of jokes together; each pair represents two opposed modes of
failure in relation to a central activity in modem society such as work, war,
male drinking or female sex roles. Both of these advantages can be justified
by recourse to the principle that one particular explanation of a phenomenon
is to be preferred over another if it employs fewer variables. Finally it is
helpful because it concentrates attention on the quality that is ascribed to the
butts of the jokes rather than on the attitude towards the butts held by the
joke-tellers. It is these comic attributes (stupid/canny, cowardly/militaristic,
promiscuous/sexless, drunken/teetotal), stemming from four central social
concerns of modern society that come first; it is almost as if these attributes
then go in search of suitable groups to bear them. In the case of stupidity there
is nearly always a local stupid group by definition, since every joke-telling
centre has a corresponding periphery. In the case of the canny, the cowardly,
Conclusion 189
the militarists, the drunken and the teetotal, the choice of the butt of the joke
is determined by one aspect or another of the joked-about group's social,
economic, religious or military history and in the case of the promiscuous
and the sexless by the special factors discussed above. If there is no suitable
local group, it is always possible to borrow one from a distant country such
that Czechs tell jokes about cowardly Italians (Anekdoty Slunné Italie 1978)
and Italians have jokes about canny Scots (Bramieri 1980). There may or
may not be a corresponding blason populaire or seriously held stereotype.
The JAP and JAW jokes preceded the Essex/Blonde girl jokes but both are
relatively recent phenomena. In all other cases the types of jokes listed in the
first column of Table 3 are older in origin than those in the second column.
Ethnic jokes about stupidity are thousands of years old, as is humour about
drunkenness and the origins of today's ethnic jokes about cowardice may be
traced back to medieval times (Pinon 1980: 76-79). By contrast jokes about
the canny probably date only from the eighteenth century, jokes about the
teetotal began in the nineteenth century and ethnic jokes about militarists
date only from the twentieth century, i.e.jokes about excessive self-control or
rigid adherence to rules or to orders are a purely modern phenomenon and
coincide with the growth of modern industrial societies, which require that
individuals behave in a controlled and predictable way in accordance with
the demands of the market place or of bureaucratic institutions. Jokes about
stupidity, cowardice and drunkenness are primordial; it is only in modern
times that they are twinned with jokes about the canny, the militarist and the
teetotal. The latter forms of behaviour are of course contrary to the ethic of
hedonistic individualism which is the other spirit of modern capitalism. Within
the twentieth century this spirit has also manifest itself in much more permis-
sive attitudes towards female sexual behaviour, particularly with the much
more widespread use and availability of effective means of contraception
(Davies 1975). It is this that has given rise to the most recent opposed pair of
ethnic and quasi-ethnic jokes about women and sex.
The fact that the twinning of the opposed comic characteristics employed
in jokes only makes sense for modern societies indicates that this pattern of
jokes is a reflection of the way these particular societies are organised, rather
than being the product of some universal quality of the human mind. As Elliott
Oring (1992: 52) has noted in another context, "perhaps Lévi-Strauss should
have begun with jokes". In using a model employing a systematic pattern of
dichotomies, I am not subscribing to Lévi-Strauss' structural anthropology
nor to his contrast between the diachronic and synchronic (a distinciion made
mainly to protect a discredited ideological theory of historical development).
190 Conclusion
On the contrary the model is specifically designed to describe and analyse the
humour of complex modern societies characterized by a high degree of moral
uncertainty, whose citizens are able to reflect on the contrasts existing within
their own society. The model used here is, though, to some extent inspired by
the same tradition as Lévi-Strauss but reaches much further back in time to
the earlier patterns of dichotomous social conditions (egoistic/altruistic,
anomic/fatalistic) postulated by Durkheim (1970) in his study Suicide, a pat-
tern, which he in turn may well have derived from Aristotle (Ethics Book 2
1104a 32 and 1107a 28 to 1108b 9). It is, however, primarily an empirical
model derived from a study of the jokes themselves. It has always been pos-
sible to perceive the social and moral world in terms of some kind of a golden
mean between extremes or to think in terms of pairs of opposites, but it is
neither necessary to do so, nor is such an outlook favoured in all societies. A
quite different kind of world view underpins the way of life of, say, Hindu
ascetics who stare at the sun until they go blind, Japanese samurai commit-
ting seppuku as an expression of honour or those who are mocked in ethnic
jokes for being excessively single-minded. The kind of moral balancing act
and the pattern of sets of opposed jokes associated with it discussed above is
likely only to be found in societies characterized by openness, individualism,
diversity, self-awareness and moral uncertainty. These conditions are to be
found particularly, but by no means exclusively, in modern Western capitalist
societies.
In this book several levels of explanation for the existence of particular
ethnic and political jokes have been provided. In the case of the jokes about
the stupid and the canny, for instance, the explanation of this linked pair of
jokes in terms of the universal characteristics and pressures of industrial soci-
ety is an explanation at the highest level of generality; it seeks to explain the
existence of both kinds of joke in all the present day societies where such
jokes are popular. Below this comes the general explanation of ethnic stupid-
ity jokes in terms of the centre periphery model, of political stupidity jokes in
terms of the absence of political competition and free speech and of political
legitimacy in the countries where they are told and of ethnic canny jokes in
terms of the existence of a strongly developed Protestant ethic or its secular
equivalent among the butts of the jokes. Below these explanations come even
more specific explanations of differences between the jokes told in some clus-
ters of countries but not others such as the ethnic jokes about the filthy habits
of the "stupid" told in North America but not in Britain, France and Ireland, a
difference explained in terms of the differing patterns of values and attitudes
towards "rational" hygiene found in the two groups of nations. Finally at the
Conclusion 191
very lowest level lie explanations for merely idiosyncratic aspects of the stu-
pid or canny jokes that are found in one country only. British jokes about
Irish eccentricity that are rooted in the Irish tendency to use figurative lan-
guage in mundane contexts — which is also the basis of the Irish people's
well-deserved reputation for wit (Davies 1988b) — would be one such exam-
ple; jokes about Jewish canniness that cannot be switched to another "canny"
group such as the Scots (Davies 1986) would be another. These different lev-
els of explanation do not contradict one another; what is important is that
they should be kept separate and not muddled together. Each can be tested
independently using appropriate data. None of them provides a full explana-
tion of patterns of joking, though the more general levels of explanation ex-
plain more and are thus in one sense superior to those that have more limited
explanatory power. However, taken together they provide a very comprehen-
sive account of explanation for the remarkable and ordered patterns of joking
that human beings have created, not by design but as a consequence of their
everyday interactions and humorous exchanges.
Notes
Chapter 1: Introduction
1. This comment has been ascribed to A. J. Balfour; presumably he was

