Today’s update is on the three main theories that have emerged from philosophy, psychology and linguistics to explain humor (Berger; Meyer; Morreall; Raskin):
These theories are generally used to try to explain humor, and theorists, philosophers, psychologists and critics of every stripe have argued for centuries about the supremacy of one theory over another. Incongruity is currently winning, as superiority and relief have fallen out of vogue. I don’t spend a lot of time on these, 1) because you can find longer descriptions elsewhere, and 2) because a lot of the finer points don’t relate well to stand up. Further, I refer to the “my theory is better than your theory” arguments as a quagmire that misses the point, which for me is: What do people think they are trying to accomplish when they make and consume humor?
Modes
I treat these theories as “modes,” or “a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done” When I’m reading people talk about stand-up, whether it be writing tips, reviews, or critiques, I see moments when people say things that sound very much like one of these modes.
What I try to do in my critiques is try to point out or highlight these moments, because I argue they have implications for what the humor is thought to do. I find that these theories are not abandoned by normal people when other models come onto the scene, but rather each new model comes to be understood through these older theories, creating permutations. This makes these modes central to understanding how humor is used, so here we go!
References:
Berger, Arthur Asa. “Humor: An Introduction.” American Behavioral Scientist 30.1 (1987): 6-15
Meyer, John C. “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication.” Communication Theory 10.3 (2000): 310-331.
Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Boston, MA: D. Reidel. 1985.
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.
An emergent hero in this chaotic time is the Portland Frog. Portland has a history of being weird, so when 45/47 announced that National Guard would be deployed to Portland we should expect a certain amount of zaniness—like the naked bicycle ride to protest, scheduled for October 12th. Further, Rachel Kiley of dailydot.org notes that others are “dressing up in colorful, silly costumes.”
Enter the Portland Frog, an “unlikely hero” (Kiley). Lauded as “terrific,” “the hero we need” (Weisberger), in one video, the young man, dressed in an inflatable frog costume, stands in front of the I.C.E. and D.H.S. agents, in their full tactical gear and masks, and hip thrusts. Characterized as “ridiculous” (thenerdstash) “unusual,” “silliness” (Kiley; O’Dell) “cartoonish and fun”, “goofy” (Kiley), and “whimsical” (Zhukovsky), it doesn’t seem to possess a clear message.
Some are confused by the tactic, with responses saying, “Did he wear the inflatable costume to avoid being pepper sprayed? I’m confused.” Matt Reigle of outkick.com dismisses it entirely “Why? Hell if I know. I find life is better if you don’t spend it trying to get inside the mind of lunatics.”
Conservatives as well as other sources immediately point to the frog as “mock[ing] law enforcement” (Dover; Zhukovsky). Merriam-Webster defines mock (v.) as “1.to treat with contempt or ridicule: deride. 2. to disappoint the hopes of. 3. defy, challenge. 4a. to imitate (someone or something) closely; 4b. To imitate in sport or derision.” The second and forth definitions would seem not to apply, but I’ll come back to 4b. The first definition is to deride, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “1. To laugh at or insult contemptuously. 2. To subject to usually bitter or contemptuous ridicule or criticism. 3. To express a lack of respect or approval of.” So we’re clearly in the category of superiority theory. Dover etc. would seem to imply that this “liberal lefty” feels superior to the “government agents” and is “sneering down his nose at them” [my words], and in so doing, he’s defying or challenging them in some way, and thus he deserves the hostile response he gets. However, others have a different definition.
Liam O’Dell of indy100.com states, “ICE officers on the ground have had to contend with a person in an inflatable frog costume taking the mick out of them.” To “take the mickey/mick out of someone” is a British expression, clearly using the slur mick referring to Irish surnames (Mc) to infer to a stereotypical Irish temper, and therefore means to take away or blunt their anger. It has come to mean “making fun of someone or copying their behavior for a laugh,” (englishclub.com), which again would seem to put us in ridicule and superiority theory. However, “Taking the mick out of someone can help them to learn how not to take themselves too seriously” (englishclub.com).
