Descartes, Spenser, & Freud

         It is very strange to me that something as subjective as humor should be philosophized about, but

 here we are. The concepts of "finding something funny," "humor," and "laughter" seem to lose a bit of the

 joy that typically accompanies them with all of this scientific and philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Freud

 always manages to turn everything into a symptom of repression and perversion. 

        Freud says that humor can be liberating, and that it is rebellious in nature. A lot of our generational

 humor today rebels from the humor of previous generations, and from the social norms emphasized by

 previous generations. This is all well and good, but Freud also says that the energy in joking is the same

 energy that is used to repress hostile or deviant thoughts and feelings. Joking hides our true feelings and

 intentions like the subconscious. We are not always as good at suppressing our deviant feelings as we

 think, and through joking and humor they can come out. A representation of this is a lot of people who

 engage in "dark humor" on the internet and in real life by joking about things that they have no real

 experience with. Humor exists in the example of the criminal going to the gallows and making a joke

 about it that Freud uses because it is the criminal making a statement about his own situation. If a

 passerby said something to the same effect, it would just be cruel and in poor taste. 

        I would not classify many of the funny things we have read so far this year in any of the ways that

 Descartes, Spenser, and Freud do. I think some of what they say is true, but overall, humor does not need

 to be analyzed in an anatomical way. People simply find things funny and joyful, so they laugh-- that is

 part of the beauty of life. When humor is abused, though, or used maliciously, I think their analyses may

 be useful. Malice is not humor's intent, though-- that is a perversion.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Kid

I really enjoyed “New Kid” by Jerry Craft. I love how we visualize what’s occurring and how Jordan processes the info. It has a good balance between humor, advice, social commentary, and character complexity. Since it's a different mode of interaction, different character backgrounds can be explored and understood. An example of the balance is through his struggle to fit in. The humorous portion is him exclaiming “I’m Batman!” As he leaves the house, as the story progresses we see his struggle to fit in at school and in his neighborhood. It reminded me of Starr Carter in “The Hate You Give.”  I found humor in the play on words used for the chapter titles, the call-backs to previous scenes, and dynamics between some characters. I loved how Drew stands up to Ms. Rawle and proceeds to make her uncomfortable by playing into her stereotypes. Craft uses humorous dynamics to unveil ignorance and complexities of life. Throughout the book three similarities between characters are acknowledg...
Read more

New Kid Response

            Jerry Craft’s New Kid has to be one of my favorite books we have read this semester—a descriptor I’ve handed out in the past, but this book runs away with the title due to its monumental achievement of making me laugh out loud, in real life, multiple times. Craft is able to convey so many nuances of the deeply problematic world of private school (speaking from experience) through the eyes of Jordan, whose narration is straight-to-the-point, funny, and true. The graphic novel medium offers so much opportunity for comedy, utilizing visual cues typically unavailable to a comedic novelist. For instance, early on in the story, as Jordan is just beginning to get a feel for his new school, he smiles at the sight of a Black man behind a steering wheel as he stands in a sea of white kids. This smile vanishes, accompanied by a cartoon frowny face, when the driver opens the car door to reveal a white student exiting the car, and...
Read more

Plato and Schadenfreude

  Victoria Sabatino January 30th  Reflection  I want to focus this reflection on the quote by Plato that says, “And yet the malicious man is somehow pleased with his neighbor’s misfortunes.” While I think that Plato otherwise has a very grim and not fun view of humor, he does get this right. To my understanding, the word that comes to mind for this quote is “schadenfreude” a German word that means “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” And the word and its meaning are true, this is a type of humor, and I will admit, it is funny.  Plato’s quote made me think of schadenfreude because there is a song in one of my favorite musicals Avenue Q that is simply titled ‘schadenfreude’ and it is all about this type of humor. It pokes fun at how we laugh at people’s misfortunes even if they are not funny. In the song, the two characters talk about this concept because they are both down on their luck, and are finding themselves victims to this type of ...
Read more