talking about Ireland.
Chapter 2: Fooltowns: Traditional and modern. Local, regional and ethnic

jokes about stupidity
1. Russell 1982: 4; for other references to and instances of ancient jokes

see Clouston 1888; Esar 1978: 295, 517-518; Legman 1986: 123-134;
Thompson 1977.
2. SeeFairservis 1960:14, 85,90,126,182; Kees 1961: 39,142,308,332;
Possony 1976: 4.
3. Abdera was a Greek city colony in Thrace whose inhabitants traded with
the Thracians of the interior but which eventually declined due to Thracian
incursions. The Phrygians who lived in Anatolia, were not Greek but
spoke a related language which was written using the Greek alphabet.
The legendary King Midas, whose wish for a gold touch rebounded on
his wife, is said to have been a Phrygian. The naming of outsiders based
on the idea that their speech is like the uncertain stammer of the old or
the nervous, is also to be found among the Amerindians of Guatemala.
4. See Briggs 1970, Part A, 2: 3; Briggs 1977: 51-53; Burke 1978: 54;
Chambers Encyclopaedia 1890 vol.5 entry on Gothamites; Clouston
1888: 16-17; Colleville and Zepelin 1896: 1-10; Craigie 1898: 220; Esar
1978: 6, 136-137, 153, 195-196, 295, 398; Feinburg 1978: 49;
Gaspariková 1980: 125-162; Rockwell 1981: 285; Rosten 1970: 185;
Schwartz 1973:109; Searing 1984:10; Shankar 1934:1-3; Sobotka 1919;
Stapleton 1900: 9-11; Thompson 1977: 190; Weiss 1965: 400-401;
Welsch 1967: 184.
5. "Rivals" are often similar and rivalry is a controlled contest between
peoples who in other contexts are allies not enemies. Sporting contests
between rivals express this relationship, e.g. Oxford versus Cambridge,
194 Notes
Yorkshire versus Lancashire, England versus Australia, Liverpool ver-

sus Everton, Wales versus England. Supporters of these teams in a sense
have a bigger investment in beating their rival than in winning against a
team of distant or alien origin, but it would be foolish to infer from this
that they were enemies in any other context. It is also easy to see how
this situation can go wrong, as in the 'bodyline bowling' row of the
1930s when the Australians objected to Harold Larwood's successful
but possibly dangerous fast bowling in a cricket match between Eng-
land and Australia. Larwood, though, later emigrated to Australia and
became an Australian, a feat which a real enemy of Australia such as
General Hideki Tojo, could never have accomplished. Also the English
and the Australians remained united by the fact that they (together with
the peoples of India, Pakistan, the West Indies, New Zealand, South Af-
rica and Sri Lanka) were playing an esoteric game which is beyond the
capacity of other less civilized nations. We should not confuse playful
aggression with real hostility. There is such an enormous quantitative
difference between them as to make them qualitatively different.
6. The same joke was told to me by a Syrian engineer in Swansea, South
Wales in 1984; see also Clouston 1888: 16, and pp. 169-170 for further
Homsiot jokes.
7. Collected by Jacqueline Ferraro. This is a very clever twist on a stand-
ard joke c.f. Ferguson 1933: 167.
8. See Aggie Games you can't lose 1977; Best of 606 Aggie Jokes 1976;
101 Aggie Jokes, 8 vols, 1965-79; Costnet 1975; Key 1949: 244; Legman
1986, 2: 961, Randolph 1952, Stewart 1963: 894-899; Uva and Tech,
The Joke's on You 1987.
9. See for example W.B. 1928; Crompton 1970a; Crompton 1970b; Howe
1891; Joe Miller's Jests [1739] 1963: 42-43; Joell 1944; Mitchell and
Waddell 1971; Mr. Punch's Country Life 1908: 45; Spencer 1938: 265;
Wright 1935: 155-156 and UCBFA.
10. References to Polack jokes are very rare prior to the 1960s and their
content is very uncertain since those who refer to them often don't quote
the actual jokes. See for instance Cerf 1959: 384; Stackman 1953: 78;
Welsch 1967: 184 (jokes exchanged between northside and southside
Polacks in Milwaukee in 1944); Wolff, Smith and Murray 1934: 356;
Yao 1946: xxv.
Notes 195
11. On the poor peasant origins, low occupational status and slow upward
mobility of those ethnic groups who are the butt of jokes about stupidity
see Andreski 1973: 63, 83; Bodnar 1976: 44-72; Clark 1962: 76-77,
165-166; The Diverse Ethnic Roots of Bay Residents 1984; Dundes 1971 :
199-201; Edwards 1975:132; Fox 1970:58-60; Greeley 1972:121-124;
Haiman 1974: 3; Helmreich 1982:40-41; Kusielewicz 1973: 102; Lang
1976; Lutz 1962:95,146-147; Lyon 1969:167; Morawska 1977; Nichols
1973: 28; Renkiewicz 1973: vii, 10, 13, 21; Sowell 1981; Stephenson
1951: 571; Zurawski 1975: 123-132.
12. On the contrary jokes about Jews implied theywere too clever. See Davies
1986: 39-52; Davies 1990: 115-123; Wolff, Smith and Murray 1934.
Chapter 3: From the Milesians to the Milesians: The Irish-Pontian joke, its
history and its absence in China and Japan
1. The first version is the (1976) English translation by J.Thomson and

