previous: Question 2
"Why do you feel you have to make fun of our most cherished beliefs? That's just hurtful. Can't you make your point some other way?"
The leaders of the Mormon church have given its membership two rather interesting commandments: to avoid loud laughter, and to avoid speaking evil of the Lord's anointed.
If you're like me, you'll find it endlessly amusing to imagine the Mormon prophet stamping his foot and saying petulantly: "Stop laughing at me or else!" But there is a good rationale for these commandments. To laugh at a person or institution, to see it even for a moment as pathetic and ridiculous, is to weaken the power it wields over you. And if you laugh at something enough, you may be able to shrug off its influence altogether.
Satirists from Aristophanes to Voltaire, Swift to Twain, Garry Trudeau to James Morrow and Al Franken, have understood this principle well and used it to undermine the power of the most oppressive institutions of their times. They may not have destroyed their targets wholesale, but every derisive laugh they elicited pried a brick from the walls of those hallow halls of power, and soon there was enough of an opening that a few intrepid souls were able to escape.
I'm not in a league with the names I mentioned, but when I write an essay like "I'm Special!" or create a game like "No Man Knows My Pancreas" or crack wise about putting on my Jesus Christ Underoosâ¢, I'm participating in that same grand satirical tradition. Humor is a weapon, and laughter is a wound. Every time I make you chuckle or guffaw, I've struck a little blow against the Mormon church—or rather, I've helped you strike your own blow against its ability to exercise its control over you and your mind and your heart. That's an honorable accomplishment, and I won't apologize for it.
With the mastery of your soul at stake, it's no wonder your leaders don't want you laughing at them. But if you're not laughing, if you find my japes more hurtful than humorous, consider this—I may be hitting a little too close to home for your comfort. Or for theirs.
next: Question 4
