Tactical Frivolity - History of The Role of Humour in Political Protest

History of The Role of Humour in Political Protest

The study of humour by social historians did not become popular until the early 1980s and the literature on this subject studying periods before the 20th century is relatively sparse. An exception is the frequently cited Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian scholar considered by some to be the most important thinker of the 20th century. The work discusses the life and times of the writer and satirist François Rabelais with emphases on what the author considers to be the powerful role of humour in medieval and early times. Carnivals, Satire and the French folk custom of Charivari were discussed as mediums that allowed the lower classes to use humour to highlight unjust behaviour by the upper classes. These humorous protests were generally tolerated by the ruling authorities. Examples of the use of humour for political protest even from Classical times, such as the play Lysistrata by ancient Greek dramatist Aristophanes, have been described as "Rabeleisan protest". Studies of hunter gather tribes thought to have systems of social organisation that have changed little since prehistoric times, have found that ridicule or anger is used by many tribes to oppose any individual who tries to assume authority in a way that violates the tribe's egalitarian norms. Tribes observed to show this behaviour include the !Kung, Mbuti, Naskapi and Hazda. An example of a political protest making extensive use of humour in early modern times was the 17th century British movement, the Levellers. There is much more extensive literature covering the use of humour by the protest movements which emerged in the 20th century.

In the United States, Abbie Hoffman is a well-known user of frivolous tactics; active in the 1960s and 70s, his actions included dropping money onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, running a pig as a candidate for president, and the "levitation" of the Pentagon. One of the earliest protest groups whose use of humour has been specifically described as "tactical frivolity" is Orange Alternative, a movement that emerged in Poland during the early 1980s as a part of the broader Solidarity campaign. They made extensive use of visual jokes and theatrical stunts to protest against oppression by the authorities, a common theme was to dress up as elves (sometimes translated dwarves or gnomes). Orange Alternative have been described as the most "influential of the solidarity factions", central to enabling the overall movement to prevail; due in part to the success their comedic "happenings" enjoyed in attracting the attention of the world's media. A protest movement described as partly responsible for popularising the contemporary use of "Tactical Frivolity" is Reclaim the Streets (RTS). They formed in 1991 in Great Britain, inspired in part by the anti-road protests of the previous decades and in part by the Situationists. As the 1990s advanced, RTS inspired splinter groups in other countries across the world, and they were heavily involved in organising the international Carnival against Capitalism - an anti-capitalism event held in many cities simultaneously on June 18, 1999. Carnival against Capitalism, frequently known as J18, is sometimes credited as being the first of the major international anti-capitalist protests. RTS have reported that many of their organisers were inspired by independently reading the work of Bakhtin.