So maybe it is ridiculous, but in a good way—it’s absurd really—and that’s the point. When asked why the frog outfit they responded, “I think it’s just to show how absurd this all is” (Collins). Kiley similarly states, “Watching cops and ICE stand off against someone like this only serves to highlight the absolute disgraceful absurdity of what’s going on in Portland.”
Conservative sources maintain that 45/47’s deployment is a legitimate response to “anti-ICE rallies that have raged since June 2025, with militants throwing improvised explosives and bricks” (Dover). “The president was ordering defense secretary Pete Hegseth to ‘provide all necessary troops to protect war-ravaged Portland’ (O’Dell). This show of military force depends on its photo ops, Kristi Noem riding on a Humvee through the streets of Chicago, showing how the military is being (mis-)treated and the “violence” of the protesters. The frog gives the lie to this.
First, it shows that the protest was most likely not violent: “Of course, many other online users found the concept of wearing costumes to a violent protest rather ridiculous” (thenerdstash). If nothing else, the frog himself is not a violent protester. Kiley notes, “[T]here’s also very clearly no place for hidden weapons, and no way for the wearer to move nimbly and pose a physical threat.” Podcaster Ed Krassenstein asks, “Is this really what you guys consider to be ‘domestic terrorists?’” (Kiley; O’Dell). One prominent user notes, “By the way, this is what Trump claims is the “Antifa insurrection” that merits sending in the Texas National Guard to Portland. A protest in which the most tense stand-off involves a gyrating frog thrusting towards police. The horror!” (Adam Cochran; Kiley)
But the costume also ruins the photo op in other ways. Thenerdstash.com points up a social media conversation about the use of costumes: “’You would think a warzone would have less costumes,’ says a person on Reddit. A response added that ICE agents are just fascist thugs playing dress-up, too” (thenerdstash). Thus we see the possible return of “mock,” definition 4b. “To imitate in sport or derision.” If both sets of clothing are costumes, then who is dressed more ridiculously? It’s Perspective by Incongruity. This connection must be inferred or “gotten,” but it seems that’s been the uptake.
And the comparison is not going well for ICE. “Only in Portland can a person in a frog costume scare ICE,” commented another, alongside a video of agents moving away from the antifa frog as it walked towards them (Kiley; O’Dell). One Twitter/X user tweeted that the frog had ‘scared’ the agents “into submission” (Kiley; O’Dell), to which another responded “Look I don’t care what the real reason for these guys backing up was. Right now what millions are seeing is a bunch of armed soldiers retreating from a guy doing pelvic thrusts at them in a frog costume.” (The Alternate Historian; Kiley)
In the face of this, the honorable, highly trained and well-paid government agents decided that shooting the Portland Frog with pepper bullets and tear gassing him in his suit’s intake valve was required and the results were captured in a video that has also gone viral. This completely rational strategy, surprisingly, backfired. The Portland Frog himself commented, “Imagine pepper-spraying a fcking frog. Crazy work. Fck ICE” (Dover). Commenters note, “The amphibious protestor was trying to help up another officer who’d fallen”; “[T]he froggy individual’s hands were up in compliance, meaning there was no reason for the cop to spray them.” “The way the cop turns the compliant frog-suit person around just to spray their air hole also shows his malicious intent, despite the protestor helping another officer get up” (thenerdstash).
Instead of looking strong, “police brutality is shown in full force” (thenerdstash). “This sparked a fresh wave of condemnation of ICE, with media organisation The Tennessee Holler writing that it was ‘more evidence of which direction the violence is really going’” (O’Dell).
“Either these heavily armed men just enjoy throwing their weight around or they’re pathetic enough that they truly feared for their safety up against some person in a blow-up frog costume” (Kiley)
“The assault has been labeled as unnecessarily cruel, especially considering the fact that the individual in the costume does not appear to be behaving aggressively or threatening in any way” (Collins).
“’Such alpha males,’ added another individual ‘they just won a fight against someone in a frog costume.’ Once again, it seems ICE has embarrassed itself on video” (Collins).