H.Tredennick of an epigram ascribed to the mythical bard Demodocus.
See Aristotle (1976) Ethics Book 7, 1151a 4-23: 245. The second ver-
sion is my rewording of the first.
2. In Georg Autenrieth's (1958) Homeric Dictionary Miletus is described
as an Ionian city in Caria.
3. From the Taiping Miscellany. An essentially similar joke about Poles is
told in modern America.
4. From the Record of Glee, attributed to Hou Bai, Sui dynasty. Versions of
this tale are common in other cultures also.
5. From Record of Merriment, a collection by Zhou Wenqi of the Song
period.
6. From General Chatter, Past and Present compiled by Feng Menglong.
This is often told as an ethnic joke about stupidity in other cultures.
7. The public lecture I gave in Osaka in 1995 organized by the Japanese
Society for Humour was entitled "Are jokes about the stupidity of other
ethnic, regional and political groups a universal phenomenon .... or is
Japan an exception?" Thanks to the translating skills of Dr. Goh Abe
and his colleagues, the Japanese audience were able to laugh at a diverse
selection of stupidity jokes from a number of countries including several
jokes included in this book. This proved that there is no impenetrable
196 Notes
linguistic or cultural barrier to the appreciation of these jokes by monoglot

Japanese. However, they have no indigenous or imitative tradition of
telling such jokes.
Chapter 4: The Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism
1. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism^ was origi-
nally published in German in 1904-5 and reprinted with considerable
revisions in 1920. The translation used here is by Talcott Parsons 1930,
and all references refer to this translation.
2. For humour on this theme see Burns 1970: 73-76.
3. This book was originally published in the United States in 1958 but the
internal evidence from the joke itself such as the low price of the truck
farm shows that the joke is much older and was probably gleaned from
a much earlier publication or recorded by the editor at a much earlier
time.
4. See Weber 1930: 24: "the old medieval (even ancient) idea of God's
book-keeping is carried by Bunyan to the characteristically tasteless
extreme of comparing the relation of a sinner to his God with that of
customer and shop-keeper."
5. I can say this on the basis of interviews with leading compilers of joke
books, notably Larry Wilde, Henry D.Spalding and Russell Lewis and
from having edited joke-books myself: Davies and Lewis 1973; Davies
1978.
6. The Geist ofBanko meaning the spirit of bank money sounds very much
like the Geist [ghost] of Banquo as seen by Macbeth. This is an appro-
priately modified version of a joke made by Heinrich Heine about Ham-
burg, a joke which was later studied by Freud.
7. The verse expresses the Scots' comic view of the English comic view of
the Scots. There is also probably an indirect reference here to The Shorter
Catechism of the Westminster Assembly. "Man's chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him for ever but men may have subordinate ends ...
men ought to be diligent in their particular callings, for this end, that
they may provide for themselves and their families. Do your own busi-
ness and work with your own hands, that ye may lack nothing" — 1.
Thess. iv, 11, 12 (Vincent [1674] 1980: 13).
Notes 197
Chapter 5: Stupidity and rationality: Jokes from the iron cage
1. For Australian jokes about the Irish see Howcroft 1977:105. The Ameri-
cans also told jokes about Irish stupidity until the 1940s e.g. see Cerf
1945 which has jokes about stupid Irishmen: 58, 82-83, 97, 108, 111,
140, 149, 159, 167, 206, 211, 220, 237, but none about Polish Ameri-
cans.
2. See Steeman 1977: 95: "The submarine seems to inspire our French
friends and it is with 'chips' the most popular subject of Belgian jokes
invented in France."
3. The advantage of the metaphor is that everyone can readily understand
the disastrous but comic consequences of introducing a stupid outsider
into a plane or submarine. One does not need any specialized knowl-
edge to understand the physical and technical parameters of the situa-
tion described in the joke.
4. These jokes are far from being a purely American phenomena. The French
tell similar jokes about lazy Corsicans or people from the Midi, the South
of France, the Dutch tell them about Surinamers and the British have
Andy Capp who has become popular all over the world.
5. In fairness to the Germans it also says "Défense de se dépendre dehors".
6. The problems the former socialist East European economies encoun-
tered as a result of their inherant irrationality stemming from their at-
tempts to suppress and control spontaneous forms of order were pre-
dicted well in advance by such far-sighted economists and sociologists
as Vilfredo Pareto, Ludwig von Mises (1974: 211-220) and Max Weber
(1968:81-113).
Chapter 6: Humour for the future and a future for humour
1. It may be objected that the stress I have placed on the jokes about the
politicians being stupid is one-sided and that I have neglected jokes about
their more evil and sinister qualities such as, say, the jokes about Lenin
and Stalin being cruel tyrants. These jokes, however, tell us nothing new
for they are literally true, they simply restate in comic form a ghastly
historical fact known to us in great detail from other sources (e.g. see
Conquest 1971). The jokes in a sense do not even exaggerate, for no
198 Notes
exaggeration is possible. Admittedly it was and is gratifying to see the

"sacred" figure of Lenin revealed in his true viciousness and the non-
sense of the cult of Lenin thoroughly mocked. Nonetheless these are
jokes about a particular individual and like all jokes, they are ambigu-
ous. The jokes about the stupidity of politicians, however, are jokes about
a category in the same sense as similar jokes about an ethnic group or a
social class. The members of these social categories are not literally
stupid individuals in the sense that Lenin and Stalin really were mon-
sters. The jokes about stupidity are an index of social position; in this
case a statement about the monopoly of power of and the absence of
truly competitive achievement enjoyed and displayed by the members
of the category. Such an inference can only be made on the basis of a
comparative analysis of these and similar jokes from other societies such
as that employed in this book.
A similar point can be made about the militia jokes which are quite dif-
ferent from, say, the jokes about the brutality of the security police. The
brutality was real; the stupidity may or may not have been and in the
jokes was primarily a way of signalling the social origins of the militia
and their lack of legitimacy through merit.
2. My comments on the militia are also based on contemporary discus-
sions with East European criminologists in the 1980s. I deliberately did
not record any names.
3. Upper class twits have been a consistent butt of British humour from
W.S.Gilbert (1983), Iolanthe Act II to Monty Python. In American jokes
they are tongue tied to the point of double dumbness. See Cerf 1945:
111; Ernst 1919: 90; Wilde 1978: 65. For further jokes both British and
American about English upper class twits see Barr and York 1982 and
1983; Bentley and Esar 1962: 21, 31. Bradley 1982: 222, notes 79-80;
Hicks 1936: 98-99; Hoggart 1981: 39; Lynn and Jay 1981; Melly and
Fawkes 1962 and 1979b: 7, 27.
4. For jokes about Graf Bobby, Arisztid and Taszilo and other dim Central
European aristocrats see Böhm 1983: 9-12; Ember 1988: 24-30; Grill
1949; Heinrich and Lothar 1979.
5. Dr. A.M.Kirakosian was said in 1972 to be the director of Radio Erivan/
Armenia broadcasting on 74,26 m; 347,6 m; 41,27 m; 248,42 m; 1181,
1 m; 4, 5 m; 4, 25 m. See Schiff 1975 and Parth and Schiff 1978. Ac-
cording to Emil Abramovitch Draitser formerly of Krokodil, meetings
Notes 199
in Moscow at which a speaker from Radio Erivan/Armenia was an-

