There is a belief among some groups that comedy has no rules. These folks insist there are no guidelines, no boundaries, no restrictions. Comedy gives you the freedom to say whatever you want without restraint. They’ve mistaken freedom of expression for anarchy.

As soon as I say, “There are no rules in comedy,” I’ve stated a comedy rule.1

I’m trying to be charitable (because I want to be treated charitably), so I think the “no rules” people are trying to say, “Comedy should be uncensored.” I agree with that. Sort of.

Censorship is a necessary step in all communication. Without it, you wouldn’t know what a conversation is about. I’m writing about censorship, which required censoring the topics of whittling, raisin muffins, and disc golf. We can’t talk about everything at once.

Whelp! There’s another rule.

As delightful as it may be to imagine comedy as a realm of boundless liberty where ideas run completely free, that’s not reality. I’m only able to talk about raisin muffins after I’ve censored all the non-muffin talk away. So the question is not whether your ideas will be censored. The question is who does the censoring and when.2

Still trying to be charitable, I assume the “no rules” people mean that comedy can address any subject. Nothing is taboo. Everything is open to criticism, satire, and mockery. I wholeheartedly agree, and would be remiss not to mention that this is also a rule.

I suggest we stop pretending there are no rules and dedicate ourselves to learning them. Not a list of do’s and don’ts — that list would be enormously long and not particularly useful. I mean the essentials: the things you must possess to create comedy at all. Lacking any one of them makes comedy impossible.

There are five: point of view, courage, humility, truth, and faith.

Point of view is your perspective on a topic. Everybody has one, but comedy requires you to understand yours. That requires self-examination, which is often painful and humiliating. It’s easier to just take someone else’s point of view than to put forth the effort to contemplate your own.

Courage is what it takes to express your point of view publicly. Lots of people will signal their disagreement by explaining how much you remind them of Hitler. They will hold you personally responsible for all the evil in whittling, raisin muffins, and disc golf. Without courage, the fear of being unpopular will shut down your sense of humor.

Humility is the nagging suspicion that you might be wrong about everything. Comedy projects confidence, certainty, infallibility on even the most mundane subjects. Humility is what keeps you from believing your own bravado.

Truth is the target. Comedy always tells the truth. Telling the truth requires first believing there is such a thing. When you don’t believe in objective truth, you’re trying to hit a target that you doubt exists.

Which brings us to faith. Of all the essentials this is the essentialest.3 You cannot reason your way to funny. Laughter, like sunrise, is an irrational phenomenon that can’t be guaranteed. We believe a joke will work today simply because it brought the house down yesterday. We believe the sun will rise tomorrow because it rose today, not because sunrise ‘makes perfect sense.’ The basis for both beliefs is faith.

I’ll write at length about each of these essentials in separate posts, which means you should hold your objections until then. I don’t want you to have to issue a sheepish apology after you realize I’m right.

Of course, you’re free to ignore these essentials entirely. You can skip point of view, forgo courage, dispense with humility, reject truth, and abandon faith. You’ll still produce something. It just won’t be funny. It’s the humor of people who believe comedy has no rules.

There are several reasons I love comedy. Laughter prohibits grumbling, complaining, and physical assault. You can’t easily do harm while belly laughing. In between rounds, boxing coaches NEVER tell their fighters, “A priest, a rabbi, and a duck walked into a bar…”

Comedy is a shortcut to thoughtfulness. Ideas are complex things that require mental effort to understand. Thinking is hard work, so most people rarely do it. A joke is wisdom in its simplest form. Humor puts thoughts into the heads of people who never think, and they’re not angry about it.

Laughter makes stubborn people less resistant to learning. There is a certain type of character who is insulted by new ideas. Introducing them to new information is a painful reminder that they don’t know everything. A clever bit of comedy lets them avoid admitting ignorance. Laughing at the joke proves they “get it” without confessing they’ve just learned it.

Effective communication is the most important skill a human can develop. Words are the primary method of moving ideas from my brain into yours. Words are literally magic. A joke is a series of invisible words that convey an intangible idea which causes a tangible, physical response. Sorcery of the purest kind. This mystical power is available to everybody, but very few people care to learn it.

I’m writing for those few.

This is a new Substack series in which I’ll belabor the process of creating comedy for the tiny group of interested individuals. I’ll drone about the philosophy of humor. I’ll go into intricate detail about structures, methods, mechanisms, and myriad other topics that will cause the majority of readers to say, “Hey! This isn’t funny! I thought you were supposed to be a comedian!”

I’m calling this series “Comedy Round Table.” It’s likely going to be a scattered affair since inspiration often seems random. The ad-hoc nature of comedy writing is daunting when you’re used to spreadsheets and nested outlines. Humor requires leaving the safety of established processes and wandering off the beaten path.

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