Another respondent noted, “This is the clip right here that will help further define the legacy of Donald Trump and his entire administration. Pepper spraying a guy in a frog suit,” (thenerdstash)
Conservative sources tried to characterize this as a win:
“’They bring inflatables, we bring real action,’ one X user quipped, while another noted, ‘This is what happens when you play dress-up against trained officers.’ The video’s virality, with over 2 million views, highlights how protest symbols can backfire, turning into punchlines instead of rallying cries…. As one patriot put it, ‘Finally, someone’s standing up to these clowns’” (Dover).
However, with 45/47 staging political theater and trying to incite violence so that he can invoke the insurrection act and further avoid releasing the Epstein files, or face the backlash to his unpopular policies that are strangling commerce and the average citizen, perhaps the best response we can make is to be ridiculous, absurd, whimsical. So yes, follow the agents of the state playing “The Imperial March/Darth Vader’s Theme” (Washingtonpost.com). Dance the Electric Slide in front of them. Dress up in Elizabethan gowns and have a tea-party in front of the agents, dress up as a troop of military clowns and give the lie to their political theater.
The Portland Frog hasn’t given up yet. A follow-up video features the Frog claiming “they ultimately just ‘coughed a little’ and confirming that they returned to protest the following night. ‘I’ve tasted spicier. I’m Mexican, what do you expect?’ they said, before doing a little dance.” (Kiley). The Portland Frog has since been joined by others in inflatable costumes, including a chicken and a unicorn.
References
Collins, Jordan (10/6/2025). “Man in ‘frog suit’ faces cruel punishment as ICE officer allegedly turned it into a ‘gas chamber’” https://wegotthiscovered.com/politics/man-in-frog-suit-faces-cruel-punishment-as-ice-officer-allegedly-turned-it-into-a-gas-chamber/
Let’s get down to brass tacks. I started my dissertation (and later this website) to discuss the political efficacy of stand-up comedy, and how a theoretical approach to rhetoric that can explain stand-up comedy would better explain political rhetoric. I still believe I was correct, but current events are stretching my theories and spawning TOTALLY FORESEEABLE consequences.
The world has gone mad, and, since this site has always been my effort to do something practical, I’ve returned. Battling out-of-date tech, decaying technical and theoretical knowledge, a chaotic work schedule and a city under invasion (Hands off Chicago!), I’m hoping to spawn new and creative activism to highlight the absurdity of our current situation and encourage people to reevaluate their position within their community and this nation.
To this end, I’ve scrapped the other pop culture elements on this site that distracted from my original purpose (they got little to no views anyway). I’ve pulled Humor Theories back out of the Stand-Up Comedy category and put it back on the same level as Big Theories. And I’ve added a Humorous Politics category, which I will attempt to fill with discussion of protest strategies as well as the 45/47, MAGA/MAHA humorous strategies (their inadvertent as well as overt attempts). This is my candle. I hope you see its light.
The final idea Burke had that was better than his Pentad was the Representative Anecdote. There are a few theories like this one floating around now, but aside from Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero’s Journey (1949; which it predates), and perhaps discussion of “Shadow Texts” [I’m missing a source for this one :-(], the Representative Anecdote was one of the better known methods for evaluating stories in the 1980’s, thanks to Barry Brummett’s work.
The Judeo-Christian Anecdote
For Brummett, Burke was just reading a text and finding out what story the plot line followed (i.e. what text it “shadowed”). However, Burke predominantly found the same Anecdote in his readings: the Abraham/Christ sacrifice. The two stories are themselves parallel within the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Burke argues that because Western society is Judeo-Christian (being that these are the dominant religions), it’s not surprising that when we try to put things [events, people, objects, institutions and ideas] into the form of a story, our minds jump to biblical examples.
Burke argued there were two types of Victimage: Scapegoating and Mortification. Scapegoating was, as the name suggests, finding someone else to hold responsible. This plays out in the plots of most stories: Crime doesn’t pay, Bad guys are punished, etc.
