Humor has long been the subject of serious research among psychologists, linguists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists. There’s an entire journal devoted to the topic and, though it may be hard to believe when you’re engrossed in the latest Hangover movie, humor is so much more than just a laughing matter.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein reportedly told his friend, philosopher Norman Malcolm, that “a serious and good philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes (without being facetious.)” He believed the wordplay we laugh at helps reveal our unquestioned assumptions about the world.
To this end, there are countless theories on the significance of what makes us laugh. One of the most prominent ideas is that humor is a means of establishing a connection. Charles Taliaferro, philosophy professor at St. Olaf College, tells Quartz that jokes are a means of establishing insiders and outsiders.
“Laughter is, basically, a voluntary matter,” he says. “Therefore when people laugh together at some shared joke, they form, however briefly and in an ephemeral way, a bond.
Intimacy isn’t the only role of humor. Many believe that laughter is a means of expressing superiority—a notion espoused by Hobbes and Descartes, among others. And though it’s difficult to expand this theory to apply to all manner of jokes, there’s certainly a distinct brand of humor that’s based on a desire for supremacy, like dumb blonde jokes, Boersema says. “The idea is: ‘Dumb blondes are so dumb they do x, but I would never do that because I’m smarter than those dumb blondes.’ We laugh at other people instead of with them.”
Presentation by Aaron Isaacs | iPictures: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/ | Words ttp://flip.it/Jbv9s
