Socrates/Plato’s (and others’) view of humor as derived from ridicule. The forms usually attached to this mode of humor are irony, parody, and satire, which expose and possibly correct human problems and failings.
More about the theory:
Scorn & Self-Ignorance
For Plato, humor is malicious, nasty, mean, or hurtful; it’s a form of scorn. “Taken generally,” he says, “the ridiculous is a certain kind of evil, specifically a vice,” more specifically, self-ignorance (Philebus, 48–50). He says that the people we laugh at imagine themselves to be wealthier, better looking, or more virtuous than they really are. In laughing at them, we take delight in something evil—their self-ignorance—and that malice is morally objectionable.
So this is where we laugh at and mock people, like dirty hippies, “libtards” and yuppies, and science deniers (or the alt-right, 45-ers, or Tea Baggers), because, in our opinion, they’re hypocritical, or think they’re smarter than we think they are.
“Imitation of Men Worse Than Average”
Many people attribute to Aristotle the idea that “comedy is based upon ‘an imitation of men worse than average,’” though this quotation developed post-Aristotle by scholars who had read his writing on comedy prior to its disappearance (Berger, 7 n3). However, perhaps also in this vein, Aristotle says in The Rhetoric (2, 12), that wit is educated insolence; perhaps the whole thing is a ruse, a trick or a facade meant to entertain.
This can be seen in all kinds of humorous characters: the fish-out-of-water, the rube or hick, the fool, the clown, etc. So basically, Larry the Cable Guy, Homer Simpson, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, etc. However, if we imitate a type of person, can we guarantee that there are no stereotyping effects that spill over onto people like those portrayed? Do we laugh at individuals or at the “type”?
Eminency Over Infirmity – Even for Ourselves
A more modern take is offered by Thomas Hobbes, who states that laughter is “a sudden glory, arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly” (Chapter ix, § 13; Morreall, Humor). It is this recognition of people’s ability to change and therefore laugh at our former ignorance or infirmity that really makes the theory applicable in a lot of situations.
For instance, Ellen DeGeneres used to do a bit about tripping over something, and playing it off as if she were just starting to run. It’s probably something we’ve all done at some point, so we can laugh along with her, at ourselves.
Ridicule
Since humor in this mode is mean-spirited, people don’t like it – especially when they’re on the receiving end. Roger Scruton considers amusement to be an “‘attentive demolition’ of a person or something connected with a person” (Morreall, Humor). “If people dislike being laughed at,” Scruton says, “it is surely because laughter devalues its object in the subject’s eyes” (in Morreall, Laughter, 168).
Obviously, there is a line between humorous and serious ridicule, and different people have different tolerance levels. I don’t personally find a lot of pranking or ridiculing humor funny because it just seems mean. Also, there’s a lot of hyper-masculinity caught up in “taking a joke,” and “laughing it off,” what we call “the guffaw,” when the joker seems to be going out of their way to take pot-shots or “push the envelope.” But how frequently do people talk about humor in this way, and can it do anything else besides making people feel bad?
Usage
Obviously, this theory cannot adequately explain all things people find funny (Morreall, Humor). However, my purpose here is to track how people think and talk about humor, and people frequently make statements when writing and talking about jokes and comics that sound a lot like this theory. The idea of superiority is still very much “in play.”
Political Potential
People who think of humor as ridicule tend to be concerned with how humor operates socially, and how it affects power in relationships. Superiority Theory works well for political critics as it grants ideological force to the humor; we think the humor does something. This allows critics such as Joanne Gilbert, Lisa Gring-Pemble and Martha Soloman Watson to analyze the ways in which power is being (mis)used. But what does it do? Generally, two ideas have emerged: that it creates social differences and hierarchies that then constrain or restrict our actions, or that is destroys or levels social differences and hierarchies, which empowers us.
Social Constraint
Originally, humor was believed to serve as a form of social constraint – to reinforce a social hierarchy (Mulkay). So we can laugh at or ridicule people to point out their bad behavior and keep them in line, and powerful people laugh at all the little people to demonstrate their dominance.
Social Empowerment
However, cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas argues that humor can just as easily work as an attack meant to level social hierarchies – an act of social empowerment. So we can ridicule and laugh at systemic problems, like bureaucracies, racism, sexism, etc.
I’ve already mentioned “laughing at,” but there’s also the idea of “laughing with.” Joanne Gilbert talks about the difference between a victim, one who is harmed in the story of the joke, and a butt, the one who is responsible. While they can be the same thing, we laugh with the victims at the butts. So we can laugh with black people at a racist system, and in that laughter, show our opposition to the racism. This is what I argue Sarah Silverman does with her “chink” joke.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Extensions? Applications?
References:
Aristotle. The Rhetoric.
Berger, Arthur Asa. “Humor: An Introduction.” American Behavioral Scientist 30.1 (1987): 6-15
Douglas, Mary. “Jokes.” Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. Eds. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. 291-310.
Gilbert, Joanne. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 2004.
Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson. “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.
Hobbes, Thomas. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: Part I, Human Nature, Part II, De Corpore Politico; with Three lives. Ed. J.C.A. Gaskin. New York: Oxford University, 1994.
Morreal, John, ed., The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1987.
—-. “Philosophy of Humor.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy available at http://plato.stanford.edu/index.html, 2016
Mulkay, Michael. On Humor: Its Nature and Its Place in Modern Society. New York: Basil, 1988.
Plato, Philebus.
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