Mortification, on the other hand, was a kind of self-flagellation, where we attempt to flog or beat ourselves (physically or metaphorically) as penance. This process is a bit trickier when applied to stories. Burke argues that when we watch a story, we don’t just identify with the hero. Instead–at least in the best stories–we identify with ALL the characters. We assign our own positive attributes to the “good” characters, and our own negative attributes to the “bad” characters. [If we didn’t find the characters believable enough to invest part of ourselves in, the story probably isn’t that popular!] When the “bad” people are punished, we experience mortification in seeing our proxy punished. This is another aspect of literature as “Equipment for Living”–it serves a real purpose in helping us process our guilt.
Where can we find the Anecdote? And why should we?
However, this wasn’t even the most interesting part of all of this. Burke’s most useful part of Dramatism wasn’t to read literature, plays, movies and television for evidence of the Abraham/Christ myth [or for clusters of “good” terms and their “agons”, which can work in tandem], but to read speeches, memos, policy documents and laws. To read documents that are not stories and discover terms that act like characters in a story-line or plot, –terms that are victimized or redeemed–was pretty radical and requires some thought to accomplish, but once you’ve noticed the Anecdote, you can’t go back to reading arguments in the same old way.
When we find the Anecdote, it is important to ask:
What is sacrificed?
To what/whom?
What is redeemed?
What are the entailments? So what [Cui bono]?
Again, to assuage our guilt, the “bad” terms [or ideas, people, practices, institutions, etc.] and their “agonistic” clusters are usually scapegoated, redeeming the “good” terms [ideas, people, etc.]. Yes, this might make us feel better, but it also plays on our need for redemption in order to present real-world consequences to real ideas, people, practices, institutions, etc. And we need to determine, “Is the cost worthwhile?” “Is the squeeze worth the juice?”
Sources:
Barry Brummett (1984). “Burke’s Representative Anecdote as a Method in Media Criticism.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 1(2), pp.
Barry Brummett (1984). “The Representative Anecdote as a Burkean Method, Applied to Evangelical Rhetoric.” Southern Speech Communication Journal, 50(1), pp.
Kenneth Burke (1945/1969). Rhetoric of Motives. University of California Press/Berkeley.
Another in the line of “8 Burkean concepts that are better than the Pentad” are the paired concepts of Identification and Consubstantiality. For our purposes, I’ll treat them together.
Enigmatically, Burke states that Identity is not individual. Rather than Identity being a thing that we are, it’s more of a relationship we build. Burke states “a man [sic] ‘identifies himself’ with all sorts of manifestations beyond himself” (ATH 263). Thus we go out and find people that we think are like us, companies, activities and objects we like or enjoy, people we aspire to be and positions we aspire to be in. Once that happens, we see ourselves as “of the same substance” or consubstantial.
Burke calls this process “Natural,” and says that it’s a “function of sociality” (ATH 265-7), which is to say, that because we are social creatures, living within a society, and perhaps because man [sic] is “moved by a sense of order,” we “naturally” seek to align ourselves with things.
What makes this a GENIUS concept from Burke, is that what he essentially does is note that identification is the primary function of rhetoric and persuasion; that we are persuaded or persuade ourselves that we are or are like something else (Americans, hamburger lovers, White/Black, skydivers, cisgender/Queer, etc).
Perhaps we put ourselves in categories “naturally,” but others can also work to persuade us to join categories.
A is not identical with his colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B. Or he may identify himself with B even when their interests are not joined, if he assumes that they are, or is persuaded to believe so (RM 20).
So if I can persuade you to think of yourself as a White, Middle-class, cisgender male, I can to a certain extent predict how you will respond–and I can pick which aspects I want you to think of as primary, which secondary, etc.
However, there’s a bit of a paradox in all of this:
“Identification is affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division. If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim their unity” (RM 22).
So whenever you hear someone say, “I’m like you…” or “Don’t you, as a ____ feel…” your ears should perk up. When they say “You’re like me!” you should pause and say, “Am I, though? Do I really want to be?” And perhaps you should ask, “Cui bono?” Who benefits from me being this and acting this way?
One of the most discussed parts of Kenneth Burke’s work is his “Definition of Man [sic],” a 21 page section in a single book. Putting aside his gender-specific language, it’s one of my “8 Burkean Concepts that are Better than the Pentad.” People have been trying to find an “essential definition” of humans–one that hits our important features and differentiates us from everything else–for centuries.
