An Analysis of the Various Kinds of Humor: Satire and Humor Through Absurdity

One of the most effective and constructive kinds of humor is obtained by reducing a real-world situation, person, or idea to its absurd logical extreme, or magnifying its flaws by making obviously absurd statements. This kind of humor is at the core of satire and is often used to stimulate critical thinking about current problems within a society. Great authors such as Voltaire and H. L. Mencken used absurd humor and satire in order to convince individuals to abandon irrational fallacies and dogmas.

A remark can employ devices such as exaggeration or blatant inconsistency to qualify as humorous. This causes a departure of the subject matter of the remark from the expected, rational, and sensible, and into the realm of the bizarre, a situation the man who laughs at it would likely not have gotten himself into.

When the defects of a person or thing are amplified to a ridiculous extent by exaggeration, his/its case becomes funny rather than just deserving of mild pity. The typical environmentalist is often an odd creature, but, when made into an object of humor, he becomes the fanatical tree hugger, ready to tie himself to a tree and obstruct logging efforts just to repeatedly chant, "Save the endangered spotted slug!" (The risk he takes is too severe, and the object of his campaign is too petty, to qualify this satirized environmentalist for having the remotest semblance of rationality.)

Similarly, paper towels in public high schools are inconvenient at best in real life, but, when made fun of, they can be praised as the ultimate material for making the outer layers of raincoats. (The ridiculed towels lack water absorptivity so greatly that they can be used for the exact opposite purpose.)