Everyone is their own authority on humor. After all, who has the right to tell another person "Stop laughing! You don't find that funny!" Though humor contains distinct subjective elements, the story doesn't end there. Some jokes, characters, or narratives seem to elicit more laughter than others. In such cases, humor appears to contain objective traits. Here lies the comedian's Holy Grail. What makes people laugh and why? A comedic formula that guarantees mass expulsions of laughter remains as elusive as that legendary chalice. But people pursue it. Though dangers await all who search, as we will see, the rewards are so momentous they render all risks insignificant.
Laughter, at heart, is a philosophical problem. If we knew for certain the source of mirth, and we might someday, we wouldn't need sitcoms, romantic comedies, or bawdy limericks to stimulate our pleasure centers. We do know that humans laugh, and laughter seems indubitably human. This small and entertaining book by philosopher Simon Critchley starts with that simple proposition. We laugh but why? Other animals, such as hawks or grouse, don't seem to. But "reducing" a human to an animal or vice versa seems to make us smirk, or at least feel disgust, depending on the analogy. Anthropomorphizing animals, on the other hand, really seems to get us going. The book cites numerous examples, including cartoons such as "The Far Side" (as well as a joke about a rather naughty talking bear). Lurking underneath such species bending is human behavior. It turns out, according to this book, that we're far funnier than any animal. At the core of humor we find ourselves. All of our glory and puffery can get reduced to ridiculousness by an ill-timed fart. Such events verify our corporeality. Humor, Critchley argues, contains a "metaphysical unease." Maybe all our self-adulation adds up to nothing but pretense? Existential discomfort can cause laughter, as though we know deep down that the joke is really on us. And, apart from its subjective and objective elements, humor also has cultural boundaries. It emphasizes and support a particular ethos. As such, most jokes don't work outside their culture of origin. Humor can simultaneously elevate a culture while denigrating those outside of that culture. "Ethnic humor," discussed a little too briefly in this book, seems to have this origin. All of this leads to Critchley's own two-point theory of humor. First, humor helps us acknowledge our world, or how things are for us within our culture. Second, humor hints at how we can improve that same world by using common sense to help us identify the ridiculous elements of our lives. Laughter can sprout change. The book's final chapter builds on this theory using Freudian terminology and seems somewhat anticlimactic and a little out of place. Suddenly, Freudian analysis invades the discussion with talk of ego, super-ego, and even "Super Ego II," a more mature Super-Ego. Though relevant, it doesn't add anything substantial to the preceding chapters, apart from Critchley's brief ruminations on "the smile." Apart from some mild disorientation, it by no means ruins the book. The conclusion that humor directed at ourselves pleasantly elevates our ridiculousness stands.
"On Humour" provides an insightful, entertaining, and humorous read. Those with no background in philosophy speak might furrow their brows at terms such as "thrownness" or "phenomenology," but overall the book remains accessible to general readers. It discusses humor from a purely philosophical perspective. Comedians looking for ways to improve their acts won't find 1-minute recipes for doing so. Nonetheless, they may discover inspiring new ways of looking at comedy. The book's ultimate point is that humor originates from a philosophical perspective and such a viewpoint can lead to existential angst. That's one of the dangers of humor: depression. But humor can also elevate the humanity of humanness to help us see our own precarious, and sometimes hilarious, position in the universe. Humor helps us realize who we are, even if we recoil at the image in the mirror. Reality can stink, but it can also be incredibly funny. And if our aspirations turn to grimy dust as we endlessly rotate in our infinite insane vacuum we may find consolation in the absurd. We came, we saw, we had a good laugh.
