On the surface, it seems as though we live in societies that celebrate laughter. Comedies abound on media and television, and an intense pressure to appear happy prevails, particularly in North American contexts. The tragic dimension of existence is pushed out of view and its impact is often minimized through mind-altering happy pills. But what is important to note about the seemingly prominent role accorded to laughter is that it is primarily a form of entertainment rather than a way of living life. Many television comedies are distractions that are not meant to provoke thought but instead âsaveâ us from thinking too deeply. While laughter occasionally intrudes unexpectedly into our daily experience, it is largely reserved for after-hours when the more serious work of the day is over. In other words, we do not tend to take laughter seriously. Instead, it becomes a mere hiccup that interrupts our routine to provide momentary respite, while at the same time saving us from our own reflections. This begs the question: are laughter and thought inherently antithetical to one another? Is laughter the arch-enemy of philosophy?
It is no surprise that in academia, that most âearnestâ of pursuits, there is also a prejudice against laughter. Nietzsche provides a biting caricature of the specialist academic in his portrayal of a man who devotes his entire life to the meticulous study of the brain of the leech and brags âI am the conscientious man of the spiritâŚand scarcely anyone is sterner, stricter and more severe in things of the spirit than IâŚHow long have I probed this one thing, the brain of the leech so that the slippery truth should no longer slip away from me! Here is my kingdomâ (Z IV 4). Even the mere study of the leech would have been too broad, and the devoted ascetic focuses on its brain in the hopes of finding here a domain in which he can remain the unchallenged master. This parable offers a biting satire of the growing irrelevance of the intellectual who retreats into a cocoon of expertise as a way of hiding from the world and does so with an exaggerated ascetic rigour. Asceticism is the enemy of laughter.
The inspiration for this book comes from comments addressed to me in my first year of employment when I was told there was too much laughter emanating from my classroom. We were reading Nietzsche, who is at times deliciously funny. The comment is of course laden with assumptions. Laughter is presumed to be antithetical to learning, which is by its very nature, serious. This led me to ponder the question of why laughter is seldom addressed by philosophers. Modern and contemporary philosophy abounds with speculation about melancholia, sadness and existential Angst, which are all emotions that bring to the surface the fragility of the human being. Anxiety and melancholy are assumed to be conducive to thought, perhaps because they precipitate quests for meaning, but laughter is not accorded such a prominent place.
My aim in writing this book is not to provide a comprehensive overview of theories of laughter and humour nor is it to provide a survey of the field. It is not within the scope of this project to examine all phenomena that make us laugh, such as tickling and release from physical tension. Instead, I attempt to ascertain through the works of philosophers themselves, why laughter is seldom addressed as a serious topic of discussion in the hallowed halls of philosophy. I will do so by exploring the works of some thinkers from Chinese and Western traditions, who either discuss the comic and/or laughter or employ it in their writing. Are there certain aspects of their philosophies that make them more amenable to approaches to the comic or does the comic change the manner in which they do philosophy? Far from precluding thought, the humorous can lead to a different kind of thinking that treasures anomalies and paradoxes. Because the comic operates at the margins of thought, it can facilitate its transformation. But, I also want to stress that this is not the purpose of the comic, for to claim that it is, would be another way of making it the servant of thought. Laughter is no prelude to philosophy, but nonetheless a philosophy that is open to laughter might take on a very different hue indeed.
Laughter itself is always a physiological reaction, which can literally take over the body. At times it is linked to the humorous or comic and at other times is unrelated. The only philosopher I address in this text who directly discusses the physical dimension of laughter, is that most stodgy of philosophers, Immanuel Kant, who perhaps because of the rigid mind/body divide that he maintains is acutely aware of laughterâs physicality and perhaps for this very reason, relegates it to the margins of his philosophy. Anca Parvulescu in her book, Laughter: Notes on a Passion, explores why immoderate laughter has largely been banished from âcivilizedâ society. She underlines the fact that laughter makes us uncomfortable because it transgresses boundaries and also reminds us of our âprimitiveâ nature which occasionally intrudes upon our ordered, intellectualized domains. The mouth is wide open when we laugh, and is if âit comes to remind us that the mouth has two Latin names: os and buccaâ (Parvulescu, 2010, p. 8). Os is connected to âoralityâ or âvoice and speakingâ, while bucca is the primitive mouth of âbreathing, sucking and eatingâ (Parvulescu 2010, p. 10). Laughter combines dimensions of our existence that we strive to separate. Parvulescu notes that only children âlaugh heartilyâ while civilized laughter is âmoderateâ and does not take over the whole body (Parvulescu 2010, p. 24). Due to its transgressive nature, we seek the company of others when we laugh, as a means of providing us with some social security in the midst of this troubling eruption. In other words, we huddle together with others in order to seek social approval in the midst of our transgression. Children do not mind laughing alone and can often get an entire table of adults to succumb to peals of laughter. Philosophy has been traditionally the activity whereby we tame the unbounded by putting it into words. For this reason, words can never capture laughter.