nounced used to dissolve into laughter.
6. See also Fischer 1973:259. The implication of these jokes for the future
was that the peoples of Eastern Europe during Communist rule knew
that the achievement of a Utopian Communist society was both impos-
sible and undesirable. The people knew that the socialist societies in
which they lived were doomed to economic, technological and social
stagnation and lacking in the kinds of innovation and entrepreneurship
found almost exclusively in capitalist societies; they knew they were
trapped in stupidity at a societal level and that the official view of a rosy
future following the "transition to communism" was a meaningless
Marxist mirage. It is not possible to know what society will be like in
the future since, inter alia we cannot predict future scientific discover-
ies or technological innovations, but we can say what it will not be like.
To run a complex, industrial society on the basis of communism is im-
possible (Polanyi 1940). The jokes indicated a profound disillusionment,
a sense that the system had failed and was doomed, which provided a
humour for the future but an uncertain future. The inner contradictions
of the system were much clearer to people than the likely direction of its
evolution or even the possible alternatives available. The public opinion
surveys done in Czechoslovakia in 1968 bring out the people's low opin-
ion of politicians (Piekalkiewicz 1972: 124-125), their lack of confi-
dence in political organizations (Piekalkiewicz 1972: 133-134), their
distrust of political monopoly (Piekalkiewicz 1972:171-175) and their
knowledge that the economy had failed (Piekalkiewicz 1972: 274, 286-
290). However, no clear popular view of the kind of radical change needed
emerged. People knew what they wanted but not how to get there, though
a different set of questions might have produced different results.
7. In the last years of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Em-
peror Franz Josef II was known in the Czech lands as Old Procházka
(Hasek 1974: 261). A photograph of the Emperor appeared in a newspa-
per with the title "Procházka na moste" [i.e. "A walk on the bridge"].
However, this phrase can also mean Mr. Procháska on the bridge,
Procháska being a common Czech name with the same pronunciation.
The joke soon caught on and provided the Czechs with an irreverent
nickname for the emperor such that even advertisements for walking
sticks or "sticks-for-the walk", i.e., "sticks to beat the Emperor with"
200 Notes
could be seen as a subversive joke. Under Communism the Czechs rec-

reated this tradition of seeing or planting subversion in everyday ob-
jects, such as the subversive symbols concealed in the design of their
then paper currency.
8. Now that there is freedom of speech in the post-socialist countries of
Eastern Europe there has been a sad decline in the number and quality of
political jokes and anecdotes in those countries. The jokes flourished
best during the decadence of late socialism when ambiguous mockery
of the system through jokes in private was possible but not public criti-
cism. It would be false to say that jokes are a substitute for political
activity but it is true that when opportunities for real opposition and
resistance to socialist tyranny are lacking, people turn to jokes instead.
Jokes are a mere barometer of political pressure.
9. The decor of many bars where jokes were told in Prague in the 1980s
was such as to create a feeling of a Western oasis where the customers
could forget or even mock socialism, in a setting decorated with sexist
naked ladies and racist gollywogs, those two essential icons and wit-
nesses of personal freedom, which advertised American, British, Cana-
dian and German drinks; western pop music was played and the custom-
ers wore shirts that featured Old Glory, the Union Jack and the Maple
Leaf. Only the shortage of decent food reminded the customers that this
was a socialist country.
Chapter 7: Ethnic jokes about alcohol: A study of the humour of ambivalence
1. Polish 1980s. See also Davis 1985: 399-400, and Letter from Warsaw
1982. For further jokes see Meyer and Meyer 1978. On some of the
underlying alcohol problems of Eastern Europe see "Alcohol problems
in Eastern Europe" 1985; Bokun 1986: 69; and Davis 1985.
2. See Dumazedier 1977: 27-33; Geikie 1904: 317; Kitson Clark 1962:
127-129; Lambert 1975; Lowerson and Myerscough 1977: 8-16,68-70;
Roberts 1981; Zelnik 1976.
3. See Fisher and Brougham 1928: 12-13, 208; Gusfield 1962: 101-110;
Short 1984: 71.
4. e.g. see Meyer and Meyer 1978; Nisard 1864; Stych 1970; Tiinnes und
Schäl Witze 1977.
Notes 201
5. I am indebted to Richard Scase for pointing out to me the importance of

the "drunk" comedian in Sweden. See also the relevant comment by
Freud 1960: 126-127.
6. See also Chappell 1986: 195; Jarvenpa 1976: 90-91.
7. The table in the text is based on a content analysis of a 5 best-selling
joke-books by Wilde 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979. The tables be-
low provide a statistical demonstration of the relationship noted in the
text which should be obvious from inspection of Table 2 anyway.
Table 4. Irish and Polish jokes about drinking
Drink Other Total
Irish 167 411 578

Poles 9 657 666
Total 176 1068 1244
Corrected Chi square = 190.98

Corrected Tschuprow's Τ = 0.3918
Ρ = 0 (i.e. highly significant)
Table 5. Irish and Polish jokes about stupidity
Stupidity Other Total
Irish 153 425 578