Appius Claudius Caecus is said to have coined the term Homo Faber (“Man the Maker”), though he was probably just the first to write it down (and have it survive). But apes, beavers, birds and other animals make things and even use tools. Johan Huizinga coined the term Homo Ludens (“the playing man”), but a lot of animals play.
Burke decided to go the more chatty route, and set up five parts to his definition. Let’s run through each of them. “Man [sic] is”:
“The symbol-using, (symbol-making, symbol misusing) animals”
Burke differentiates himself from Caecus in that the tools we use are symbols. We work through symbolic action, a keystone of his notion of Dramatism. This is somewhat in dispute, as many animals have been found to have complex systems of symbols. His example is that a bird can’t tell another bird how to exit a room through a window, but still, whales, porpoises, birds–even prairie dogs can convey sometimes detailed information. And if they didn’t make them themselves…
Burke also argues that we use condensation–we say furniture to mean tables, chairs, couches, beds, etc. But do other animals signal “predator” sometimes, and at other times, “Hawk” or “Wolf?” I don’t know, I’m asking.
Nevertheless, the symbol misusing portion is interesting, animals might do it by mistake; humans might misuse by mistake or by design.
“Inventors of the negative (or moralized by the negative)”
This one might blow your mind. In all likelihood, to any other animal, there is no concept of something being “not-something-else.” My dog might have a concept of her dish not having food in it–presence of a thing versus its absence–but does she think in terms of “Chicken, Brown Rice and Sweet Potato” flavor is NOT “Lamb and Rice” flavor? Does she think, “This couch is NOT the bed?” Can she conceptualize all the possible things that something could be instead–all of the things it is NOT? Burke argues this negation is an offshoot of language use–of symbolic action.
“Separated from their natural condition by instruments of their own making”
So yes, this includes technology, and Burke uses the example of the street lights going out, and everyone freaking out because it’s dark, when, of course it’s dark, it’s night. Nights are naturally dark.
However, it also applies to our symbols. In a conference paper and presentation, I argued that the fact that we coined the term “locavore” shows how far we’ve changed our world. There was a time when eating local food was the only option. Now you have to work hard to find and eat–exclusively–things that are produced close to your home, and we’ve coined a term for the wackos who do that hard work. The symbol change is an effect of the changes in transportation technology and the way we’ve restructured our food system.
But further still, the concept of the symbolic negative has removed us from our natural condition–we can now think and say that “Thou shalt not” do something. That hortatory no is at the same time paradoxical. To say we shouldn’t is to admit we could. This is the problem with all negations and erasures including “cancel culture,” it has to cancel something, so to cancel it, it first must reference it–and that referencing reinforces that the thing came first, the cancellation second–so negation reinforces the primacy of the thing negated. It always becomes, “I could steal, but I shouldn’t.”
“Goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (Or moved by a sense of order)”
Perhaps the most controversial part. Many theorists argue that we like order; putting things in categories is part of the human condition–it makes our lives easier as we invest less brainpower, when we don’t fall prey to oversimplification that leads to problems [racism]. Other theorists argue that we prioritize categories of people based on in-group, party or tribe. However, the idea that we put everything into a hierarchy may not hold true. And it leads to problems in the next part.
“Rotten with perfection”
This one might be culturally biased. Burke says that humans always strive to be better than what they are. A rock or a tree is fine with how it is, a human knows 1) that ze is not perfect, and 2) wants to be. This is problematic, because our notion of perfection can be altered by symbol misuse. Racism provides one problematic example. Beauty standards differ from culture to culture, but many people still strive to fit their culture’s ideal. Further, we strive even in the face of physical limitations. We can’t always be “harder, better, faster, stronger,” Kanye.
So that’s my take on it. Comments? Thoughts? Things I missed?
Source:
Kenneth Burke. “Definition of Man” Language as Symbolic Action 3-24.
