Assignment 1

 

 

 

Travis L. Gosa

 

February 5, 2000

 

Sociology of Humor 404

 

 

 

Dr. Tom Patterson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assignment 1

 

            James Thurber once said, “Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”[i]  Nevertheless, what is humor exactly?  In the field of Sociology, it is essential to scientifically study and explain society and social behaviors.  Humor, although hard for the average American to define, is an intricate part of life.  Whether it is watching Bugs Bunny on Saturday morning or telling a joke to ease the tension at work, humor is a phenomenon, regardless of whether its definition is confirmed or its exact nature understood.   While trying to explain humor, the theoretical perspectives of Freud, Koestler, Bergson, and Bateson prove essential in analyzing what humor is and its role in society.

            Humor has been defined as “a process of communication that conveys a specific meaning to a selected group or audience.”[ii] As a mode of communication, humor is a triangular system, consisting of three parts: an initiator, a specifically intended audience, and the target or butt.  Examining the originator of a joke, who it was intended to reach, and the victim of this humor is essential in understanding humor. Usually, when humor is being used, the initiator will use a social signal to instruct that the intended audience will not take what will follow as truth. Humor tends to give the initiator and the audience a feeling of superiority or pleasure, while the butt usually does not experience these feelings. 

            Besides these three elements, humor is mainly an objective phenomenon.  Humor does not exist only in the mind, but takes place outside of an individual’s mind and is subject to outside influence.  The perception of and the comprehension of humor are influenced by emotions and personal prejudices. To understand humor, there must be a common stock of knowledge.  Without the cultural framework and familiarity of language and jargon, humor is virtually nonexistent.

            While trying to explain humor, the theoretical perspectives of Freud, Koestler, Bergson, and Bateson prove essential in analyzing what humor is and its role in society.  Each theoretical perspective on humor has its advantage and disadvantage in trying to explain humor.  Yet, each perspective is a handy tool in organizing the different opinions, facts, and characteristics involved.

            Sigmund Freud, the godfather of psychological theory, saw humor as mainly conscious conflict resolution.  According to Freud, the “primal horde” or society is always applying pressure on the individual.  The building up of stress in the individual, or cathexis occurs everyday.  The discharge of this built up psychological energy, which Freud called catharsis, is achieved through dreams at night.  However, the individual needs a way to manage this conflict during the day.  Joke work, according to Freud, is the conscious way to eliminate conflict and deal with stress.  The most stressful subjects and social taboos in society will then be the subject of most humor: sex, death, and other forbidden subjects.  In this manner, humor serves the immediate individual needs.  When a person tells a joke, or understands it, it makes the person feel superior and smart, especially when no one else gets the joke.  People therefore use humor to resolve real and fantasy conflicts in everyday life.

            Arthur Koestler suggests another perspective on humor based on ideas of intuition and the intuition process.  Koestler’s theory focuses on the incongruity of taking two seemly different objects being placed together in a way that violates the rules of logic.  This bisociation, which results in incongruity, produces a sense of pleasure or superiority in the individual because they understand the rules involved.  The difference between the rules of logic and the situation appearing to happen is what causes the laughter. 

            Henri Bergson’s perspective on humor differs from the previous two theories in that he acknowledges the importance of the audience in humor.  Concerned with the importance of social structure, Bergson describes humor in terms of disguised moralism.  A person will take the principles of a society and hide it in humor.  While making people laugh at the hardest things to talk about, the humorist is pointing out social problems and hopefully, the audience will laugh while correcting these problems.  In Bergson’s perspective, the audience’s role is to recognize a miscalculation in a humorous situation.  In both reality based and fantasy humor, the audience plays an important role in humor.  Sometimes the character in the humor with step out of role and acknowledge the audience.  According to Bergson, emotion will kill humor.  The audience will not laugh at a character if sympathy is aroused.  This use of playful pain is another illustration of the role of the audience in humor.  Finally, Bergson points out that society sanctions certain things.  Humor will exaggerate these elements in society to draw attention to the problem.

            The last perspective, offered by Gregory Bateson, explores the idea of humor being a form of social play.  In explaining humor, Bateson explores the correlation between culture and language to humor.  To understand humor, you must understand what a society values and how it uses terms and jargon.  According to Bateson, the answer to humor may lay in metacommunications.  Each group has social signals to suspend the belief of the audience; what follows is just play.  Social play allows people to step in and out of roles without damage to themselves.  In this light, society needs intellectual play to define a culture.  Bateson’s theory coincides with Kessler in that he recognizes that a great deal of humor depends on the resolution of a paradox.  An event ends with an unexpected conclusion, which causes the audience to reevaluate the preceding information.

            The role humor in culture is present in all of these various theoretical perspectives.  Humor is culturally bound in the sense that you have to understand the cultural framework in which the humor exists.  If you do not understand the information presented, and the jargon or language used to express this information, then the humor is nonexistent.  Furthermore, there is culturally shared humor.  The common experience of a culture identifies groups and leads to group cohesion. 

            Humor according to the different perspectives can either promote social change or maintain social stability.  From a structural functionalist theoretical perspective, humor is a structure in society that has function or a positive consequence.  Humor, as a structure, is interdependent on other parts of the society.  Social problems and disorganization would occur if any of the structures changed.  Therefore, humor is a vehicle of the status quo.  Freud’s theory shows that humor creates stability in the individual psyche as a cathartic act against stress.  Bergson shows that humor helps to correct society’s ills, therefore inducing stability. 

            However, the other two theorists tend to see humor as a dynamic force, leaning toward the conflict and symbolic interaction theories.  Bateson says that humor allows people to jump the boundaries of society in a safe way, still, changing the conventions of that society.  Kessler sees humor as a way of creative problem solving, violating the rules by placing two incongruent objects together.

            The theoretical perspectives of Freud, Koestler, Bergson, and Bateson demonstrate how difficult it is to analyze humor and its role in society.  However, as a sociological tool, they can help lay the foundation to a more rich understanding of what humor is and its relationship with the formation of and the cohesion of a culture.