Laughter cannot always be equated with the comical. As John Morreall has noted, the comic is often related to a perception of âincongruityâ. He maintains that it is based on the fact that human beings work with âlearned patternsâ so that the âfuture turns out like the pastâ while incongruity violates these âmental patterns and our normal expectationsâ (Morreall 2009, p. 10). If I show up to lecture with a piece of underwear dangling from my pants because I had forgotten to check them when taking them out of the laundry, my students would find this funny, because it is âincongruousâ with my âearnestâ role as a professor. We delight in such âincongruityâ as long as we ourselves are not the butt of the joke. But the language of âincongruityâ itself illustrates how wedded we are to the language of congruency and its attendant rationality. What Morreall, following Schopenhauer, refers to as incongruity is often not only unexpected but represents a resurgence of things that we traditionally spurn. The expected patterns of our lives are not just intended to produce familiarity, but to prevent truths with which it is hard to live from cropping to the surface. The underwear in the classroom reminds the unfortunate professor and her or his laughing audience that she or he too is a human being with bodily functions. It is this which we often try to forget while practising philosophy.
Laughter and comedy throw into question the predominant role that we accord to ourselves as reasoning and symbolic creatures. When the ordinary, the mundane and the particular suddenly intrude and unsettle the realm of our symbolic constructions in ways that we perceive to be non-threatening (at least to ourselves), we are inclined to laugh. Of course, the comic can also be cruel, particularly towards those who are the targets of jokes. Furthermore, the unpredictable element plays an important role. It seems that the intellect must be taken by surprise. If I read the same funny story multiple times, its comic impact is diminished with each repetition. Laughter is an eruption. Repetition kills it. Children laugh, because they delight in surprises. A certain distance may be required to appreciate something as funny. I would be humiliated if I showed up in class with my underwear dangling from my pant legs. Only months or perhaps even years later, would I be able to recount this story and laugh. I do not revel in the laughter of others that may be directed towards me. I stand alone, distinct from the community of laughers that shames me.
The dignified official relies on certain symbols to maintain her or his status. Our reason, our symbols and even our metaphors are employed to transform human beings into predictable creatures. Comedy reminds us of the fragility of this ordered scaffolding we construct for ourselves. We enjoy comic types, like the jester and clown that depart from the norms of social propriety. Sometimes, these figures are even institutionalized, in order to provide outlets for the disorder amidst order, without threatening the order itself. It is no coincidence that political satires are often on late-night television where they do not disrupt the order of the day too greatly. The comic goes beyond the mere perception of an incongruity: incongruity between several philosophical theories would not be comic at all. Incongruity is a very measured word. The comic poses a challenge not only to a particular symbolic or conventional truth, but subverts the ordered structure of experience itself, even if only temporarily. We often laugh uncontrollably because we enjoy the release from our overly structured lives. Laughter allows us to regale in the fact that we are never completely rational creatures. It is no wonder that philosophy, which in the West at least, has traditionally elevated reason on a pedestal is somewhat resistant to comedy which has the potential to throw into question the very activity of philosophy itself.
Marie Collins Swabey remarks that comedy expresses the âcommon sense of the groupâ and notes that âcommunities with a strong sense of the comic show a lively give-and-take with all classes, a willingness to converse freely with women and servants, a social democracy which esteems sagacity from any quarterâ (Swabey 1961, p. 35). The manner in which the term common sense is used here is significant. Common sense, after all, can also be used to foster a rigid conformity to existing social mores and institutional edifices. But Swabey is pitting the âcommonâ against social hierarchies and suggesting that those societies wherein the comic becomes central (rather than a temporary aberration) are not as rigidly divided along class lines. Hierarchical and authoritarian political orders are not usually known for the prevalence of the comic.
F.H. Buckley presents an approach that is diametrically opposed to that of Swabey. In The Morality of Laughter, F.H. Buckley maintains that laughter assumes a disciplinary role in enforcing codes of behaviour by highlighting the jesterâs âsuperiority âover aâ buttâ (Buckley 2005, p. 4). According to Buckley, there is always a target of a joke. What distinguishes comedy from tragedy is that the target of humour is unaware of his or her shortcomings and laughter becomes a means for correcting his or her errors. Thus, Buckley suggests laughter has a corrective social purpose. Laughter for Buckley is fundamentally conservative in its orientation in that it serves to shame and ridicule those who do not adapt to the social mould.
