Laughter and Ridicule

Towards a Social Critique of Humour

Michael Billig

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781412911436, 9781412902502
• eBook ISBN: 9781446230992
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

`From Thomas Hobbes? fear of the power of laughter to the compulsory, packaged "fun" of the contemporary mass media, Billig takes the reader on a stimulating tour of the strange world of humour. Both a significant work of scholarship and a novel contribution to the understanding of the humourous, this is a seriously engaging book? - David Inglis, University of Aberdeen

This delightful book tackles the prevailing assumption that laughter and humour are inherently good. In developing a critique of humour the author proposes a social theory that places humour - in the form of ridicule - as central to social life. Billig argues that all cultures use ridicule as a disciplinary means to uphold norms of conduct and conventions of meaning.

Historically, theories of humour reflect wider visions of politics, morality and aesthetics. For example, Bergson argued that humour contains an element of cruelty while Freud suggested that we deceive ourselves about the true nature of our laughter. Billig discusses these and other theories, while using the topic of humour to throw light on the perennial social problems of regulation, control and emancipation.

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Introduction

The idea of a critical approach to humour sounds somewhat sinister. It suggests bossiness or craziness. Either way, the prospect is not pleasant. Bossy critics would dictate what we should and should not be laughing at. The image of the crazy critic is more disturbing. Fierce-eyed and serious to the point of derangement, the crazy critic would be warning us against the dangers of laughing at all. An admission must be made right at the outset. In terms of these two possibilities, the present investigation tends towards craziness rather than bossiness.

Of course, the temptations of bossiness will not be resisted. One of the compensatory pleasures of being an academic is to act as a bossy know-all in front of minuscule audiences. Nevertheless, the present inquiry sets out on the way to craziness. To be more precise, the aim is to go beyond the partial critique of humour that the bossy critic provides. Critical bossiness is a familiar characteristic of the high-minded writer. A seriousness of purpose demands judgements. If comedy is the topic, then the bossy critic aims to raise the level of laughter. There is a left-wing version of such bossiness, telling us that we should not laugh at jokes suspected of national, ethnic or sexist prejudices. Bossy critics may also disparage the comedies that the big entertainment companies offer and that many of their readers might readily enjoy. The message is that we should smarten up the quality of our laughter. We will be told to look elsewhere for our humour: maybe to obscure alternative comedians, or to the great comic literature of the past, such as Don Quixote or Tristam Shandy, that is little read today; or perhaps we will be recommended the unsuspected wit of difficult critics.

Bossy critics, whatever might be their particular recommendations, accept the common-sense dictum that laughter is good. Their mission is to improve that goodness. There is another critical direction. Rather than criticizing some types of humour as inappropriate, and commending others for meeting the requisite standards, it is possible to call into question laughter’s assumed goodness. This is the path to craziness. How in all sanity can one criticize the precious gift of humour? Everybody knows that laughter is better than misery. To be anti-laughter, surely, is just plain ridiculous.

The social critic should not worry too much about the accusation of craziness or ridiculousness. One of the tasks of social critique is to question what passes for common sense. In so doing, the social critic may well fall foul of common sense’s own criteria for what is sensible and what is not. This was well recognized by those sceptical Marxist philosophers of the Frankfurt School, who in the 1930s created the idea of the critical social theory. They were aware that social critique must attempt to get beyond what is generally thought to be sensible, in order to understand the ideological basis of that sensibleness. So it is with a critical approach to humour. This involves critically examining common-sense views about humour, calling into question beliefs that are taken to be self-evidently true. A critical approach to humour, therefore, takes as its object common-sense assumptions about humour’s desirability, rather than the actual enjoyment of humour. Seen from this perspective, the craziness is perhaps not quite so crazy.

Common-sense beliefs about humour are not straightforward. We may assert that ‘it is good to laugh’ and, when we do so, we may believe that we are uttering something so evidently banal that it requires no further justification. However, beliefs about humour’s goodness do not stand outside of history. What seems natural and so full of common sense in one era will appear strange in another. That is why the analysis of common sense needs a historical dimension. As will be seen, today’s beliefs about humour are not so obviously true that they transcend the pattern of history.

