Humans throughout the centuries have pondered and discussed on what sets apart a group of animals and a society. In my opinion, one of the essential ingredients of any successful civilization or society is humour and its ability to laugh at itself. The more tolerant a society, better the quality of humour.
Wikipedia defines humour as – “Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion”.
Erma Bombeck made the most fundamental and yet simple statement about civilization when she said - "When humour goes, there goes civilization.". Mind you, society of a kind does exist without humour, but it is not the one where ideas and the human spirit prosper and grow. Victor Borge also remarked that "Humour is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth."
Of course there have been some very serious attempts at understanding humour (pun intended) and mostly it has to do with understanding the human psychology. Dr. Chaya Ostrower in this PhD study and the book – “Without humour we would all have committed suicide", has taken a serious side to the study of humour. But humour is a complex phenomenon and more often than not, it has been extremely culture context specific. There are some important questions to identifying what is funny and humorous against sterile and stressful or even plain obscene.
One might start by asking what is the purpose of humour? Why do we laugh?
According to Dr. Chaya Ostrower - Humour is a complex phenomenon. There is no general theory of humour or even an agreed definition. When we try to define exactly what counts as humour and what does not, or how humour operates, we find it quite difficult.
According to him - Humor is comprised of three components: wit, mirth, and laughter. Wit is the cognitive experience, Mirth the emotional experience, Laughter the physiological experience. We often equate laughter with humor, but there are many instances of laughter (tickling, nervousness, etc.) that clearly have little to do with humor. Similarly, there are many instances of humour that do not result in laughter (due to the mood of the appreciator, the social context, etc.). Humour is a quality of perception that enables us to experience joy even when faced with adversity. Stress is an adverse condition during which we may experience tension or fatigue, feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes develop a sense of hopelessness or futility. You cannot feel stress, angry, depressed, anxious, guilty, or resentful and experience humor at the same time. Like beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, humor is in the funny bone of the receiver of the experience.
This makes it extremely difficult to define what would constitute humour and this very quality has been often taken in various science fiction stories, such as Star Trek for instance, where both the Vulcan Spock and later the android Data, display considerable difficulties in understanding human context of humour. Different cultures have different expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture.
Hence you’d find the humour of one culture totally incomprehensible to someone from another culture.
Mark Twain, a giant in American literature, in Following the Equator: A Journey around the World, said - “There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”
There is of course a systemic view of humour, which is sort of, let’s say, non-humorous.
Philip Dorrell defines humour as – “Most people think of humour as something that exists for the sake of entertainment, or for adding spice to social occasions. But humour is an aspect of the human mind, and as such, is almost certainly part of a system for information processing. So what sort of information is being processed when we laugh at something funny?”
According to him - most humour follows a pattern like this:
First we think that something is true, based on clues given to us, But then we are presented with further evidence, which shows that we were wrong, In fact we were so wrong, that there was something wrong with the thought processes that lead to the initial conclusion.
And at the end of this process, we feel pleasure
Conveyance of Humour, though not necessarily confined to the territory of books alone, is the cornerstone of what we would recognize as a truly tolerant civilization or society. I loosely refer to society and civilization in the same context although there are people who would enjoy spending an evening differentiating between the two. The fact that humour is an essential ingredient of a successful leader and hence helping lubricate the functioning of a society was captured by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said - "A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done"
Humour would be pointless if not conveyed to the masses and it is here where the role of an author or a writer becomes important. Albert Camus once said - “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” The importance of books in the development of humanity & spread of humour cannot be understated".
Barbara W. Tuchman has very aptly captured the thought - “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
Thus, in a sense, humour defines our identity as a species apart from the general animal kingdom and also defines our species. Without humour, we'd rather be animals herding together in vast numbers. In some parts of the world, this is still true to some extent :-)
Wikipedia defines humour as – “Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion”.
Erma Bombeck made the most fundamental and yet simple statement about civilization when she said - "When humour goes, there goes civilization.". Mind you, society of a kind does exist without humour, but it is not the one where ideas and the human spirit prosper and grow. Victor Borge also remarked that "Humour is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth."
Of course there have been some very serious attempts at understanding humour (pun intended) and mostly it has to do with understanding the human psychology. Dr. Chaya Ostrower in this PhD study and the book – “Without humour we would all have committed suicide", has taken a serious side to the study of humour. But humour is a complex phenomenon and more often than not, it has been extremely culture context specific. There are some important questions to identifying what is funny and humorous against sterile and stressful or even plain obscene.
One might start by asking what is the purpose of humour? Why do we laugh?
According to Dr. Chaya Ostrower - Humour is a complex phenomenon. There is no general theory of humour or even an agreed definition. When we try to define exactly what counts as humour and what does not, or how humour operates, we find it quite difficult.
According to him - Humor is comprised of three components: wit, mirth, and laughter. Wit is the cognitive experience, Mirth the emotional experience, Laughter the physiological experience. We often equate laughter with humor, but there are many instances of laughter (tickling, nervousness, etc.) that clearly have little to do with humor. Similarly, there are many instances of humour that do not result in laughter (due to the mood of the appreciator, the social context, etc.). Humour is a quality of perception that enables us to experience joy even when faced with adversity. Stress is an adverse condition during which we may experience tension or fatigue, feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes develop a sense of hopelessness or futility. You cannot feel stress, angry, depressed, anxious, guilty, or resentful and experience humor at the same time. Like beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, humor is in the funny bone of the receiver of the experience.
This makes it extremely difficult to define what would constitute humour and this very quality has been often taken in various science fiction stories, such as Star Trek for instance, where both the Vulcan Spock and later the android Data, display considerable difficulties in understanding human context of humour. Different cultures have different expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture.
Hence you’d find the humour of one culture totally incomprehensible to someone from another culture.
Mark Twain, a giant in American literature, in Following the Equator: A Journey around the World, said - “There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”
There is of course a systemic view of humour, which is sort of, let’s say, non-humorous.
Philip Dorrell defines humour as – “Most people think of humour as something that exists for the sake of entertainment, or for adding spice to social occasions. But humour is an aspect of the human mind, and as such, is almost certainly part of a system for information processing. So what sort of information is being processed when we laugh at something funny?”
According to him - most humour follows a pattern like this:
First we think that something is true, based on clues given to us, But then we are presented with further evidence, which shows that we were wrong, In fact we were so wrong, that there was something wrong with the thought processes that lead to the initial conclusion.
And at the end of this process, we feel pleasure
Conveyance of Humour, though not necessarily confined to the territory of books alone, is the cornerstone of what we would recognize as a truly tolerant civilization or society. I loosely refer to society and civilization in the same context although there are people who would enjoy spending an evening differentiating between the two. The fact that humour is an essential ingredient of a successful leader and hence helping lubricate the functioning of a society was captured by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said - "A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done"
Humour would be pointless if not conveyed to the masses and it is here where the role of an author or a writer becomes important. Albert Camus once said - “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” The importance of books in the development of humanity & spread of humour cannot be understated".
Barbara W. Tuchman has very aptly captured the thought - “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
Thus, in a sense, humour defines our identity as a species apart from the general animal kingdom and also defines our species. Without humour, we'd rather be animals herding together in vast numbers. In some parts of the world, this is still true to some extent :-)
