The mirror of laughter PDF
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ii The Mirror of Laughter Preface iii First paperback edition 2012 Copyright © 2010 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conven- tions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers, Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042. www.transactionpub.com This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010018137 ISBN: 978-1-4128-1099-9 (cloth); 978-1-4128-4764-3 (paper) Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kozintsev, A. G. (Aleksadr Grigor’evich) The mirror of laughter / Alexander Kozintsev. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4128-1099-9 (alk. paper) 1. Laughter--Psychological aspects. 2. Laughter--Philosophy. 3. Wit and humor--Psychological aspects. 4. Wit and humor--Philosophy. I. Title. BF575.L3K636 2010 152.4’3--dc22 2010018137 Contents Preface vii 1. The Comical, or Imitation of Inferior People 1 1.1 Incongruity, Degradation, and Self-Parody: 1 The Implicit Narrator 1.2 Subject and Object: Relation and Metarelation 24 1.3 Funniness and Ridicule: An Essay on Nonentities 46 1.4 Who is the Inferior Other? 53 Notes 66 2. The Origins 75 2.1 Humor, Laughter, and the Brain 75 2.2 From Tickling to Humor 79 2.3 From Laughter to Humor 92 2.4 Play-Challenge, or James Sully Redux 99 Notes 119 3. Play, Language, Laughter 123 3.1 Orderly Play as a Metaphor of Culture 123 3.2 Disorderly Play as a Metaphor of Nature 127 3.3 The Anti-Referential Function of Language 134 3.4 Irony and Humor: The Two Ways of Playing with Signs 145 3.5 Humor and Laughter as a Species Reaction 157 Notes 163 4. Culture versus Nature 169 4.1 Emotions, Refl exes, Symbols 169 4.2 Laughter and Evil: The History of a Misunderstanding 176 Notes 192 Conclusions 195 References 203 Name Index 221 Subject Index 229 Preface “Il n’y a de nouveau que ce qui est oublié” – “There is nothing new except what has been forgotten,” Marie-Antoinette’s modiste Rose Bertin is said to have remarked when the queen approved an old dress Rose had refashioned for her. This sounds so much more reassuring than Ecclesiastes’ dismal maxim! In the twenty-fi rst century, no scholar in his/her right mind would seriously assert that s/he has come up with a brand-new and overarching theory of humor and laughter. If the ideas I advance appear too novel or even radical to certain readers, this would only mean we have forgotten too much of what out predecessors have done. I want this book to be a tribute to fi gures who seem infi nitely far from the mainstream of humor research – James Sully fi rst of all, Sergei Eisenstein, Luigi Pirandello, and a number of others. The German Romantic writer and humor theorist Jean Paul compared wit to a disguised priest who weds every couple. Now that the time has come for a synthesis, perhaps the most fascinating challenge in humor research is to cross disciplinary boundaries and link the various ap- proaches that have been suggested – especially those that had appeared so unsuited to each other, but that eventually proved incomplete without each other. It came as a revelation to me that the best way of getting a clue to the connection between humor and laughter (one of the most mysterious connections in human mentality and behavior, and a forbid- den ground for modern theorists after so many failures) is to couple the radically subjectivist ideas of thinkers such as Kant and Jean Paul with the utterly objective views of twenty-fi rst-century ethology and neural science. The most remarkable thing about such discoveries is that however divergent – incompatible, in fact – the views may appear, they are all useful in one way or other through a synthetic approach. I would go so far as to say that not a single theory of humor ever formulated is “wrong from beginning to end,” like Alice’s version of the poem she recited for the Caterpillar. Even the ever-fashionable creators of mainstream vii viii The Mirror of Laughter humor research such as Hobbes, Bergson, and Freud must be credited with having made very astute observations. The challenge is to detect these gems in a coal pile, pluck them from their original context, where they are misleading, and view them in a new light. The number of ref- erences may appear somewhat disproportionate to the modest size of the book, but this may reduce the number of critics who will reproach me for suggesting insane ideas, trying to reinvent the wheel, or both. Anyway, if the entire construction eventually collapses (which can by no means be ruled out), its foundation – the bibliography – will remain intact. Whether by Robert Southey or by Lewis Carroll, the poem is still about Father William. Quite a few of my colleagues and friends found the manuscript a tough proposition. Following their advice, which I gratefully acknowledge, I have tried my best to make the text more readable. And still this is not a page-turner for all. To those who will slam the book shut before getting to the end, I wish to say that the larger share of the blame is mine, of course, whereas the smaller share lies in the fact that those seemingly fl ippant matters are strong meat, not milk. They defy common sense and prompt us humans to look at our deeply contradictory biocultural essence with closer attention. I wholeheartedly ask the impatient readers not to rush to the Conclusions (to my conclusions, not only to theirs), because in isolation from the main body of the book these may appear paradoxical, which would again make the reader reluctant to struggle through the entire text. By way of enticement, it might perhaps have been wiser to intersperse the book with jokes, but I consider this a variant of bait-and-switch tactics. After all, so many books about jokes – entire joke books, in fact – have been published, and still humor and laughter remain a mystery. The fi rst chapter focuses on the philosophy, psychology, and what has been traditionally regarded as the semantics of humor but eventually proved a will-o’-the wisp. In the second chapter, biological facts about laughter are discussed, and a hypothesis about the origins of laughter and humor is formulated, or rather James Sully’s hypothesis is reformulated in the context of modern knowledge. The third chapter addresses play, serious and nonserious – in particular, linguistic play – as well as the semantic, or rather anti-semantic, function of humor (special attention is paid to the distinction between humor and irony and to the struggle of language with itself). The theme of the fourth chapter is the confl ict between culture and nature, specifi cally, the attempts to combine laughter with violence. Preface ix As in the Russian version, “he” is used as an unmarked (generic) pronoun when referring to man as Homo sapiens or to the philosophical subject or object. When individuals (persons, speakers, and psychologi- cal subjects) are concerned, gender-marked forms such as “s/he” and “his/her” are used. Should the reader fi nd that I am less than consistent in the usage of these pronouns, I will ask her to forgive me. After the fi rst draft of my hypothesis had appeared (Kozintsev, 2002c) and then after the publication of my book in Russia (Kozintsev, 2007a), I received many letters from people whom I did not know personally. Some of them eventually became my friends and, which is no less pleas- ant, made friends with each other. Others carried on fi erce arguments with me. Among those who wrote to me were psychologists, philolo- gists, linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, ethologists, two priests, and a clown. My thanks are equally due to all of them (the list of names would be too long). Among those who have contributed to the appearance of this greatly enlarged English version, I am especially grateful to Richard and Ariadna Martin. It was a pleasant surprise to me that Richard had volunteered to translate the book before we got to know each other (now we are good friends). He has spent tremendous time and effort to struggle with the vagaries of my style, and he has always been patient with my nasty habit of introducing changes after the fi nal – really, really fi nal – version has been agreed upon. Richard’s comments and suggestions were invari- ably useful. I also wish to thank Jessica Milner-Davis, who has greatly encouraged and helped me in this enterprise. I am deeply obliged to Irving Horowitz, who has accepted my manuscript for publication, to Laurence Mintz, who has improved it by editing, and to all the staff of Transaction Publishers. I hope that this book will enlarge the circle of my correspondents. Any comments, including the most merciless criticism (I do not doubt that there will be more than enough given the unaccustomed nature of my conclusions) will be accepted with gratitude. My postal address is Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Universitetskaia nab., 3, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia. My e-mail address is agkozintsev@ gmail.com, and this is the address I prefer.
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