There is another reason why our common-sense beliefs are not straightforward. They are open to the possibility of self-deception. Since laughter is held to be such a good thing, we want to believe that we possess a ‘good’ sense of humour in all aspects of the term. In consequence, we may ignore the more problematic aspects of the funniness that we enjoy with family and friends or as part of a mass audience of strangers. If this collective laughter has a shameful, darker side, then there is much that we may wish to hide from ourselves. Because the task of critique is to question common-sense beliefs, it must also ask what, if anything, such beliefs overlook and even conceal from the believers themselves.

The search for what is neglected will be one of the main themes of the present inquiry. It will be argued that humour is central to social life, but not in the way that we might wish for; nor in the way that much popular and academic writing on the topic suggests. It is easy to praise humour for bringing people together in moments of pure, creative enjoyment. But it is not those sorts of moments that constitute the social core of humour, but, instead, it is the darker, less easily admired practice of ridicule. This argument builds upon the insights of Bergson and Freud. It suggests that ridicule lies at the core of social life, for the possibility of ridicule ensures that members of society routinely comply with the customs and habits of their social milieu. Of course, humour can be rebellious, kicking against the dictates of social life. But social theorists have often concentrated on the rebellious aspect to the exclusion of the disciplinary aspects. Those who are motivated to believe in the goodness and creativity of laughter’s rebelliousness turn their heads from the more problematic aspects of ridicule.

A few preliminary words are necessary in order to clarify what is and what is not being attempted here. The intention is not to construct a full-blown, complete theory that aims to explain every occurrence of humour. The sub-title stresses that the inquiry is hoping to move toward a critical theory, not that it has succeeded in producing one. There is preliminary work to be done, in questioning current theoretical assumptions about the intrinsic goodness of humour. Of course, the movement toward is also a movement away from. If the present work moves toward a critique that places ridicule at the centre of social life and that locates humour in the operations of social power, then it moves away from more good-natured, even sentimental, theories of humour. It is the good-natured theories that currently predominate. Accordingly, the present analysis is an argument against such theories. It does not attempt to provide carefully crafted definitions that will enable each incident of funniness to be duly categorized and inserted into a systematic theoretical catalogue. Readers, therefore, should not expect to find clear ways to distinguish wit from irony, or satire from pantomime, benevolent humour from malevolent humour, and so on. Nor should they expect a new methodology that would enable researchers to work towards such clarity of definition.

Robert Provine, in his interesting book Laughter, recommends that a scientific approach, based on observation and experimentation, should be adopted when studying laughter. In an early chapter, Provine describes the ‘road not taken’ by his book (2000: 11f.). Basically, Provine’s untaken road is that of philosophy. He believes that there has been too much speculation and insufficient experimentation in the area of humour: ‘Much of the literature about laughter is still mired in its prescientific phase where logic and anecdote, not empirical data, reign.’ Provine includes both Bergson and Freud as pre-scientific investigators who would have done well to have risen from their respective ‘philosophical armchairs’ (ibid.: 11).

The road not taken by Provine is, in essence, the road that is taken here. In the social sciences, there are dangers in accumulating data for its own sake. The result can be confusion, as the details of data overwhelm the broader pattern. Sometimes what is required is the simplicity of a theory that does not seek to cover everything. Instead, it aims for an ordering of ideas that will attempt to distinguish the primary from the secondary. In so doing, it seeks to direct attention to phenomena that might otherwise escape attention.

In one important respect empiricists such as Provine are correct. Social theory should not be constructed purely from theoretical ideas. Theories should serve to illuminate the phenomena rather than vice versa. Therefore, theorists should try to make themselves aware of the relevant findings. Cultural theorists today sometimes ignore the sort of evidence that Provine recommends, especially when it comes to the study of psychology. A facility with Freudian theory – or an ability to juggle Lacan’s concepts – is no substitute for knowing about psychological and sociological investigations. On the other hand, knowledge of empirical investigations on its own is insufficient for a critical inquiry. As will be suggested, academic psychologists, in designing their studies and interpreting their results, often make use of the very common-sense assumptions about humour’s goodness that need to be critically questioned. So, the critical approach to humour must also include a critique of existing approaches and theories.

