A Serious look at Laughter:Laughter silly but Divine

Most of our laughter, to be precise according to Robert Provine - a neurobiologist, 80% of our laughter, has nothing to do with humour.

Who died when Gandhi[ji] was shot?
a. Sonia Gandhi b. Indira Gandhi c. Rajiv Gandhi d. none
If you haven’t been confronted with a question of this kind before, there’s a good chance that you are now emitting a series of short vowels or silly sound – ‘ha-ha-ha’ or ‘tee-hee-hee’- that sounds similar to the noise from a detuned windpipe.
Anyone who sees or hears you will be curious to know about what they are missing. If men are from ‘Mars’ and women are from ‘Venus’, I would continue that laughter makes their living meaningful and interesting on Earth.
Earth is not a planet without laughter. In this fast track world with technisized ‘sex’ and ‘business’ lingo, though it is hard to find ‘grand children’ on the laps of ‘grand parents’ listening to the funny stories of the failures of their dadas and mammas in the leisure, still ‘laughers’ with wafers at hand in malls, city-parks and monuments have become the culture of the day.
The ‘L’ syndrome in its new avatars - SMS’, MMS’- still has its impact and market today. Laughing groups, funny corners, laughter gardens and fun schools have become an ineluctable factor of our (post)modern cities and towns.
Laughter, we all do it – at a conservative estimate adults up to 20 times a day and children up to 200. We laugh for a variety of reasons – hearing a funny joke, hissing a ‘funny’ gossip about celebrities, inhaling a laughing gas, being tickled or simply because the one next to us is laughing, because laughing is the most contagious and infectious disease.
Toby Temple the hero of Sidney Sheldon’s “A Stranger in the Mirror” became a ‘star’, a ‘big hit comedian’ because of the bigger laughs, screams, cheers and claps that followed a giggle of a middle-aged woman from the crowd. It is such a contagious one, it has no preventive vaccinations.
Our ad-lib laughs are not humour. Though the dividing line between them is thin, John Morreall, one of the few contemporary laughter theorists, gives a finer distinction: that ‘laughter’ results from a pleasant psychological shift whereas ‘humour’ results from a pleasant cognitive shift. The produced comics – ‘Tom and Jerry’, ‘Scooby Doo’, ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ etc., are some of the examples of humour.
Most of our laughter, to be precise according to Robert Provine - a neurobiologist, 80% of our laughter, has nothing to do with humour. Nevertheless the fact is that we laugh and it means more to our existence than a fleeting sense of amusement. Often we are surprised by the explanations given by gelotologists on the significance and function of laughter in the development and fulfilment of ourselves on several levels. It occupies a special place in the practice of medicine.
The famous old saying ‘Laughter is the best Medicine’ has become the cliché of every contemporary medical practitioner. It is used as a powerful tool to the sick patients: to ease, to manage pain, and to cope with traumatic health and emotional issues. Even in the field of education researchers have proved humour to be one of the effective strategies in the classroom.
Despite the development of the importance of humour or laughter by gelotologists and psycho-spiritual sermons by laugh-masters in their shrines of humour, laughter is understudied in the discipline of philosophy.
However, today there is a sustained philosophical curiosity about the workings of laughter and humour. The contemporary theorists of laughter are very adamant about this topic because they believe that to understand our laughter is to go a long way toward understanding humanity. This discipline was pioneered by Plato and Aristotle, the giant pillars of whole western tradition of philosophy, with their critical and philosophical approach to laughter in western tradition of philosophy.
Aristotle regarded philosophy as a science that concerned with the discoveries of how one is to live well, and so even more than Plato he was interested in a philosophical analysis of laughter. Though his minor proposition, “only human animal laughs”, incited him to cover philosophy of laughter, has been disproved by researchers, up until the middle of the eighteenth century, his conceptions governed the theories of laughter. Moreover, there is also a medieval rumour that he had written a now lost book on ‘comedy’.
Almost every major figure from Plato in the western tradition of philosophy and Buddha in the eastern tradition of philosophy has proposed a theory on laughter and humour. But after 2500 years of discussion there has been a little consensus about what constitutes humour or laughter. The philosophical study of humour and laughter has been focused on the development of a satisfactory objective definition of them in the western tradition of philosophy.

