Mind's Eye Re: Humour

Morecambe and Wise with Mum and Dad at Xmas perhaps. Laurel and
Hardy. Many other popular comedians are more likely to make me weep.
I never liked Chaplin (actually thinking Hitler more of a comedian
than 'The Dictator') and we had Cannon and Ball here who hit a nerve I
don't like. I can laugh with some of the ostensibly more vicious
types like Bill Hicks and Frankie Boyle. Police and army culture
reveres tough, sadistic humour with self-depreciation thrown in.

I'm against speech crime but it's also clear not everything goes. I
don't agree with the Greek split - it's from Stanford EP - suspecting
humour is closely linked with breakthrough thinking (though not the
same) and unseating the biological trance of hierarchy (The Name of
the Rose).

The SEP article concludes:

Along with the idealism of tragedy goes elitism. The people who matter
in tragedy are kings, queens, and generals. In comedy there are more
characters and more kinds of characters, women are more prominent, and
many protagonists come from lower classes. Everybody counts for one.
That shows in the language of comedy, which, unlike the elevated
language of tragedy, is common speech. The basic unit in tragedy is
the individual, in comedy it is the family, group of friends, or bunch
of co-workers.

While tragic heroes are emotionally engaged with their problems, comic
protagonists show emotional disengagement. They think, rather than
feel, their way through difficulties. By presenting such characters as
role models, comedy has implicitly valorized the benefits of humor
that are now being empirically verified, such as that it is
psychologically and physically healthy, it fosters mental flexibility,
and it serves as a social lubricant. With a few exceptions like
Aquinas, philosophers have ignored these benefits.

If philosophers wanted to undo the traditional prejudices against
humor, they might consider the affinities between one contemporary
genre of comedy—standup comedy—and philosophy itself. There are at
least seven. First, standup comedy and philosophy are conversational:
like the dialogue format that started with Plato, standup routines are
interactive. Second, both reflect on familiar experiences, especially
puzzling ones. We wake from a vivid dream, for example, not sure what
has happened and what is happening. Third, like philosophers, standup
comics often approach puzzling experiences with questions. "If I
thought that dream was real, how do I know that I'm not dreaming right
now?" The most basic starting point in both philosophy and standup
comedy is "X—what's up with that?" Fourth, as they think about
familiar experiences, both philosophers and comics step back
emotionally from them. Henri Bergson (1911 [1900]) spoke of the
"momentary anaesthesia of the heart" in laughter. Emotional
disengagement long ago became a meaning of "philosophical"—"rational,
sensibly composed, calm, as in a difficult situation." Fifth,
philosophers and standup comics think critically. They ask whether
familiar ideas make sense, and they refuse to defer to authority and
tradition. It was for his critical thinking that Socrates was
executed. So were cabaret comics in Germany who mocked the Third
Reich. Sixth, in thinking critically, philosophers and standup comics
pay careful attention to language. Attacking sloppy and illogical uses
of words is standard in both, and so is finding exactly the right
words to express an idea. Seventh, the pleasure of standup comedy is
often like the pleasure of doing philosophy. In both we relish new
ways of looking at things and delight in surprising thoughts. William
James (1979 [1911], 11) said that philosophy "sees the familiar as if
it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar." The same is
true of standup comedy. Simon Critchley has written that both ask us
to "look at things as if you had just landed from another
planet" (2002, 1).

One recent philosopher attuned to the affinity between comedy and
philosophy was Bertrand Russell. "The point of philosophy," he said,
"is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating,
and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe
it" (1918, 53). In the middle of an argument, he once observed, "This
seems plainly absurd: but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must
learn not to be frightened by absurdities" (2008 [1912], 17).

I laughed a lot more reading Lyotard's 'Libidinal Economy' - rather as
I might chuckle along with a Tom Sharpe farce. I'm not sure what
makes me laugh until it does. The ideologies through which people
live lives often does, but this is without joy.

On 24 Nov, 19:40, Molly <mollyb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have seen it used recently as an ineffective cover for a badly
> positioned provocative argument. "I was only kidding, she doesn't
> understand my humor..." not hard to see through and not inspiring
> confidence.  The dance of the fool.
>
> Kind humor, irony, absurd, surprise are more my style than sarcasm or
> more aggressive humor that derides or shames.
>
> There is no denying the biochemical rush that comes with laughing
> oneself to tears, and the joy that comes with sharing such a moment.
>
> On Nov 24, 1:51 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > While there is only speculation about how humor developed in early
> > humans, we know that by the 6th century BCE the Greeks had
> > institutionalized it in the ritual known as comedy, and that it was
> > performed with a contrasting dramatic form known as tragedy. Both were
> > based on the violation of mental patterns and expectations, and in
> > both the world is a tangle of conflicting systems where humans live in
> > the shadow of failure, folly, and death. Like tragedy, comedy
> > represents life as full of tension, danger, and struggle, with success
> > or failure often depending on chance factors. Where they differ is in
> > the responses of the lead characters to life's incongruities.
> > Identifying with these characters, audiences at comedies and tragedies
> > have contrasting responses to events in the dramas. And because these
> > responses carry over to similar situations in life, comedy and tragedy
> > embody contrasting responses to the incongruities in life.
>
> > Tragedy valorizes serious, emotional engagement with life's problems,
> > even struggle to the death. Along with epic, it is part of the Western
> > heroic tradition that extols ideals, the willingness to fight for
> > them, and honor. The tragic ethos is linked to patriarchy and
> > militarism—many of its heroes are kings and conquerors—and it
> > valorizes what Conrad Hyers (1996) calls Warrior Virtues—blind
> > obedience, the willingness to kill or die on command, unquestioning
> > loyalty, single-mindedness, resoluteness of purpose, and pride.
>
> > Comedy, by contrast, embodies an anti-heroic, pragmatic attitude
> > toward life's incongruities. From Aristophanes' Lysistrata to Charlie
> > Chaplin's The Great Dictator to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11,
> > comedy has mocked the irrationality of militarism and blind respect
> > for authority. Its own methods of handling conflict include deal-
> > making, trickery, getting an enemy drunk, and running away. As the
> > Irish saying goes, you're only a coward for a moment, but you're dead
> > for the rest of your life. In place of Warrior Virtues, it extols
> > critical thinking, cleverness, adaptability, and an appreciation of
> > physical pleasures like eating, drinking, and sex.
>
> > Much humour is cruel - but try and read cruelty in to 'Doctor, doctor,
> > I've lost an electron'.  'Are you sure'?  'Yes, I'm positive'.
>
> > What do we think humour is?

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