ABSTRACT
The Mirth of Nations is a book analyzing the jokes told by or about particular people, viewed in a comparative and historical context, and examining the social circumstances of the particular time when the jokes emerged and flourished. In order fully to understand the self-mocking Jewish sense of humor it was necessary to locate a people with a similar tradition and the Scots of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are the closest case. In the case of the stupidity jokes what is common to all the butts of the jokes is that they live on the geographical, economic or linguistic edge of the society or culture where the jokes are told. The jokes play with superiority and disparagement. Whether they coincide with a real sense of superiority or real expressions of disparagement is an empirical question. Propositions about humor being based on playing with superiority are descriptions based on common sense observations and nothing more.