Reading strategies are to qualitative research (looking at qualities or characteristics) what methods are to quantitative research (counting, looking at numbers). It’s a way to approach a text systematically, to ensure you’re not just subjectively writing whatever occurs to you.
I’ve heard reading strategies compared to cutting into a wheel of cheese. You are handed an unmanageably-large amount of cheese, and are told to cut it into useful segments. You have to decide, “What’s a useful amount?” and then decide, “How will I arrive at portions of that amount?” Do you cut it into segments, like a pizza or pie? Do you cut it into a grid? There’s a lot of ways to approach it, but you need to start somewhere.
Usually, critics use multiple reading strategies to make their arguments; however, one of the key tests of good criticism–along with novelty (say something new and interesting) and understanding (show you understood the text, and help me understand your argument)–is adherence: Once I understand your point of view and reading strategy, do I agree that your argument is valid, reasonable, etc.? Did you adequately cover all the important aspects, and not “stack the deck,” or manipulate the data?
Cluster Agon
Back in 1976, Carol Berthold found a reading strategy in the work of Kenneth Burke that was pretty useful. She called it Burke’s Cluster-Agon Method. It has four basic steps:
1. Select key terms
First, we read the text and find out which terms are important. Terms are words or phrases: ‘Murica, Freedom, First Amendment, Right to Bear Arms, etc.
Usually, these terms are used frequently, they are well defined or described (clarity), they are put into multiple contexts and link to multiple other terms. If you think a word might be important, a simple word search/find in a document or website will turn up every instance of a word. Remember to look for plurals (i.e. “Freedoms”) and other forms of the word.
Yes, counting how many times the term is used might give a clue (frequency), but more important are the force of the term and the way the term is used. Also, you should note when it’s used in a negative sense.
2. Arrive at an “Ultimate” Term
Rhetorical critic Richard Weaver talks about an “ultimate” or “god” term as “that expression about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate.” (212)
In other words, if you had to pick one word that seemed to be more important than all the others in the text–one word that seems to relate to all the other important words–which would it be?
3. Find the “Good” Cluster
Determine “What goes with what”; particularly the terms that are paired favorably with the “ultimate” term. These are the “good” terms. These terms can be paired through cause and effect relationships (either they cause the “Ultimate” term, or are an effect of it), other logical connections, or just through imagery–storytelling, or describing an event or scene.
4. Find the “Bad” Cluster–the Agon
Determine “What is against What” to arrive at a “devil” term and “evil” terms. Technically, the “devil” term might be the “Ultimate” term, and the “god” term is the Agon, as might be the case in scare tactics or fear mongering.
As with the “good” terms, the “evil” terms can be paired to the “devil” term through cause and effect relationships (either they cause the “devil” term, or are an effect of it), other logical connections, or just through imagery–storytelling, or describing an event or scene.
Together, these terms form the Agon cluster.
Why do this?
Good question. Again, back to the “Wheel of Cheese” example, we have an unmanageable amount of “stuff” to get through, and we have to start somewhere. Perhaps you heard a term repeated so often it started to stand out. Perhaps it was the way the speaker said a term or a few terms (one comic says you can tell how racist a person is by how many H’s they pronounce when they say “white”).
Whatever your reason for starting the search, carrying it through to the finish can be enlightening. Yes, if you notice the first set of terms I mentioned: America, Freedom, First Amendment, Right to Bear Arms, etc. You’ll probably note the usual cast of terminological characters. However, there might be a big difference between a speech or text where the “ultimate” term is “America,” and a speech or text where the “ultimate” term is “Freedom.”
Further, when you start getting into the “good” and “evil” terms, you might find some surprises. For instance, what if “Right to Bear Arms” is positively linked to “Freedom” and “handguns” but negatively linked to “AR-15”?
Then there are the implications. As my first mentor, Elizabeth Mechling used to ask, “So what?/Who cares?” or more to the point, “Cui bono? [Who benefits?]” Rhetorical criticism is interested in power–who has it, who is getting more, who is losing it. What do these linkages tell us about our current system or culture? What changes do they seem to advocate and who would benefit from that?
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Important links or arguments I missed?
