What does it mean to live in a democracy?

The National Democracy Institute (NDI) at their 2019 Gala chose to bring attention to a signature freedom that only people living in a democracy have: the ability to joke and laugh about our own government and the people in it.

In presenting the 2019 Leadership In Democracy Award to Trevor Noah, the NDI “celebrates humor as the most democratic form of speech, and explores how humor critiques social and political imperfections in democracy, informing and leading to social change.”

In his candid, insightful, and, as always, impeccably humorous acceptance speech, Noah shares a remarkable experience from his childhood at the end of apartheid in South Africa. He witnessed an exchange between the races which demonstrated the power of laughter to disarm and unite disparate people. It took him years to process and internalize the experience, and set him on his path to not just a career but a calling: to spread joy and laughter throughout the world.

That he has been in his own word, “lucky and blessed” to become a world-renowned standup comedian, hand picked by his predecessor, Jon Stewart to host The Daily Show, bringing joy and laughter to millions, is testament to the fact that he is onto something.

To be free to make jokes about leaders is perhaps the most clear indicator of democracy, and something many of us take for granted.

And truly, isn’t democracy the best system on earth? Isn’t the ability to speak freely and to laugh one of the greatest joys of life?

Indeed, on the micro level of life, to be able to laugh with your family, at yourself, your parents, grandparents, and siblings, is the sign of a functional family. Having married into such a family 32 years ago, I now advise young people: a good criterion for selecting a mate — look for laughter. Can the family you are considering marrying into laugh at themselves and each other?

Laughter’s benefits go far. Multiple peer-reviewed studies confirm not only does laughter uplift the mood and benefit mental health, but also to positively affects physical health as well.

“Laughter,” summarized Hara Estroff Marano in Psychology Today, “reduces pain, increases job performance, connects people emotionally, and improves the flow of oxygen to the heart and brain. Laughter, it’s said, is the best medicine. And there’s lots of evidence that laughter does lots of good things for us.”

Could cultivating daily laughter and lightheartedness be far more powerful than any studies done so far? Could laughter and lightheartedness be a solution to so many of the problems that divide us today? Could it be the key to restoring relations and ending wars —cultural and otherwise ?

If not, laughter sure makes life more fun!

But we must be wise to protect our democracy. Not take this keystone freedom for granted. For, as Noah so wisely puts it, let us not misunderstand, Democracy enables freedom to joke and laugh. Not the other way around. Laughter does not create democracy — it is a sign of a healthy democracy.

Just as in a relationship, if someone censors you, looks daggers at you, clamps a hand over your mouth, binds you and tapes your mouth shut… that is a sign of abuse. And it’s time to leave.

So let freedom to laugh be a criterion for the selection of all our relationships: our choice in friends, family, and the leaders who represent us.