Poles 455 211 666
Total 608 636 1244
Corrected Chi square = 216.87

Corrected Tschuprow's Τ = 0.4159
Ρ = O (i.e. highly significant)
It should be also be noted that over half the French jokes in the Irish
section of the Guillois and Guillois (1979) anthology of jokes about the
peoples of the British Isles are about drinking, which is a far higher
proportion than in the English, Scots and Welsh sections.
8. See Chappell 1986: 195; Jellinek 1962: 382; Sargent 1979: 8 i ; Sowell
1981.
202 Notes
9. It had been like this throughout the previous week-end as well, a four-
day drinking extravanganza involving crowds of up to a quarter of a
million, that must have made General Oglethorpe turn in his grave. See
reports in the Savannah Evening Press, Savannah, Georgia, March 16th
to 18th 1987 and also the Savannah Morning News, Wednesday 18th
March 1987, notably the report by Sonya T. Gordon on p. 1 "Drinks domi-
nate riverfront in revelry following parade". Elsewhere in the paper
Lt. Steve Smith of the local police is quoted: "If Saint Patrick's Day gets
any worse we're going to have to apologise to God for another Sodom
and Gomorrah". There is also a local Georgia tradition of jokes about
alcohol and Savannah: "A stranger travelling in Georgia is always asked
the following questions. In Atlanta: 'What's your business?' In Macon:
'What's your religion?' In Augusta: 'What was your mother's maiden
name?' In Savannah: 'What do you want to drink?'"
10. See Bermant 1986: 71-72; Rosemarine 1962; Snyder 1962: 206-207 and
University of California at Berkeley Folklore Archive Yiddish-Ameri-
can files.
11. See Ford 1901:121-126; Geikie 1904:312-320; Ramsay 1873:101-126;
Rogers 1867: v-vii, xii.
12. See Allen 1968: 181, 186; Kessel and Walton 1969: 19; Littlewood and
Lipsedge 1982: 94; O'Connor 1977: 12; Wilson 1980: 15, 17.
13. In addition to those in the text, see for example Elliott 1968; Howe 1891a;
Crosland 1908 and also Hales 1910 and McCorresken 1981: 222-231.
Chapter 8: "Nasty" legends, "sick" humour and ethnic jokes about stupidity
1. For further examples of cannibal jokes from many countries see Adams
1886:15; Alvin 1983: 57-62; Bell 1980:198;Climent-Gallant 1979:69;
Eco 1983; Gorer 1945: 209; Jerrold 1913: 260; Marshall 1979: 177;
Mossessons 1974; Scopelliti 1981: 47; 97; and Vincent 1977: 25.
2. For further examples see Brunvant 1981: 94; Janssen 1970: 738; Smith
1986: 26, 104, 106.
3. For further examples see America, the Golden Age of Comedy 1973:
127; Barlow et al. 1980: 81, Delaney and Delaney 1979: 83; Jacobs
1903: 273; Kimmins 1928: 159.
Notes 203
4. See also Smith 1986: 95. For instances of cats and dogs eaten by the
besieged see Bevan 1911: 86-97; Moglia 1981: 338, Taylor (ed.) 1906:
238.
5. See Davies 1982a, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1990a.
6. Real book-sellers on the contrary (in the twentieth century at least) seem
to avoid such themes. When J. K. Galbraith asked at La Guardia airport
if they had a copy of his book The Great Crash 1929 (which is in fact
about the collapse of the stock market) the woman in charge of the air-
port book store replied, "That's certainly not a title you could sell in an
airport" (Galbraith 1961: 19).
7. The English editor, Lang, manages to misquote the original American
version in such a way as to lose half the point of the joke thus fulfilling
an American comic script about the English.
Chapter 9: Making fan of work: Humor as sociology in the humorous writ-

ings ofH. G. Wells
1. All three are to be found in H. G. Wells ( 1928) A Quartette of Comedies',

subsequent quotations from this edition are cited parenthetically in the
text. I have deliberately chosen to analyse Wells' successful writings
and to ignore Love and Mr. Lewisham (of which Wells himself wrote:
"The attempts to get comic relief into Love and Mr. Lewisham certainly
failed". See Harris Wilson: Introduction to H. G. Wells' The Wealth of
Mr. Waddy 1969: XIV. I have also omitted Wells' late humorous novel
You Can't Be Too Careful (1941) which is a total failure. For our present
purposes The Wealth of Mr. Waddy may be regarded as an early version
of Kipps.
2. From Frederick W. Taylor, author of The Principles of Scientific Man-
agement (1911), an American engineer who rationalized work so as to
attempt to produce maximum productivity by rigidly programming the
actions of each individual. His system, known as Taylorism, was, as one
might expect, much admired by Lenin.
3. On the reality behind the satire see Weber 1930: 181-182; Wilson 1969:
41-44, 259.
4. Anthony West (1984:196-197) notes that his father H. G. Wells strongly
204 Notes
deprecated the life led by H. G.'s own elder brother, who became a per-
manent drop-out cycling round rural England like Mr. Polly, earning
pin-money as an itinerant clock mender and watch-pedlar.
5. See Herbert Spencer's The Man Versus the State, ed. by Donald G.
MacRae (1969). MacRae forcefully indicates Spencer's importance and
criticizes those who have condemned him without reading him. A pe-
rusal of Samuel Smiles' The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles 1905:131
indicates that Smiles is a very different figure from the caricature mocked
by Wells. The adjective Smilesian describes the self-help virtues advo-
cated by Smiles.
Chapter 10: Conclusion
1. It is much easier and cheaper to administer questionnaires to students

than to a random sample of the population but it is also illicit then to use
the results as if they were typical of that wider population.
2. (Inspector Gregory): "Is there any other point to which you would wish
to draw my attention?"
(Sherlock Holmes): "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-
time."
(Inspector Gregory): "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. (Conan
Doyle [1892] 1985:250)
3. Elliott Oring (personal communication) has shrewdly noticed that Β londe
girl style jokes are also told in America about sorority girls and about
Β YU (Brigham Young University, the main Mormon university) co-eds,
the latter of whom in particular are sexually conservative. He deduces
from this that the Blonde/Essex girl jokes are about women who are
vigorously pursuing traditional female objectives to the neglect of the
modern alternative of being clever and pursuing an indendent career.
Thus, the reason he gives for the Essex Girl/Blonde Girls/BYU Girl
(sorority girl) being labelled stupid and promiscuous is that they have an
old-fashioned sense of priorities with success through sex being empha-
sised at the expense of success through brains. If I cannot follow him in
this argument, it is because I see the opposite of the Essex/Blonde girl of
the jokes as being not the independent career woman but as being the
JAP who insists "no chuppe, no stuppe!".
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Index
Abdera 11-12, 32-33,64, 193 Bradbury, Malcolm 131, 207