Sources:
Carol A. Berthold, “Kenneth Burke’s Cluster-Agon Method: Its Development and an Application.” Central States Speech Journal,27 (1976): 302-309.
Richard M. Weaver, The Ethics of Rhetoric (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953), 212.
Perhaps the most quoted line from Kenneth Burke is that Literature is “Equipment for Living” (Counter Statement), so I decided I needed to dedicate some space to what that means as part of my series on 8 Burkean Concepts that are Better than the Pentad. Present post included, we also have: Dramatism, Terministic Screens, Perspective by Incongruity, Cluster-Agon, his Definition of Man [sic], Identification and Consubstantiality, and finally, the Representative Anecdote and Cult of the Kill.
For Burke, literature as “Equipment for Living,” means that we look to popular culture for stories on how to live our lives. If we’ve never seen a black person or a gay person before, but we’ve watched them on television, we may still feel comfortable around this new person because they aren’t completely foreign to us–we think we know who they might be (for better or worse). We also watch shows and see how people work through difficult situations, and if we find ourselves in a similar situation, we might act the same way. It’s the entire reasoning behind the After School Special. The same can be true of situations we encounter when watching sitcoms and stand-up, but more usually, we learn “What not to do.”
The point is that books, plays, movies, television shows and yes, stand up comedy specials are important–perhaps more important than the formal speeches of Great Orators–because they may influence people’s daily lives. We should, therefore, be studying popular culture to see what messages are being conveyed.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Important stuff I missed?
Sources:
Burke, Kenneth. Counter Statement. Berkeley: University of California, 1968.
Burke contrasts his Dramatism with the traditional methods, which he calls Scientistic. The scientistic, he says, names and defines things; it says “It is, It is not.” So we might say the scientistic strives to be relatively objective [though there are problems here, as arguments of fact/definition are a basic level of argument. When we establish what something is and what it is not, we partially determine how we can treat it. Is it a baby, or a zygote? Can we treat one differently than the other, etc].
In contrast, the Dramatistic expresses, commands and requests. It is attitudinal and hortatory–it provides an emotional value and an urge to act. It stresses Language as Symbolic Action [see next section]. The Dramatistic says, “Thou shalt, thou shalt not.” Thus, the Dramatistic, is, for Burke, the realm of rhetoric, where we seek to persuade people to act.
Motion vs. Action
Burke differentiates, between what he calls Motion and Action. Motion, he says, is natural, it’s grounded in the physical realm, and follows the rules of simple cause and effect. Motion can occur without Action.
On the other hand, Action is a result of human activity, and it’s grounded in symbol use and a dramatic interpretation of situations. Action cannot occur without Motion.
This distinction is a bit like (and pre-dates) Michel Foucault’s concept of prediscursive, things–objects, bodies, events, practices and institutions–that exist in the world independent of how we talk about them (the discursive). But collapsing the two is a bit tricky. [I find Foucault much more expansive and nuanced.]
Foucault’s events, like rainfall, might best work with Burke’s concept of Motion. If rainfall is Motion, then we can add the “discursive” layer of news reporting: Should you bring an umbrella? Will there be enough rain for crops this season (and what should farmer’s do)? What’s the likelihood of flooding (and what should everyone do)? etc. That’s Action, it’s entirely conducted through the use of symbols and is dependent on–but in some respects untethered from–the event of the rain.
Conclusion
These distinctions are perhaps integral to everything Burke writes, and provide a basic understanding of what he means when he talks about symbolic action. Once we’re talking about human interaction with “facts,” we’re automatically adding layers of influence and persuasion.
Sources:
Burke, Kenneth (1966). Language as Symbolic Action. University of California: Berkeley, CA.
Christine Harold borrows Friedrich Nietzsche’s model of the comedian. She suggests that unlike the ascetic, who seeks to expose truth, “comedians diagnose a specific situation, and try something to see what responses they can provoke” (194). Harold’s comedian jams or improvises, interprets and experiments with the forms of commercial mass-media, opening a space for the audience to act–to have agency–they are invited to participate and interpret mediated messages in divergent and often contradictory ways. This view sees humor as a productive political act on the part of the comedian in that it invites political action, which takes the form of audience uptake–their interpretations and reactions.
