To every joke there is an equal and opposite disproportionate reaction.
The Newtonian phrasing carries the claim: the reaction scales with the joke rather than with any harm done, so a mild joke draws mild objection and a sharp one draws a response out of proportion to anything that happened. The mechanism is that a joke requires an audience to share a premise, and those who do not share it experience the same line as an assertion.
In practice
- An internal newsletter item read as light by everyone who shared the premise generates a complaint from everyone who did not.
- A remark that would pass unremarked in the room becomes an incident when it is written down and circulated.
- Standing
- From Berg's numbered set, first codified on his blog in 2005. Compare Gervais's offence principle and the toxoplasma of rage, which describe the selection that follows.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- The folk laws of argument and attention