The serious side of put-down humor

You're standing in a group, talking, and one of the members starts shooting verbal "zingers" at you. Everybody gets a hearty laugh at your expense. Everybody but you.

Light (and not-so-light) insult humor has become almost a national pastime. When you're the butt of the jokes, you may try to shrug it off as harmless, but it stings. And if you're the one getting laughs at others' expense, you may not realize what you're revealing about yourself.

Let's shed some light and insight to this common workplace (and family) experience.

Verbal Abuse is Not Funny
For the past number of weeks, I've been engaged in coaching work, formally and informally, with groups and teams. Each of these groups had been intact for months; some, for years. Participants represented the spectrum of "types" that might be included in the myriad descriptions of the MBTI or DiSC-type assessments or profiles. So, nothing unusual in the participant makeup.

However, across teams and groups, I was struck by one behavior that stood out above all others, namely, the propensity for many of the members to consistently engage in making destructive, cutting, sarcastic remarks to and about others in their group or on their team.

Destructive comments ­ personal or professional ­ are those which are hurtful, demeaning, sarcastic and verbally abusive.

What You Say Matters
The comments I experienced were directed at folks' physical characteristics (hair, clothes), perspectives or ideas, life choices (others' choices of restaurants, movies, sports teams), folks' current performance, and even where others had worked or attended school.

These were not simply run-of-the-mill light comments. There was an underlying anger, resentment and destructive element wrapped inside.

On more than one occasion, I had to do a "double-take", and ask myself, "Did I really hear that?" "Did he really say that?" "Did she really throw that zinger at him?"

What continually came to me was "Why? What is this all about?"

In Western culture, the biting, sarcastic, demeaning put-down has become an art form, everywhere ­ TV, movies, talk radio, sports events, journals and magazines. It's part of the fabric of everyday conversation. And more, many folks today see such behavior as "business as usual", as "no big deal."

In fact, when I asked some of these folks if they were aware of what they said, most responded, "No." or "So, what?" Like I had three heads or came from another planet. For many of these folks, their behavior is a true "blind spot."

There's Always A Reason

So, let's return to the question, "Why?". In my experience in the realm of psychology and psychodynamics, we understand most folks engage in put-downs, sarcasm and barbs as a way to look smart, witty and cool.

That's the upside for them. The downside is that the person for whom the comment is directed is often harmed, hurt, demeaned, or otherwise made the point of ridicule.

When I ask other group participants – the bystanders - why they often react with laughter, or "atta boy" comments, they generally say they don't know, they just do. "It was funny." Basically, a knee-jerk reaction.

The truth is many react this way in the "go along to get along" fashion because they don't want to stand out as different, serious, politically correct, etc. They want and need to be "one of the boys". So speaking out, or pushing back against such comments and behaviour, will only serve to get them ostracized. So, they laugh or jump into the banter. It's like a verbal gang rape.

The deal is, no matter how sharp one is, how educated, how senior in the hierarchy one is, how wealthy one is, no one has the right to strive to look witty, sharp or cool at the expense of another human being, at the expense of being disrespectful to another human being.

And, for those who have a need to do so, the underlying question is, "Why? What does it get you? Does it make any difference that you might be hurting someone else?"

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• It's synchronistic that you are writing about this. I just witnessed a (very dear) female postal worker being put down by one of her male co-workers, and when I spoke up, like, HEY (I was smiling, at least), he gave ME a tongue lashing that basically wrote off the whole thing as, "This is what we do here. It's our thing. We aren't bothered by it. So butt out." I was flabbergasted. I actually came home and googled "put down humor" to see if many folks were saying much about it. Shockingly, they weren't. I discussed it over a manicure and the woman next to me was listening in and said, "I'm a manager and if that happened in my office, there would be trouble." I later asked the female in question how she felt about it. "Do I need to stampede for sensitivity training?" She said, "No. Sometimes it hurts, but, no." I could see she would not be comfortable standing up for herself (which is precisely why I tried to do it for her). I personally want to see this addressed more. I live in a fairly rural community where Macho Still Rules and women co-workers are less apt to stick up for themselves, clearly. Whatever we can do to raise the bar on civility is another way to make our offices more humane places to work, where entering does not require heavy armor to get through the day.

  Kathryn Hall, Northern California