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having readand reread this book, i have to say that the most profound message i carry away (among many messages and witticisms buried in the story) is Hainlein's take on laughter.
"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts... because
it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting... The goodness is in
the laughing. I grok it is a bravery...and a sharing...against pain and
sorrow and defeat."
i have grokked this truth, and i have searched every joke i can remember. all of them fit this pattern - not only does every joke contain some element of cruelty, but the laughter during the telling (from someone who truly "gets" it) will occur when the height of cruelty is revealed.
anyone care to challenge this, or have anything to add?
"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts... because
it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting... The goodness is in
the laughing. I grok it is a bravery...and a sharing...against pain and
sorrow and defeat."
i have grokked this truth, and i have searched every joke i can remember. all of them fit this pattern - not only does every joke contain some element of cruelty, but the laughter during the telling (from someone who truly "gets" it) will occur when the height of cruelty is revealed.
anyone care to challenge this, or have anything to add?
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 10:09 AMI had the same discussion with some friends a few years back, jack, believing as you did at first. Heinlein's observation is very astute, but I have since grown to believe it covers a large percentage of jokes, but not all of them.
For example:
Tommy runs downstairs yelling, "Mommy, Mommy!!!"
"What's the matter, Tommy?" she asks.
"Remember in church on Sunday when the pastor said that everyone came from dust, and to dust we all will return?"
"Yes, of course dear, why do you ask?"
"Well hurry upstairs and look, Mommy. There's someone under my bed, and he's either coming or going!"
I don't see anything cruel here, but I did laugh a lot the first time I heard it.
Or this one:
Father to 7 year old son: "Paul, did you learn anything new at Sunday School today?"
Paul: "Yes, lots!"
Dad: "Anything that you really liked?"
Paul: "Oh, yeah, daddy. I loved the song about the bear!"
Dad (not knowing any such song): "What bear, Paul?"
Paul: "You know, daddy, the one in the Bible!"
Dad: "Did he have a name, son?"
Paul: "Of course, daddy. That's what makes him so happy. His name is Gladly!"
Now dad is really confused.
Dad: "Would you sing the song for me? I don't think I know it."
Paul: "Sure, daddy."
Then the son goes into a rousing rendition of his new favorite song, "Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear".
I don't see cruelty here either.
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 10:17 AMi must warn you, the definition of "cruel" here is open-ended enough that we could split hairs all day long. here goes anyway:
1) the cruelty or unhappiness in the first joke is the mother's distress upon hearing her son's story.
2) the child is the butt of this joke, for his ignorance. i would suggest that any joke where there is a "butt", an object of humor, shows cruelty by dissecting the fallacies in people. how would poor young Paul react if several people burst out laughing when he sang his new favorite?
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
here we are making fun of the listener's distress when they hear the answer, wich they didn't get because it was so simple.
see how easy it is, the temptation to oversimplify? this is a tough hypothesis to prove or disprove absolutely. -
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 11:02 AM"this is a tough hypothesis to prove or disprove absolutely."
I think I agree with you here.
My take on these jokes is different than yours.
On the first joke, what makes it funny to me is because it is cute. When my daughters were little, they at times had misunderstandings, and it was so cute how they arrived at their conclusions. I never laughed at them, nor subjected them to the ridicule of others for their misunderstandings.
A misunderstanding, in and of itself, is not cruel by any definition of cruelty that I can conceive of.
Had the mother ridiculed the child for the conclusion he arrived at, the joke would not have been funny, although it would have shown a cruel mother.
But like you said, it may be tough to prove/disprove absolutely.
I do feel though that most jokes are tied in to cruelty; I just can't agree that all of them are. Well, at least not on odd number days. Ask me on an even numbered day and I might change my mind. -
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Unsu...
Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 12:01 PMi am only an egg :-)
i think we can agree that cruelty, like truth and beauty, is in the heart and eyes of the beholder. one of the things so attractive about MVS's character is his lack of confusion, the absolute clarity with which he knows things. which we lack, being impaired be being raised on terra firma. -
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 2:08 PMI'll drink to that, jack. (water, of course!)
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 12:18 PM>"Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear".
>I don't see cruelty here either.
No, but there is certainly an element of discomfort at the least, and a light breach of Taboo at the most, depending on the religious situation of the audience.
I'm finding that some of what I consider to be the funniest humor is that which pokes fun at, and rubs raw, social taboos. Not too hard, or the performer will be considered just sick, but at just the right level it's hillarious. Bill Hicks was a master of this. Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Orgasmo, South Park, Team America) are geniuses in this regard as well.
Otter -
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 2:07 PMNow see, I can go along with that, Otter.
Discomfort is often the case when a joke doesn't smack of cruelty.
And breaching a taboo....well, from light to heavy, there is a lot of humor that this applies to.
Maybe we need a larger term.....something that includes cruelty, but also discomfort, and also breaking taboos (naughtiness?).... to best define the essence of the joke.
Come think of it.....sometimes the cruelty is laughing at someone else's discomfort. But sometimes the joke is funny, not because you enjoy someone's discomfort, but because you have been in his shoes and you know exactly how the person is feeling....you empathize with the person.