Aberdeen and Aberdonians 2,18,48,50, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fa-
133 ble 11, 19,21,27
Acquaviva, S. S. 59, 205 Briggs, Katherine M. 12, 193, 207
Alcohol 7-8,101-136,148,182,187-189, Britain and British 4, 6, 8-9, 14, 19, 21,
200-202 23, 29, 31-32, 35, 39-40, 61, 64, 67,
America and Americans 2,8-9,22-23,31, 75,85-86,93,103,107-108, 111, 114,
35, 44, 46-47, 55, 64-65, 71-73, 76- 117,126,133,140,143,166,170,172,
77,85-86,91,101-103,105,107-111, 174,177,182-183,185,187,190-191,
114,120,122-123,134,140,143,155, 198, 200, 201
167-168,170,173-174,177,182,184- Brown hatters 21
185, 187, 190, 197-198, 200, 203 Brunvand, Jan H. 144, 208
Amis, Kingsley 153 Buck, R. J. 34-35, 208
Andreski, Stanislav L. 195, 206 Bureaucracy 7, 9, 41, 52, 59, 65-66, 68,
Anti-Semitism, 23, 121, 141, 177, 181 70, 77, 79-80, 96, 156, 160-161, 189
Aristophanes 35 Bush, George 177
Aristotle 190, 195, 206 Butterfield, Fox 38, 91-92, 208
Athens and Athenians 6, 11, 30, 33-34,
68
Australia and Australians 3, 61, 64, 67, Calculativeness see 'rationality'
101-103,105-109,114,116-117,121, Calvinism and Calvinists 7, 43-63, 73,
134, 140, 182, 194, 197 123-124, 126, 128-130, 170, 196
Canada and Canadians 2,8-9,31,40,47-
48, 69, 101, 103, 107, 172-174, 200
Bacon, Seldon D. 103, 206 Cannibalism, jokes about 137-139, 141,
Baechler, Jean 20, 206 150, 202
Bales, Robert 111,206 Capitalism and capitalists 9-10, 43-62,
Barry, Norman 52, 162, 206 81-82, 161, 171, 177, 189-190, 196
Bartley, John Oliver 46, 111, 206 Cardis and Cardiganshire 2, 55-58, 60,
Beckmann, Petr 80, 82, 88, 95-96, 206 102, 132
Belgium and the Belgians 2, 4-5, 9, 12, Catholicism, Roman 4, 19, 44, 53, 61-
29-30,61,63-64,67,87,101,145,197 62, 103, 111-113, 121, 129, 134, 165-
Bell, Daniel 58, 70, 151, 159, 206 166, 169, 187
Bergson, Henri 59, 207 Centre and periphery 1-5, 11, 13-14, 29-
Blair, Tony 88 31, 33-35, 63-64, 82, 85, 166, 168-
Blonde girl jokes see Essex girl jokes 170, 190
Boetia and the Boetians 11,32,34-35,68 Cerf, Bennett 49, 72, 194, 197, 198, 208
230 Index
China and the Chinese 35-40,91-92,121, Dundes, Alan 61, 85,109,167,174-176,

134, 140, 167, 170, 195 182, 195,211
Christian Brothers 166 Dunham, A. G. 27, 34,211
Christians 137, 141 Dunne, Finley P. 120,211
Clark, G. Kitson 200, 208 Durkheim, Emile 160, 190, 212
Clements, William 108-109, 208 Dutch, the 2-4, 12, 21,46,56, 60-61,64,
Clouston, William A. 33, 193, 208 101, 197
Cobb, Irvin S. 49, 73-76, 129, 149, 168,
209
Coghill, Neville 107, 209 Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Communism see socialism Union 5, 10,41,63-64, 77-83,87-91,
Comparative method, nature and use of 94-99, 102, 161, 174-181, 197-200
167-170 Eco, Umberto 202, 212
Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur and Sherlock Economizing see 'rationality'
Holmes 167, 204 Efron, Edith 146, 212
Conflict and hostility 4-6, 8-9, 20-25, El-Shamy, Hassan M. 35, 212
148, 165-167, 176 Engels, Friedrich 19, 212
Conquest, Robert 91, 197, 209 England and the English 2,12-13,18,20-
Conway, Ronald 116, 209 21,23-24,32,46,55,75,93,110,125,
Cook, J. M. 27, 34, 209 129-132,166,187,194,196,201,203
Cowardice see militarism, jokes about Essex girl jokes and Blonde girl jokes
Crosland, Thomas W. Hodgson 202,209 182-187, 189, 204
Cunningham, Hugh 58, 210 Evans, Eifion 57, 212
Czechs and the Czech lands 3,77-78,80,
82, 87-88, 90-91, 96, 99, 199-200
Fairservis, Walter A. 35, 193, 212
Feinburg, Leonard 33, 193, 212
Davies, D. Elwyn 58, 210 Ferguson, Leonard 52, 126-128, 130,
Davis, H. W. C. 19, 210 133, 148,212
Davis, Robert B. 200,211 Finland and the Finns 3, 17, 105-107,
Demand, Ν. H. 34-35,211 109, 114, 121, 134, 182
Denmark and the Danes 4,16,21,40,166 Ford, Gerald 88-89, 177
Deriabin, Peter 175-176, 211 Ford, Robert 125, 127, 129, 202, 213
Diana, Princess of Wales 166 France and the French 2,4-5,8-9,12,16,
Dirt and dirtiness, jokes about 8,86,173- 29-30, 39, 48, 55, 61, 72, 101, 106,
174, 190 111, 140, 172-174, 197, 201
Division of labour, the 65-66,68-69,158 Francis- Jones, Gwyneth 58, 213
Douglas-Home, Sir Alec 88-90, 177 Freud, Sigmund 196, 201, 213
Draitser, Emil Abramovitch 78,93,179-
180, 198,211
Dumazedier, Joffre 200, 211 Galbraith, John Kenneth 203, 213
Index 231
Gaspariková, Viera 193, 213 Hücker, C. 38, 216

