Laughter

Using Laughter to Influence

Abraham Lincoln was a leader and a speaker who understood this aspect of humor. On September 22, 1862, the president gathered his cabinet together. In the midst of the brutal Civil War, he wanted their approval for his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which aimed to free millions of enslaved people across the Confederacy. The meeting came five days after the bloody Battle of Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American history, and Lincoln knew that his cabinet secretaries were on edge. The president needed to calm their nerves and lighten the mood in the room, prior to raising the very serious issue of the proclamation. So Lincoln began the meeting by reading aloud from a book of humorous stories, writes historian Merrill D. Peterson, pausing to laugh loudly at the end. Then, he put the book to one side and asked the members of his cabinet: “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.” Mehdi Hasan. Win Every Argument — Mehdi Hasan (pp. 224-225). Kindle Edition.