. . . and Polish Jokes
Cox, Harvey
. . . and Polish jokes FOR MANY REASONS I find myself deeply moved by the election of Karol Wojtyla. Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that Poland was the first foreign country I ever set foot...
...harvey cox (Harvey Cox, of the Harvard Divinity School, is the author most recently of Turning East...
...Could it be, I have asked myself, that these jokes in fact mask the unconscious admiration we all harbor for the good soldier Schweiks of the modern world...
...It is these little peculiarities and eccentricities which religion must never forget to nourish...
...The stories (which I understand are also told by the Dutch about the Belgians, the Japanese about the Koreans, the English about the Irish, and so on) usually involve the alleged ineptitude of certain people in performing the routine mechanical duties of life or in doing what is expected of them in social situations...
...In the long run, the election of John Paul II, as many Polish Americans fervently hope, may do away with' 'Polish jokes...
...Merchant Marine ship carrying livestock to a hungry, devastated people...
...But these speculations, by now, are not mine alone, and I am left with a much smaller point, one about that peculiarly snide form of humor.known as the "Polish joke...
...Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that Poland was the first foreign country I ever set foot in—it was 1946, the port of Gdynia, and I was on a U.S...
...But I wonder if these jokes don't also contain another element...
...There could hardly be a more dramatic contrast to the bumbling heroes of "Polish jokes'' than the vigorous, intellectual John Paul II, but I would like to think he understands the secret resistance those heroes may be conducting...
...A French Catholic writer has recently suggested that the only hope for the human spirit today lies in the countless tiny ways in which ordinary people deflect, subvert and undermine the pretentious plans laid on us by the overbearing systems we live under...
...Do these witticisms suggest that at some level we all wish there were some more antic and less boringly efficient way to replace a light bulb or to execute all the other routine duties imposed on us by modern, technical society...
...at all, but for all those whose slowness to " fit in," whose inability to get The Directive right, whose alleged clumsiness, in fact, serve to protect their essential humanity in an age of computerized calibration...
...It could be that the Poles of the jokes will have the last laugh after all...
...Perhaps it is the continuing interest I have maintained, ever since living in Berlin in 1963 a few blocks from the Wall, in the desperate need to maintain a dialogue between Christians and Communists...
...In any case, these and less personal reasons have inspired me to various large speculations about the reign of John Paul II—his at once new and old-fashioned commitment to "those who are oppressed by whatever injustice or discrimination," the likelihood of his escaping the many political predictions with which we are now being flooded...
...There is no denying the harmful consequences of reinforcing stereotypes through such humor, nor the prejudice or thoughtlessness that lurks behind it...
...Could it express the stab of jealousy we feel, not for Polish people (or Belgians, Koreans, etc...
...In the short run, however, we have had a rash of irreverencies...
...In the land of National Lampoon humor, with its cracks at blacks, women, homosexuals, and down-and-outers generally, how could it be otherwise...
Vol. 105 • November 1978 • No. 23