Geikie, Sir Archibald 124,200,202,213
Germany and the Germans 2, 5, 12, 19- Ireland and the Irish 2-4, 9, 13-14, 17,
20, 22, 43-44, 46, 48, 54-55, 62, 71, 21-24, 27-32, 35, 40, 47, 61, 63-67,
74-77,85,93,109-110,129,138,146, 70,77,87,91,101,105,107-124,126,
166, 170, 187, 196-197, 198, 200 130,133-135,145,148-149,165,172,
Gibney, Frank 175-176,211 174,182-183,186-187,190-191, 193,
Gilbert, Sir William S. 105, 198, 213 197,201,202
Gillespie, John 129,213 Iron cage, the 53, 58-59, 62-63, 77, 82
Ginger, Ray 47, 213 Italians and Italian-Americans 2, 15, 17,
Glad, Donald D. 110, 120, 122, 213 48, 91, 110, 116, 134, 167, 172-173,
Glatt, M. M. 116, 121,213 187, 189
Gorbachev, Mikhail 94, 99, 177, 184
Gorer, Geoffrey 202, 214
Gotham 12-14,20-21, 193 Jackson, W. Turrentine 45, 216
Goyim and Goyisher kop 121, 187 Janssen, Christian 202, 216
Graf Bobby 93, 198 JAP jokes 182-187, 189, 204
Greece and the Greeks 3, 6, 11, 27, 30, Japan and the Japanese 8,22,38-41,170,
32-34,48, 167, 193, 195 190, 195-196
Greeley, Andrew M. 110, 119, 195, 214 Jellinek, E. M. 106, 201, 216
Jews and Jewish humour 2-3, 8, 22-23,
61,68, 75, 94-95, 101-102, 105, 110,
Hallpike, C. R. 32,214 116,120-123,134,141,181-187,191,
Hama see Horns 195, 202
Haraszti, Miklos 82, 214 Jiang Yu Dai 37, 216
Hardcastle, William 131, 214 Jokes that do not exist 167-168, 172-174
Hasek, Jaroslav 10, 99, 151, 163, 199, Junior, Allan 49, 216
214
Helitzer, Mel vin 146, 215
Helmreich, William Β. 195, 215 Kees, Hermann 35, 193, 217
Herodotos 33, 215 Key, Jr., Vladimir O. 194,217
Herzberg, Frederick 58, 151, 160, 215 Kolasky, John 78,81,88,96-97,181,217
Hirszowicz, Maria 78-80, 96, 159, 215 Kowallis, J. 35,217
Hobbes, Thomas 172 Kravitz, Seth 165-166,217
Hoggart, Simon 198, 215 Kumar, Krishan 28, 151, 217
Holbek, Bengt 16,28,145-147,165-166,
215
Holland see Dutch Lancashire and Lancastrians 4, 17-20,
Homer 33, 195 194
Horns and Hama 15, 169-172, 194 Langdon-Davies, John 95, 218
Hostility see conflict Lauder, Sir Harry 48, 218
232 Index
Lebanon see Syria Orwell, George 163, 221

Legman, Gershon 193, 218 Ostfriesland and Ostfriesenwitze 2, 20,
Lenin, V. I. 178-179, 197-198, 203 64, 70, 166
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 189-190 Oxley, H. G. 116, 221
Lewis, Russell 196
Lewis, Sinclair 131, 163-164, 218
Lolli, Giorgio 116,218 Pähl, Raymond E. 14,221
Lowerson, John 58, 200, 218 Pareto, Vilfredo 197
Lucia, Salvatore P. 116, 218 Parrinder, Patrick 153, 221
Parsimony see 'rationality'
McCosh, Sandra 23-24, 174, 219 Penclawdd see Three Crosses
MacHale, Des 117, 219 Periphery see centre and periphery
Marshall, Gordon 44, 219 Petropoulos, E. 27, 221
Martin, David 62, 219 Pets, jokes about eating 137, 139-141,
Marxism and Marx, Karl 98, 179, 189, 150
199 Pittman, David J. 110, 222
Maslow, A. H. 159,219 Polanyi, Michael 52,79,81,95,162,199,
Meyerson, Abraham 103, 219 222
Miletus 6, 27, 33, 195 Poles and Polish-Americans 2,4,8-9,13,
Militarism, jokes about 188-189 17, 21-24, 31, 63-67, 69-70, 77, 81,
Mises, Ludwig von 197, 220 88, 91, 97, 101, 105, 108-109, 111,
Moodie, Dunbar 62, 220 167-168,172,174,181,194-195,197,
Morgan, Kenneth O. 57-58, 220 201
Mr. Punch 51, 140, 148, 194, 220 Political correctness 96, 173, 175-177
Myerscough, John 58, 200, 218 Political jokes 77-83, 85-100, 175
Politicians 87-90, 94-95, 198, 199
Popovsky, Mark 95, 222
Nagoya 38 Presbyterians see Calvinists
Netherlands see Dutch Protestants and the Protestant ethic 7,19,
New England and New Englanders 2,44, 43-62, 103, 111-112, 127, 129-130,
46-47,49-50,55-56,60,73,123,127, 134,155,165,170-172,187,190,196,
155 200
Newall, VenetiaJ. 138, 221 Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans 146, 184
Newfoundland and 'Newfies' 2, 4, 8-9, Punch see Mr. Punch
13,31,40, 69, 101, 166, 173 Purim 182
O'Connor, Joyce 103,106, 111, 120,202, Quale, Dan 90, 177

