Humor and Position

 Jayden is markedly different than me. For starters, I'm 21 years old, and he is 13. He is a first year in high school, and I am a senior in college.  I am white, and he is black. Difference, however, does not translate to misunderstanding or confusion. In fact, our marked differences spur our conversations about things we both have a working knowledge of. For example, current events make up the bulk of our conversations and, in turn, we offer each varying analyses and perspectives. His perspectives are perhaps due to his differences from I and maybe mine from his, but notably the differences in theories are never combative or opposing. In fact, they are often complimentary. Not to say that we always agree - we do not. ie. the Yankees are still the greatest team of all time in baseball

But or discussions are continue and thrive on the basis of our connection and understanding that each other's perspective is both organic and artificial. Sure, we make our own jokes, define and carve out our own "senses of humor" but our understanding of "funny" comes from a long and complicated history of borrowing, stealing, and building. Not this relationship is mentioned explicitly, though I'm sure Jayden would find it interesting. 

As Ellison explains:

"Like any of the major human escapes, entertainments and instruction, humor is a discipline. And one of the basic functions of American humor, as it began to emerge— and it didn't emerge out of the thin air: it emerged through adaptation through gradual applicants of new turns on the old human stories— out of this emergence we began to prepare ourselves for the unexpected." (147)

In essence, we are drawing from a long history of applied humor that we, of course, experience differently. Succinctly, it's why we can laugh at each other's jokes rather than spiral into confusion or translation because they may be different from each other.