Odd Dude

I generally like Jack Shafer's column in Slate, and indeed I liked this one, but this comment was odd: 

...I'm actually not a fan of any kind of humor. The very essence of humor is aggression. The point of most jokes is to inflict psychological suffering and pain—to transgress and make someone the butt. This is why I've declared my journalism, my office, my home, and the subway line I commute to work on absolutely comedy free.

Although I avoid making jokes—lest I hurt someone's feelings...

A) That premise is untrue. Billions of us around the globe regularly manage to laugh without any aggression being involved. People often respond to something shocking and non-threatening with laughter, regardless of whether or not someone is put down. 

B) Even if that were true, would protecting people from humor-induced (as opposed to, say, trauma-induced) psychological suffering be a reasonable tradeoff for a world without laughter? I think not.