There is another reason why the approach should not be narrowly empirical. Investigators in the current academic climate often feel pressured to choose a particular area of study in which to become an expert. There are signs that humour is becoming a specialist field, displaying the conventional signs of successful expansion. There is a technical journal devoted to academic studies of humour. International congresses are regularly organized for humour researchers. Postgraduates are conducting doctoral research in the subject, and then entering academic life as trained experts in humour-studies. They will be teaching specialist courses, guiding a future generation in the use of relevant methodologies. So, the academic world is producing a small but growing number of humour-experts.

In these circumstances, it is good to remember the wise words of the radical critic C.L.R. James. He prefaced his book on the history of cricket with an epigram adapted from Rudyard Kipling: ‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ (James, 1964: 11). His point was that cricket experts, who supposedly know about the game but who have not studied social and political history, do not properly understand the game. When they watch a match, there is so much they cannot notice. The specialist, who principally knows but one subject area, does not properly know that area. It is the same with humour. To understand the social and psychological significance of humour, one needs more than a knowledge of the specialist research. One must seek to understand the seriousness of social life and, for that, one needs more than knowledge of humour.

Anton Zijderveld (1982) proposed that the world of comedy in pre-modern times represented the reversal of the ordinary, serious world. To understand this reversed world, one has to know about the world that is being reversed. So, Zijderveld needed to draw on his considerable knowledge of mediaeval and modern social life, in order to formulate his view of the comic. Similarly, Michael Mulkay (1988) has argued that the world of humour cannot stand apart from the world of seriousness. Before he turned his attention to humour, Mulkay had spent considerable time analyzing the sociology of the serious world, principally looking at science and its claims to knowledge. Peter Berger (1997) is another sociologist, who after years of studying the construction of social life, has been able to write with great insight about humour. As will be seen, the past theorists of humour, including Bergson and Freud, have historically been notable theorists of seriousness. What can they know of humour, who only humour know?

The maxim can, however, be reversed to show the importance of studying humour. What can they know of seriousness, who only seriousness know? There are good reasons for claiming that an understanding of humour is necessary for understanding serious social life. Certainly, today humour is a significant force within mass culture. The entertainment industry invests billions of dollars to try to make us laugh again and again, night after night. Arguably, contemporary culture cannot be understood without understanding how and why powerful economic forces are devoted to laughter. There is a further, more general reason to connect humour with seriousness. And this forms the basis of the present book’s argument. The key question is not why present conditions have produced such an industry of humour, but why humour is to be found universally in all cultures. In answer to this question, it will be suggested that humour plays a central, necessary part in social life. It is not an extra but enjoyable adornment, like an embroidered pattern on a garment designed to keep out the cold. It is central to social life. Without the possibility of laughter, serious social life could not be sustained. And this is not necessarily a happy thought to those who only want to know of humour’s joys.

Overview of the book

The book is divided into two parts. There is a historical part that reviews the main theories of the past, placing particular emphasis on the theoretical treatment of ridicule down the ages. Then comes the theoretical part of the book, arguing that ridicule plays a central, but often overlooked, disciplinary role in social life. In some respects, the historical chapters aim to trace the origins of ideas that are outlined in the second part.

Before the historical section, however, comes a chapter to argue why a critical approach to humour is required. Chapter 2 looks at the widespread positive evaluation of humour in today’s popular and academic psychology. This positive evaluation is part of a wider outlook that is here called ‘ideological positivism’. Since it is common-sense to be positive, the task of criticism is to become negative – or at least to draw attention to the negatives that are overlooked by the positive common sense. In the case of humour, this means drawing attention to the importance of ridicule, which is the great neglected negative in the psychological theories of ideological positivism. In the rush to sentimentalize the supposed goodness of humour, such theories overlook, and even repress, the negatives. Chapter 2 discusses how they do so and why this is not ideologically haphazard.