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 2:26 PMDifferent author here, but Larry Niven defined humor as "an interupted defense mechanism." That seems to go along with what you are saying... -
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Re: laughter
Wed, August 31, 2005 - 3:14 PMI kind of like that..... thanks, Mystylplx
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Re: laughter
Thu, September 1, 2005 - 6:58 AMI think laughter is a pleasurable involuntary response to the realisation of a new idea .. (or meme for the dawkinsians)
Rich
Xx
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Re: laughter
Thu, September 1, 2005 - 11:28 AM>sometimes the cruelty is laughing at someone else's discomfort.
Exactly. We empathyze with the victem of the joke, and laugh to ease the pain instead of cry.
Interesting that laughter uses many of the same muscles and chemical changes as orgasm.
Otter -
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Re: laughter
Thu, September 1, 2005 - 1:50 PM"Interesting that laughter uses many of the same muscles and chemical changes as orgasm."
Which sometimes leads to laughing following an orgasm. ;) -
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Re: laughter
Sun, September 11, 2005 - 6:54 AM>Which sometimes leads to laughing following an orgasm. ;)
Here I thought I was the only person that ever had that. :-D
Not so much any more, but used to a lot.
TMI,
Otter -
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Re: laughter
Sun, September 11, 2005 - 3:27 PM"">Which sometimes leads to laughing following an orgasm. ;)
Here I thought I was the only person that ever had that. :-D
Not so much any more, but used to a lot. ""
Tis best if it's a simultaneous orgasm... the expressions on your partners face just naturally lead to it... and imagining the expressions on your own face makes it funnier still... then there's the sounds you're both making... orgasms are just inherently funny... ;-)
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Re: laughter
Sun, June 3, 2007 - 11:52 PMmy current partner laughs each and every time. the former husband made me chuckle, as he would laugh and tick (he has Touretts).
but then Sex is supposed to be fun! not serious! why not make it a point to laugh, grin, smile... simply enjoy?? ::Grin::
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Re: laughter
Wed, March 21, 2007 - 7:14 PMIn both jokes we are laughing at innocence and its inability to perceive horror. In the first a child's innocent misunderstanding of a metaphor about death; his lack of comprehension of the morbidity and sorrow of the subject matter (and the true horror of having a person assemble themselves from dust beneath ones bed or deteriorate into dust in a similar fashion). We are also laughing at his clumsy attempt to shift blame: his room is dirty so he is trying to shift blame from himself to an imaginary person/act of god. It is cute only because it is so transparent as to be without danger of success.
In the second joke it is a similar story. The child cannot easily conceive of the horrors of bearing a cross, but knows what "cross-eyed" is and mistakes one bear for another. It is cute and humorous because the child has missed the gravity of the situation through innocence and ignorance, escaping the bittersweet knowledge of the songs true meaning.
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Re: laughter
Wed, March 21, 2007 - 5:52 PMI have thought about this occasionally over the many years since I read SIASL. I have yet to disprove it in adults, but children and especially babies will often laugh out of joy. "Peekaboo" has no cruelty or hurt or anything of the sort, but in a small baby, it can produce riotous laughter.
I think laughter is a lesser form of crying, but remember we sometimes cry from joy too, although it is rather more rare.
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Re: laughter
Thu, March 22, 2007 - 2:29 PM>Puns do violence to no one
Right, but then puns aren't, technically, jokes. And no one laughs at puns, except maybe the punster.
Otter
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Re: laughter
Thu, March 22, 2007 - 4:16 PMI laugh over some pus, some truly artful wordplay has been known to stitch my sides
Of course, that could simply be a genetic disorder. I'm the child of an English major -
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Re: laughter
Wed, June 20, 2007 - 8:09 PMMy youngest brother has a ridiculously high IQ, and a very fine sense for wordplay. After a conversation with him, with cruelty to none, your sides and face hurt from laughing so much.
:-)
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Re: laughter
Thu, March 22, 2007 - 1:57 PMMy thought on this relates to the history of movies and the masters of slapstick such as Chaplin, Keaton, etc. People laughed at someone falling down or getting hit with something. This definitely set the basis for comedy in movies.
I myself have what some may consider a strange reation to other people's pain. When I see someone such as a kid fall and skin his knee and he starts crying I start laughing. It's just a gut reaction for me. I don't do it because I think it's funny but I think I do it because I want to help them feel better. I don't know. Does anyone else do this.? -
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Re: laughter
Thu, March 22, 2007 - 4:19 PMI don't do this with physical pain but I have been witness to some events that so offended my sensibilities the only defense against it was laughter, and my first instinct when confronted with pain, awkwardness, or sorrow is to make some acidic comment so we can laugh and move on from the moment. It doesn't always make friends but it certainly seems to help my mental state. -
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Re: laughter
Sat, April 28, 2007 - 10:32 AMWhen confronted with another's loss of a loved one, I always feel an urge to be humorous. Sometimes it's a very helpful, sometimes it's not the right thing at all.
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