The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (color ebook reader .TXT) 📕

in humor, one to seek a feeling of superiority by revealing the

inferiority of others in a surprising way, another to release a

burdensome[1] inhibition, a third to play with and in a sense

mock the disagreeable features of life, and the fourth to seek

detachment from one’s self, to seek relief from sorrow,

disappointment and deprivation by viewing the self as from afar.

[1] In this way humor is an effort for freedom; through humor one

tastes of experiences otherwise forbidden.

So there is a sarcastic humor which points out the foibles and

weaknesses of others either grossly or delicately. Usually these

others are those differing from one’s own group—the Irish, Jew,

farmer, Negro—and the jokes either deal with their personal

appearance (a low humor) or their characteristic expressions,

points of view and actions. The audience is convulsed at their

quaintness or folly, though often enough on the stage the comic

figure delivers a sort of wisdom mingled with his foolishness,

and this adds to the humorous explosion. The sarcastic humor in

its highest form reaches satire, where under a disguise powerful

institutions or the habit and ways of life of a group are

criticized. In polite society people are continually attacking

each other in a kind of warfare called repartee, in which the

tension is kept just without the bounds of real hostility, while

the audience sides with the one whose shaft is the most telling.

In the lower ranks this interchange, which is surprisingly

frequent, is coarse and insulting. It is supposed to be a test of

character to be able to “stand” these attacks with equanimity and

even to join in the laugh against oneself. To “kid” and take

“kidding” is thus an important social trait.

Humor is often used to expose the folly of the pretentious. Much

of the stock in trade of the humorist lies in his attack on the

pedant, the pompous, the great, the new-rich, the over-important

of one kind or another. To find them less than they pretend to be

gives two especial kinds of pleasure to the audience; the first

the stripping away of disguise (Bergson), and the second the

relief of our own feeling of inferiority in their presence by

showing how inferior they really are.

Since inhibition wears on us, the great inhibitions are directly

attacked by the humorist. Thus sex forms one of the great

subjects of humor, and from the obscene story told by those on

whom the sex inhibitions rest lightly to the joke about clothes,

etc., told by those who mock the opposite sex, the whole idea is

to bring about pleasure in the release of inhibitton and the play

of the mind around the forbidden. Freud has some interesting

remarks on this type of humor, which he regards largely as sexual

aggression. It is necessary to say that the release of inhibition

is always that of an inhibition not too strongly felt or

accepted. A really modest person, one to whom the sex code is a

sacred thing, does not find pleasure in a crude sex joke.

Similarly with the inhibition surrounding marriage, which is a

stock subject of humor. The overearnest person dislikes this type

of humor and reacts against it by calling it “in bad taste.” In

the Middle Ages (and to-day among those opposed to the Catholic

church), the priest and nun were slyly or coarsely attacked by

the humorist, and in all times those somewhat skeptical find in

religion, its ceremonials and customs, a field for joke and

satire.

The most interesting of the types of humor flirts with the

disagreeable. Man is the only animal foreseeing death and

disaster, and he not only quakes in the knowledge of misfortune,

but also he jokes about it. It may be that the excitement of

approaching in spirit the disagreeable is pleasant, and perhaps

there is pleasure in attacking disaster, even in a playful way.

The ability to joke about other people’s misfortunes is not, of

course, a measure of gallantry or courage and usually indicates a

feeling of superiority such as we all tend to feel in the

presence of the unfortunate, even where no element of weakness

has caused their mishap. But to joke about one’s own troubles,

danger and disaster at least indicate a sense of proportion, an

ability to stand aloof from oneself.

This propensity is remarkably manifest in hospitals, in war and

wherever disaster or danger is present. The soldiers nickname in

a familiar way all their troubles and all their dangers. The

popular phrases for dying illustrate this,—croaked, flew up the

spout, turned up the toes, etc. In the war the different kinds of

guns and missiles had nicknames, and puns were made on the

various dreaded results of injury. It was declared by the

soldiers that no missile could injure any man unless it has his

name and address on it, which is, of course, a poetical, humorous

comparison of the missile to a longed-for letter. I heard a

wounded man say the only trouble was that the postoffice

department mistook him for another fellow. Grim humor always is

evident in grim situations; it is a way of evasion and escape,

and also it is a challenge.

When one objectifies himself so that he sees himself, his

purposes and his weaknesses in the light in which others might

see him and find him “funny,” then he has reached the heights in

humor. Certain people are notoriously lacking in this quality of

detachment, and they cannot laugh at themselves or find any humor

in a situation that annoys, mortifies or hurts them. Others have

it to a remarkable degree, and if they possess at the same time

the art of telling the humorous story about themselves, they

become very popular. This popularity accounts for a good deal of

seeming modesty and humorous self-depiction; it is a sort of

recompense for the self-confessed foible and weakness; it is a

way of seeking the good opinion and applause of others and is

sometimes sought to a ridiculous extreme.