From there it is back into the past. As the theorists of the Frankfurt School realized, ideological critique should have a historical dimension, especially if it lacks clear convictions about the shape of the future. There are two related reasons why critique should look beyond the present. First, it is necessary to see where the ideas of today’s common sense have come from. Second, in taking a historical perspective, a critical analysis aims to do more than just look at the past. It seeks to undermine the assumption that our common sense is a ‘natural’ perspective that is universally sensible. What seems obvious to us might have appeared strange, perhaps even deeply immoral, in other times. History can encourage us to distance ourselves from our own times, thereby providing a means to help resist ideological positivism’s good sense.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 examine in turn the three great theoretical traditions for understanding humour: the theories of superiority, incongruity and release. Each of these theories is examined in its historical and theoretical context. This means that the theories are not broken down into a set of separate hypotheses that are evaluated separately in terms of the modern evidence. Instead, the theories are set within their contexts, for these classic theories belonged to, and took their meaning from, wider currents of philosophy, aesthetics and politics.

Historically, the first of these theories is that of superiority, some of whose ideas can be traced back to ancient times. Sometimes the superiority theorists have been seen as enemies of laughter. This makes their ideas out of tune with the mood of today. Certainly, some thinkers, who are classed as superiority theorists, did not treat ridicule as the negative that it has become in ideological positivism. In the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes formulated the most famous of all theories of superiority. Like its classical forebears, Hobbes’s theory of humour was much more than a technical hypothesis about the causes of laughter. It was part of a fearful vision of society that emerged from the cruel times of the English revolution.

By contrast, the theories of incongruity, formulated in the following century, represented a gentlemanly reaction of taste and reason against Hobbes. Class, gender and the dreams of amiable reasonableness belong to the story of this theory. In this context, the issue of ridicule became a troubling one, foreshadowing modern theoretical dilemmas. However much the gentlemanly theorists kept trying to downgrade the importance of Hobbes’s vision, back came the problem of ridicule. Why do we have the faculty of ridicule and what purposes might it serve?

The problem of ridicule was reformulated in the nineteenth century with the relief theories of Bain and Spencer. These theories are to be understood as belonging to the Darwinian revolution of the Victorian era. Both Spencer and Bain sought a scientific understanding of humour that would be based on biology. However, the biology in question was not just biological. It incorporated a wider view of human nature and the development of human society. Again, much more was at stake in the analysis of laughter than an entertaining intellectual problem.

If these classic theories of humour were more than just theories of humour, then so also were the great contributions of Bergson and Freud, which are examined respectively in Chapters 6 and 7. Their particular theories of humour are to be appreciated in relation to their wider œuvre and this, in turn, is related to a wider context. From Bergson come several important ideas for understanding humour: such as its disciplinary role, its cruelty and the idea that humour may fulfil a social function. Freud teaches that the social world makes demands on its members and that humour becomes a way of evading those demands, at least momentarily. Above all, Freud conveys the message that one should distrust humour: our laughter is not necessarily an honest reflection of the soul. Yet, curiously, Freud’s own analysis contains its own evasions and omissions. These are taken as further evidence that the disciplinary functions of humour are both socially important and also matters of evasion.

A word of caution should be made about Part I. It comprises historical analyses rather than a history of humour. Completeness is not to be expected. Some theorists, such as Hobbes, Locke, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Bain and Spencer feature prominently. Others such as Kant, Kierkegaard and Descartes are ignored. English and Scottish writers are given more space than French or German theorists, at least until one gets to Bergson and Freud. A proper history of theories of humour would not be so cavalier with the inclusions and exclusions.

The aim of these chapters, however, is not just historical. Theoretical considerations are never far away. First, there is the general point to make: theories of humour are theories of more than humour. Second, the theories are examined in relation to their strengths and weaknesses, especially in relation to the issue of ridicule. In classical theories, ridicule did not p...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Critique of Positive Humour
• Part I Historical Aspects
• Part II Theoretical Aspects
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index