As befits an octogenarian, I’ve been known to say, “Back in the day…,” but now and again a wise guy asks, “Just when was that?” So, to be more precise, I’ll refer to “the halcyon days of yore.” Nowadays, sadly, it has fallen on me to come to the defense of Dad jokes. Case in point. Remember the Artemis mission? Sure, but let’s not forget that back in the day the cow jumped over the moon. The words are no sooner out of my mouth than my daughter Zoë, with an eye role, judges my effort “cringeworthy.”

Well, Zoë might be right. But I’m not limited to topical jokes. Here’s an example. Someone asks, “What’s new?” “Well,” I answer, “there’s a lot going on in Inglewood. But don’t ask for the details. I’ve already told you more than I know.” It’s a “framework joke” and with a hint of espionage you can use it in any number of contexts. So don’t be shy. (If you are, as Garrison Keillor advises the folks of Lake Woebegone, “Powder Milk Biscuits will give you the strength to do what needs to be done.”)

My underlying worry is that if Dad jokes get cancelled, humor itself will come under attack. That would be a hot mess. Norman Cousins (1915-1990), longtime editor of The Saturday Review, knew the score. His mantra? “Laughter is the best medicine.” When he suffered from an almost lethal autoimmune disease, he self-medicated by watching Candid Camera. He reported that “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”

Though mercifully free of major illness, I do suffer from an occasional bout of misology, a distaste for reasoning. It’s a malaise that can prey even on a philosopher. Among its symptoms is an ill-humor that my spouse quickly notices. Of late I’ve found relief in the light verse of Ogden Nash (1902-1971), a master of the genre. His most cited quip is “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” I’ve surely profited from his more sober poem “A Word to Husbands”:

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

But we needn’t limit ourselves to “moderns” for a defense of humor. Aristotle, in his Ethics (Bk. IV, Ch. 8), identifies three kinds of people who tell jokes, two of which he rebukes. The first are vulgar buffoons. “They stop at nothing to raise a laugh and care more about that than about what is seemly and avoiding pain to [their] victims.” The second are the boorish, “who would never say anything to raise a laugh and even object when other people do it.” Third is the true wit. Such is the person “who jokes well” and whose remarks are “not unsuitable for a civilized person”; thereby they “avoid pain” and “give pleasure to the hearer.” Even so, Aristotle admits, avoiding pain and giving pleasure “is indefinable, since different people find different things hateful or unpleasant.” (Ah, gentle reader, indeed they do. Texas Governor James “Big Jim” Hogg found it pleasant to name his daughter Ima. Undaunted, Ima Hogg (1882-1975) became a notable philanthropist, mental health advocate, and patron of the arts.)

St. Thomas Aquinas, as we would expect, is familiar with Aristotle’s account but frames it in the context of what it is to be reasonable. He sternly challenges the critics of humor and their ilk. Consider the very title of ST II-II q. 168, art. 4: Whether there is a sin in lack of mirth? For Thomas, “whatever is against reason is a sin.” Yet “by offering no pleasure to others, and by hindering their enjoyment” one becomes “burdensome to others,” which is unreasonable. And Thomas adds that “a man who is without mirth, not only is lacking in playful speech” but is also “deaf to the moderate mirth of others.”

But the Common Doctor then cautions us. “[M]irth is useful for the sake of the rest and pleasures it affords; and since, in human life, pleasure and rest are not in quest for their own sake, but for the sake of operation,” it follows that “lack of mirth is less sinful than excess thereof.” Then he reminds us of Aristotle’s remark (Ethics, Bk. IX, Ch. 10): “We should make few friends for the sake of pleasure, since but little sweetness suffices to season life, just as little salt suffices for our meat.”

Thomas characteristically sees moderation as an adjutant of reason. So it is that, to return to my initial remarks, I must exercise restraint in telling Dad jokes. My wife tells me that two is the proper limit. At the corner market check-out stand, anticipating a friendly audience, I often try a third. My wife calls it “flirting with dear Vernessa.”