The character and the state of culture stand revealed in the type

of humor enjoyed. If a man laughs heartily at sex jokes, one may

at least say, that while he may live up to the conventions in

this matter, it is certain that he regards the inhibitions as

conventions, even though he give them lip-homage. No one finds

much humor in the things he holds as really sacred, and if these

are attacked in the joke he may laugh, but he is offended and

angry at heart. Any man permits a joke on women in general, but

he will not permit an obscene joke about his wife or his mother.

Humor must not arouse the anger of the audience or the reader,

and in this it resembles wrestling matches and friendly boxing,

which are pleasant as attacks not seriously intended, but the

blows must not exceed a certain play limit or war is declared.

To be entertained, to entertain, to escape from fatigue,

monotony, inhibition, to seek excitement, to while away the time

and thus to escape from failure, regret and sorrow are parts of

the life and character of all. They who have nothing else but

these activities in their lives are to be pitied, and they are

unwise who allow themselves too little amusement and recreation.

But we have not spoken of pleasure as a whole, pleasure apart

from entertainment, play and humor. The satisfaction of any

physical desire is pleasant, so that to eat and drink and have

sexual relations become great pleasure trends. There are some who

live only for these pleasures, ranging from glutton to epicure,

from the brutally passionate to the sexual connoisseur. Others

whose appetites are hearty subordinate them to the main business

of their lives, achievement in some form. There is a whole range

of taste in pleasures of this kind that I do not even attempt to

analyze at this point, even if it were possible for me to analyze

it.

Pleasure in dress, in ceremonials, in all the ornamentation of

life, forms part of the artistic impulses. The love of music is

too lofty to be classed with the other pleasures. This is true of

only a few people. For most of us music is an entertainment and

is usually poorly endured if it constitutes the total

entertainment. As part of the theater, of the movie, of dancing,

it is “appreciated” by everybody. To most it stirs the emotions

so deeply that its pleasure vanishes in fatigue if too long

endured. The capacity to enjoy music, especially the capacity to

express it, is one of the great variables of life. It is true

that the poseurs in music and the arts generally seek superiority

by pretending to a knowledge, interest and pleasure they do not

really have, just as there are some who really try to enjoy what

they feel they should enjoy. Nowhere is there quite so much

pretense and humbug as in the field of the artistic tastes.

Nowhere is the arbitrariness of taste so evident, and nowhere is

the “expert” so likely to be a pretender. I say this in full

recognition of the fact that science and religion have their

modes and pretenses as well as art.

The “progress” of man is marked as much as anything by a change

in “taste,” change in what is considered mannerly, beautiful and

pleasant. This progress is called refinement, although this term

is also used in relation to ethics. Refinement in cooking leads

to the art of the chef. Refinement in dress becomes developed

into an intricate, ever-changing relation of clothes and age,

sex, time of day, situation, etc., so that it is unrefined to

wear clothes of certain texture and hues and refined to wear

others. Refinement in manner regulates the tone of voice, the

violence of gesticulation, the exhibition of emotions and the

type of subjects discussed, as well as controlling a dozen and

one other matters, from the way one enters a room to the way one

leaves it. The savage is unrefined, say we, though he has his own

standards of refinement. An American is a boor if he tucks his

napkin in at the neck and uses bread to sop up the gravy on his

plate, whereas Italians find it perfectly proper to do these

things and find the bustle of the American life totally

unrefined.

That refinement and developed taste are matters of convention and

entirely relative is not a new thesis; it is an old accepted

truth. What I wish to point out is this, that every development

in refinement adds some new pleasure to the world but subtracts

some old ones. He who develops his musical tastes from ragtime to

the classics finds joys he knew not of, but is offended and

disgusted whenever he visits friends, attends a movie or a

theater. When people ate with their fingers there was little to

be disgusted at in eating; when people need spotless linen and

eight or ten forks, knives, and spoons for a meal, a single

disarrangement, a spot on the linen, is intolerable. The higher

one builds one’s needs and tastes, the more opportunities for

disgust, disappointment and discontent.

Most of the people of the world have never understood this. To

the majority, acquisition, the multiplication of needs, desires

and tastes constitute progress and seem to be the roads to

happiness. Get rich, have horses, autos, beautiful things in the

house, servants, go where you please and when you please,—this

is happiness. The rich man knows it is not, and so does the wise

man. Desires grow with each acquisition, the capacity for

satisfaction diminishes with every gratification, novelty

disappears and with the growth of taste little disharmonies

offend deeply.

Some men have reacted in this way against gratification and

satisfaction,