221
Opposed pairs of jokes, the pattern of 7,
102, 171, 182-190 Radio Armenia and Radio Eri wan 97-98,
Oring, Elliott 142-143, 189, 204, 221 198-199
Index 233
Ramsay, [Dean] Edward Bannerman 202, Soviet Union see Eastern Europe
222 Sowell, Thomas 110, 119, 195,201,225
Raskin, Victor 1, 24, 50, 121, 136, 183, Spalding, Henry D. 68, 121, 196, 225
222 Spencer, Herbert 147, 161, 204, 225
'Rationality' and economizing 44,48-51, Spontaneous versus planned order 52,79,
55, 58, 65-83, 94-96, 103-104, 126, 162
151-156, 159, 174, 180, 190 Stalin, Joseph 175, 198
Reading (Berkshire) 13-14 Stivers, Richard 110-111, 113, 118-120,
Robertson, Kenneth G. 94, 223 122, 225
Rockwell, Joan 193, 223 Sturman, Dora 90, 94, 225
Rogers, Charles 202, 223 Swedes and Swedish-Americans 3, 48,
Rosten, Leo Calvin 121, 223 65, 67, 104, 106-107, 109, 148-149,
Rummel, R. J. 178-179, 223 201
Russell, W. M. S. 35, 147, 168-169, 193, Switzerland and the Swiss 2, 5, 12, 46,
223 60-61,87
Scase, Richard 104, 201 Syria and the Syrians, Lebanon and the
Schiff, Michael 198, 223 Lebanese 15-16, 169-172, 194
Schoeck, Helmut 160, 223
Schwartz, Alvin 21, 23, 193, 223
Science 65-66, 78-80, 95-97, 160, 162, Tadley 13-14
175 Taylor, Frederick W. and Taylorism 203,
Scitovsky, Tibor 70, 224 225
Scotland and the Scots 2-3,7, 12,17-18, TWPs and TWPSINs 5
44-51, 55, 60-61, 71, 73-74, 76-77, Technology, jokes and alleged anxiety
102,105,120-136,142-143,147,155, about 27-29, 31-32, 66-70, 137, 142-
170,182,187,189,191,196,201,202 150, 171, 199
Secularization 55, 59-60, 132, 190 Texas and Texans 17, 194
Sex, jokes about 166, 182-189 Thomas, Gerald 31, 69, 226
Shtromas, Alexander 99-100, 178, 224 Thompson, Stith 193, 226
Sik, Ota 82, 224 Three Crosses and Penclawdd 19-20
Smiles, Samuel 122, 161, 204, 224 Tohoku 39-40, 170
Smith, Adam 19, 65, 68-69, 224 Tiinnes und Schäl Witze 200, 226
Smith, Paul 138-140,143-144,202,203,
224
Smith, Rev. Sydney 147-148, 171 Unitarians 55-58
Smout, Thomas C. 44, 224 United States see America
Snyder, Charles R. 110, 121, 202, 222, Utley, Francis L. 24, 226
224
Socialism 7,10,40-41,63,77-79,81 -82,
93, 96, 98-100, 102, 152, 161-162, Vidier, Alec 56, 226
174-177, 180, 197-200 Virginia and Virginians 17,49
Sodom and Gomorrah 202
234 Index
Wales and the Welsh 2,12-13,19-20,28, Wilde, Larry 60,68-69,72,112,114-115,

57-58, 110, 123-125, 127, 130-132, 117, 196, 198,201,227-228
134, 187, 194,201 Wilson, Bryan R. 111, 202, 203, 228
Walker, P. J. 19, 226 Wit and Humor from Old Cathay 35-37,
Ward, Bob 146, 171,227 228
Webb, Sydney and Beatrice 161, 227 Wolfenstein, Martha 58, 228
Weber, Max 7, 9, 43-46, 50-59, 62, 66, Wolffetal. 121, 194, 228
70-71, 156, 172, 196-197, 203, 227
Wechsleretal. 121, 194, 228
Wells, H. G. 8-10, 151-164, 172, 203- Yankees see New England
204, 227 Yorkshire and Yorkshirepersons 17-19,
Welsch, Roger L. 21-23, 193, 227 194
West, Anthony 158, 203, 227
Wiener, Martin 54, 227
Wildavsky, Aaron 28 Zijderveld, Anton C. 184, 228

Humor Research 4 Davies Christie Jokes and Their Relation To Society 1998 Mouton de Gruyter 1

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Jokes and their Relation to Society

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Jokes and their Relation to Society is a comparative and historical study of

Chapter 2 Traditional and modern

The Protestant ethic and the comic spirit of capitalism 43

Stupidity and rationality: Jokes from the iron cage 63

Humour for the future and a future for humour 85

Ethnic jokes about alcohol: A study of the humour of ambivalence 101

Humour as sociology in the humorous writings of H. G. Wells 151

Chapter 10: Conclusion 165

Table 1. Stupid and canny jokes by country

Table 2. Ethnic jokes about stupidity and alcohol

Table 3. Opposed sets of ethnic jokes

Table 4. Irish and Polish jokes about drinking

Table 5. Irish and Polish jokes about stupidity

Table 1. Stupid and canny jokes by country

Country where stupid Identity of stupid Identity of the canny

United States Poles (and others locally Scots, Jews, New

Canada (Central and Newfoundlanders Scots, Jews, Nova

Canada (West) Ukrainians, Icelanders Scots, Jews

Mexico Yucatecos (from Yucatan) Regiomontanos

Columbia Pastusos (from Pasto

Ireland Kerrymen Scots, Jews

France Belgians, French Auvergnats (from the

Netherlands Belgians, Limburgers Scots, Jews

Germany Ostfrieslanders Swabians, Scots, Jews

Southern Italians Milanese, Genovese,

Fribourgers from Genevois, Balois (from

People from Lepe Aragonese, Catalans

Country where stupid Identity of stupid Identity of the canny

Finland Karelians Laihians (from

Bulgaria Sopi (peasants from the Gabrovonians (from

Russia Ukrainians, Chukchees

Pakistan Sikhs (Sardarjis) Hindus, especially

Iran Rashtis (Azéris Armenians, people from

Nigeria Hausas Ibos

South Africa Afrikaners Scots, Jews

Australia Irish, Tasmanians Scots, Jews

New Zealand Irish, Maoris (North Scots, Jews, Dutch

In addition, stupidity jokes are told about Carinthians and Burgenlanders in

growth of modern industrial societies has merely given them a boost.

Fooltowns: Centre versus periphery, urban versus rural

members of a group that is recognizably similar and who, to the joke-tellers

From local to ethnic jokes

A young Aleppan wants to go to Beirut and an older Aleppan is giving his

So the Aleppan says: "I'll only pay 40."

Jacqueline Ferraro who collected this joke added:

The social roots of regional and local jokes

Although ethnic jokes have replaced jokes about smaller communities or

new master on reading it, said he observed your lordship recommended me as

Two Lancashire businessmen discussing a Yorkshireman who had recently

From fooltowns to ethnic jokes: Continuity rather than change

In this statement the hypothesis of the threatening upward mobility of the

Concluding thoughts on fooltowns

Milesians are not stupid, I aver,

Milesians are not stupid, no, not they.

Why does a Pontian housewife have two washing machines?

How can you tell an Irish word-processor?

How do you recognize a Belgian in a submarine?

Why was the Irish train-driver on the underground sacked?