Laughter has not always received the positive colouring it enjoys in today’s free societies.
Lack of resources tie my hand from writing about the eastern minds’ contribution to philosophy of laughter. Several scholars have identified over 100 types of humour theories but basically their propositions revolve around the questions: Why do we find a particular thing funny and what is the purpose of humour in human life?
These humour theories are broadly classified into three neatly identifiable groups: incongruity, superiority and relief theory. Laughter has not always received the positive colouring it enjoys in today’s free societies.
Plato and Aristotle, both deny the inherent value of laughter in the human experience and give into the belief that laughter is a malicious response to the ignorance of others. Thus Plato husks laughter from the guardians of his ideal city-state and pushes humour to the extent as unbecoming of a good citizen.
Aristotle continues this classical critique in his works. In the ‘Poetics’, he declares laughter as induced by observing the ridiculousness of others and ‘humour’ as provoked by comedies that imitates the personas of men worse than the average.
Both promoted the ‘superiority theory of laughter’. Superiority theory is the oldest of the theories of laughter. It plainly states that laughter is a result of observing the ridiculousness in others regarding one’s own status as outstanding in the light of another’s fault.
It was later developed by Thomas Hobbes who lived until the middle of the 15th century. “The passion of laughter”, he writes in his book ‘Human Nature’, “is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparing with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” The popular form of laughter practised in our societies, I am afraid, succumbs to superiority theory.
Though it helps one to appreciate the value of oneself or it is social corrective, helping people to recognise behaviours that are inhospitable to human flourishing, it is inappropriate and devastating.
Since one’s ‘laughter’ or ‘pleasure’ is at the ‘defects’ inherent in an ‘imperfect’ human condition, it destroys the relationship between people, damages persons’ dignity and self-worth. Chances are ripe for this sort of laughter to stimulate a ‘communal violence’ by becoming a mockery, ridicule or sarcasm based on race, religion, nationality and sexual orientation.
Relief theory, the second hypothesis about laughter, describes humour as a tension-release factor. Not defining humour, it discusses the essential structures and psychological process that produce laughter.
The two most prominent relief theorists are Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud. Laughter according to them results from sudden release of pent up nervous (sexual, intellectual and emotional) energy, helping one to liberate oneself from his or her store of anxiety and mental discomfort.
Both subscribe to the belief that laughter is vital for a healthy life. This has lead to the invention of new and beneficial therapies practised by doctors, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals using humour and laughter to help patients cope or treat a variety of physical, mental and spiritual issues.
In reality, most of our perceived funniness falls under the third hypothesis – Incongruity theory. Several philosophers favour it. This promotes the idea that laughter is an intellectual reaction to something that is unexpected, illogical or abnormal in some other way.
From everyday experience, the laws of cause and effect make impression upon the mind that a normal, harmonious order is present in the world. When a situation occurs that disrupts this harmony, sometimes laughter is the first response to this state of deviation from the normal. An ‘incongruity’ occurs when this harmony is broken and the ridiculousness of the situation may produce laughter.
I am living in a religious house. Animals and plants are unwritten rule in our religious houses. Though we do not have an animal husbandry, we grow a handful of dogs, pigs, hen and unavoidably also cats and rats. Animals do not normally talk, at least if I am not mistaken, the human languages (Tamil, English, Telugu, Hindi and so on).
Suppose one day, like the white boar of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, our pigs look into the eyes of the one attending them and say very clearly, “Rayappa, how are you doing?” It might trigger a surprised laughter as a reaction to the incongruity of the situation that ‘a pig just spoke’.
Since one’s ‘laughter’ or ‘pleasure’ is at the ‘defects’ inherent in an ‘imperfect’ human condition, it destroys the relationship between people, damages persons’ dignity and self-worth.
Although every theory of laughter devises explanations for our laughter, none of us can totally support the entire philosophy of laughter. Except for its omniscient ‘Authour’ every theorist has elbow room to deepen his or her reflections on laughter.
For example, the innocent laughter of babies and the ubiquitous, non-humourous, irrational and childlike spirit in our daily laughter continues to remain a mystery to be pondered at. Though Morreall attempts to explain it in his book ‘Talking Laughter Seriously’ with his new theory – “laughter is a pleasant psychological shift”, I am sure you will nod with me approving its limitedness. However, these theories have intuited us to have a serious look at the quality of our laughter.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ represents laughter as an attitude towards the world, towards life and towards oneself and surprisingly ‘holy’. Laughter is not a learned behaviour. There is a host of evolutionary theories explaining how ‘laughter’ began seven million years ago.
When a situation occurs that disrupts this harmony, sometimes laughter is the first response to this state of deviation from the normal.
It is neither a merit nor an act of our own. We may find this hard to believe, but the fact is that much of our laughter is involuntary. Sometimes we cannot help laughing. In some humourous situations we are overcome by laughter. It comes to us. May be that is the reason why Nietzsche refers to it as one’s attitude and as well as ‘holy’, because one’s attitude is spontaneous outer expression of oneself.
It is ‘holy’ because such a liberative habit unique to human beings (I consider it so because it is more than an irrational instinct) is surely a gift from God.
I am sure, now you will join me in saying that laughter is much more than a passing human phenomenon.
Dr. Mel Bornis in his e-article – ‘Are You Suffering from a Laugh Deficiency Disorder’, basing himself on the sharing of one of his patients who due to his sense of humour survived the inhuman Nazi death camps - proclaims laughter as ‘freedom’.
Let us then begin a new story of laughter. ‘Laughter’ is a good place to start our own philosophy of laughter. Let us – learn to laugh! For it is more than silly, is divine.