Simon Critchley in his book On Humour focuses on a kind of humour that is subversive by âreturning us to a world of shared practicesâ indicating how they might be âtransformed or perfectedâ going so far as to suggest that laughter has a âredemptiveâ or âmessianic powerâ(Critchley 2002, p. 16). Laughter, in this view, is not disciplinary but rather transforms the laugher rather than the butt, and points to the fact that this happens not only through the intellectual message of the joke but the physical release of tension that causes the laugher to lose control. Unlike Buckley who describes a form of laughter that does not threaten convention, Critchley focuses on the subversive dimension of laughter, which reveals uncomfortable truths about humanity. He distinguishes the ebullient and uncontrolled nature of laughter from the smile, which is guarded and much more socially âappropriateâ. Here too laughter serves a purpose, but rather than upholding convention, it starts to unravel it. His philosophy is influenced by Helmut Plessner, who in his book, Laughing and Crying: A Study of the Limits of Human Behaviour, highlights the fact that as human beings, we are in an unstable and dual position of straddling the transcendent world of culture while at the same time being creatures of nature. This dualism cannot be reasoned away. Unlike the animal, Plessner stresses that the human animal is reflective, and thus automatically takes up a distance from herself.
Although Buckley and Critchley take opposing positions with respect to the social purpose of humour, the common thread is that they try to determine what the underlying reasons for laughing are. This is also true of the philosophy of John Marmysz, who in Laughing at Nothing: Humour as a Response to Nihilism argues that humour points to a way beyond the sometimes paralysing constraints of nihilism: âwith humor this individual might understand life, and all of its failures that we endure during its course, as part of a comic drama that is amusing in its ultimate absurdityâ (Marmysz 2003, p. 5). Nihilism stems from an acknowledgement that the world as it should be is âout of syncâ with the way it is, and can result in a denigration of life itself. At the same time, Marmysz insists that nihilism can be productive, motivating us to continuously improve upon existing realities. When we laugh, we are suddenly aware of incongruities, which represent ruptures, breaks and gaps in our experiences. Marmysz argues that if we maintain a certain âcomic distanceâ from the experience, we are able to delight in new possibilities rather than remaining threatened by them. Here laughter is presented as a redemption from nihilistic awareness, which impels us to lament the fact that the world always falls short of our ideals.
Nietzsche in the Birth of Tragedy expresses disdain for comedy as an art form, because it manifests the democratizing tendencies that bring the spectator onto the stage and provide people with comforting images of themselves. He avers that unlike encounters with the tragic hero on stage, comedy does not elevate us to new heights of creativity or affirm our existence in all its complexity. What Nietzsche ignores in this account is the important role that power plays in the enjoyment of theatrical performances. The tragic chorus that he celebrates as an aspect of the Dionysian because of its musical elements also tells people how to respond to the tragedy. It offers a staged expression of emotion, not a spontaneous one.
The symbolic world is infused through and through with power relationships. When I was in Burma, I watched the show of a comic troupe, the Moustache Brothers, that had suffered imprisonment and torture at the hands of the military junta. But, the junta had become more sophisticated in its dealings with these comedians when I visited the country. Instead of forcing these actors to languish in jail cells, they were allowed to perform for Westerners only from their garage, providing them with a livelihood, but depriving them of the sting to challenge the power structures of the regime in a place where it mattered: in front of Burmese citizens. Because comedy was taken seriously, it was banished. Although we do not banish comedy, we consign it to the realm of entertainment, but do not allow it to disrupt the world of politics, business and education. The television set and the comic show are appropriate outlets: the boardroom is not. By consigning comedy to the realm of entertainment, we also contain its subversive impact.
I will distinguish between humour and the comic in this book. The distinction is somewhat arbitrary because the two terms are often used interchangeably, but I will use the word humour to allude to the comic as a way of life rather than a momentary respite from the earnest nature of existence. My attempt to do so is inspired by Kierkegaard who provides a portrait of a humourist who is deemed to be authentic in a way that the religious hypocrite and the esteemed philosopher (particularly Hegel in Kierkegaardâs view) are not. For Kierkegaard, the humourist does not negate the tragic dimension of existence and is sensitive to experiences of common suffering as well as the imperfections of the world. This is because in Kierkegaardâs view humourists can relish their finitude and remind us that despite our pretensions, we are all particular beings, who are perpetually busy trying to negotiate the gap between the finite and the infinite. In short, he accepts our humble positions as human beings and denies that we can fly with the gods as he claims philosophers such as Hegel attempt to do. To have a sense of humour means to accept our earthly humanity, flawed and imperfect as it is.
The humourist is able to enjoy the contradiction between the purposeful and purposeless nature of our existence and thus humour becomes a perspective on life, as well as a means of thinking beyond thought. Humour demands that thought gives up its privileged position and recognize that it will be continuously undone, but this also ensures that it is continuously revitalized.
Laughter and humour are thus threatening to philosophy because they chip away at the bedrock of reason and language which we associate with the highest elements of our humanity. Furthermore its seeming purposelessness throws into question our irresistible urge to impute meaning to everythi...