When a comic tells a story about a situation where their behavior is so outrageous that we cannot believe it happened let alone condone the behavior, but yet we also cannot dismiss that it quite possibly did happen, we are presented with a moment of possibility born of this irreconcilability.
If we abandon litige with its necessity of the closure of getting the intended joke, of an intentional telos (goal, point or end) that the audience and critic must uncover/decipher in order to “get it,” we find a much more complex model in which the humor lies not in the decision of “did ze mean it?” or “didn’t ze?” but in the possibility encapsulated by the questions “might ze have?” and “what if ze did?”
Our inability to decide on a single tenable position need not fall to relativism, but provides opportunity for audience agency in the form of meaning-making. We can decide the statement is meaningful and/or we can decide it’s meaningless. We can decide it’s political and/or that it’s funny
This presentation of pagan, ironic figures brings up another way of looking at irony and parody – as possibility that comes from irreconcilability and therefore requires supplementation [I’ll go into this later–if I haven’t already; still getting back into the swing of things]. Thus, in their purest forms, humorous irony and parody might best be called pagan tactics; they are différends, examples of the radically incommensurate. In this ironic economy, motive is not diminished, but rather motive becomes all that matters. But this motive is never taken at face value – determined; it must be inferred.
References:
Harold, Christine. “Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as Media Activism,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21.3 (2004): 189-211.
Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1984/2002.
—. The Différend. Trans. George Van Den Abeele. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1988.
—. “Lessons in Paganism.” The Lyotard Reader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989/1993. 122-154.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals, (1989).
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.
[Note: A version of this argument appears in my dissertation and on this website where I deal with Ironic Satire, and Satiric Irony.]
Jean-François Lyotard talks about rhetoric’s republican roots–as coming from the citizens in the Republic, living within the city walls (or polis; as opposed to the pagans–inhabitants of the pagus outside of it). This republican system presupposes that dispute resolution will take place via litigation or litige (“Lessons”).
Maurice Charland describes litige as “a dispute where both parties articulate their claims in a language they mutually share with a court or judge whose legitimacy they both recognize,” in which “the decorum of the court is known and respected by both parties, and the judgment imposes closure” (221-22). This description thus requires shared language, shared notions of decorum, a shared estimation of and respect for authority.
Because of litige, we infer a lot whenever we talk (or listen), including when we tell (or hear) jokes. Generally, we think that everyone communicates like we do, and therefore, everyone knows exactly what a person means when they say something, either because of the words they’ve chosen or the way they say it–we know how they’re supposed to act, the decorum, and how we’re supposed to respond, and therefore we think we can all judge the way they did act. These judgments close a discourse–they fix its meaning to “what it really means.” In terms of jokes, we get it, and it only means one thing (or perhaps a couple of/few things).
If only it were that simple.
The Pagus
As I mentioned, for Lyotard, there is an alternative to the city (or polis) with it’s rules (litige). Lyotard calls the godless, open space or nomos outside the city walls the pagus, (“Lessons”). We might label the pagus, following from Deleuze and Guattari, a smooth space in contrast to striated, highly delineated space of the polis (McKerrow). These are the wild areas, peopled with unknown elements. In this space, there are no pre-set groups, no enduring logics or rules, only spaces of interaction and friction among ad hoc and ephemeral individuals and groups. I argue that this is the space comedians occupy. They are pagans.
References:
Charland, Maurice. “Property and Propriety: Rhetoric, Justice, and Lyotard’s Différend.” Judgment Calls: Rhetoric, Politics, and Indeterminancy. Ed. John M. Sloop and James P. McDaniel. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998. 220-36.
Deleuze, Gilles, Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum, 1980/1987.
Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1984/2002.
—. The Différend. Trans. George Van Den Abeele. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1988.
—. “Lessons in Paganism.” The Lyotard Reader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989/1993. 122-154.
McKerrow, Raymie E. “Space and time in the postmodern polity,” Western Journal of Communication 63:3 (1999): 271-290,
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.
Relief and
