Mind's Eye Re: Humour

All very true rigsy - Lee's story is comedic and touching. I'm not
sure of what women are in history - it's so skewed towards tragedy and
old wives' tales told by men.

On 30 Nov, 03:20, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Aristotle's theory of comedy was lost along with other great works-
> probably burned in the fire that destroyed the library at Alexandria.
> And lost plays might have cast a different light on your summation of
> tragedy and comedy. As it is, you seem to skip over the females- what
> about Antigone, for instance, along with many other notable Greek
> female characters and goddesses- also Roman? What about the strong
> women of the Old Testament? Perhaps it was Christianity that usurped
> female virtues and powers along with the secular tides that followed.
>
> At any rate, tragedy views man as nobler than usual and comedy views
> man as ignoble but there are many variations. Probably pure laughter
> is based in delight and is positive in nature, The other extreme would
> be cruelty, as you say. But the absurd can be cruel as it diminishes
> hope. Wit is used to show off intelligence/education. Mockery is
> probably an offshoot of conquests. Lewd humour often masks fear. So on
> and so forth...
>
> On Nov 24, 12:51 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
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> > 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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