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Chapter VII To those of my readers who have followed the argument of the preceding chapters, this second problem will appear not nearly as difficult as the first, and in solving it I propose to rely chiefly on the valuable discoveries of Dr. Alfred Adler, probably one of the most acute psychologists of the day. In the first place, however, I should like to make the nature of the problem quite plain, and refresh the reader's mind concerning the points emphasised in the Introduction. I am not arguing that there is to-day a greater capacity for laughter, or a greater fitness for laughter than there has ever been. What, I think, can reasonably be maintained, however, is that there is to-day a more resolute pursuit of "gelotogens" (to coin a word for the occasion), a greater exaltation of humour, a more determined demand for gelastic literature and turns of speech, a more slavish worship of humorists, and hence, inferentially, a greater conscious insistence on showing teeth at all costs, Neither in the Middle Ages, the period of the Renaissance, nor the seventeenth nor the eighteenth century, do we find this frenzied and monotonous praise of a sense of humour. We do not find men exalted or debased according to their possession or want of it. We are not told that the opponents of Luther, for instance, accused him, as they would certainly have done had they been moderns, of lacking a sense of humour. We do not find in Puritan literature, the Puritans accusing Charles I. of having no sense of humour, as they certainly would have done had they belonged to the nineteenth or twentieth century. Neither do we hear of Charles I., or Stratford, or Laud, bringing a similar charge against the Puritans. Swift, who was keen enough to discover the flaws in his enemy's armour, does not hurl this most dreaded of modern charges at his opponents; and, as far as I have been able to study the anti-Napoleonic literature of last century, we nowhere find a similar charge flung at Napoleon, although, from the standpoint of the man of the period, he deserved it probably even more than Kaiser Wilhelm II. Last, but not least, although Pascal certainly pleaded that saints might laugh at the follies of men for disciplinary purposes, I have nowhere come across any attempt earlier than the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to foist a sense of humour on God and Christ, There must surely be some reason for the enormously important place this gelotogen, humour, has come to occupy in modern life. There must be something behind its comparatively sudden elevation to the rank of a virtue so exalted that, on the one hand, the most studied modern insult is to deny that a man possesses it, while on the other hand, the highest honour that can be paid even to God is to declare that He is endowed with it. Is it possible that, like all exaggerations, like all prejudices and prepossessions, which become exorbitant, it is compensatory? Quite apart from other evidence of a similar nature that could be adduced from most classical writers, Aristotle hints at the fact that the Greeks of his own day were hypergelastic. 1 Is it possible that with them, too, excessive laughter was compensatory? What were they? They were men who stood on the brink of the Hellenistic period — the period of decline and decadence, the sunset era of Greek glory and prosperity. But why should an age of decadence and decline be necessarily hypergelastic? The reader immediately thinks of children. Are they not always laughing? Do they not worship the buffoon and gelotogens of all kinds? And yet children of all nations, who show this extreme fondness and readiness for laughter, cannot be Yes, but children are in a singular position. They are dwarfs in a world of giants. They are weaklings and ignoramuses in a world of strong, learned elders. They are young human beings with human pride and human arrogance, who are constantly having to conceal their mortification at defeats suffered at the hands of the giants. Their power, their will to self-assertion, their desire to prevail, is constantly being constrained, thwarted, suppressed by the Titans about them. At best, they find their lives controlled in a thousand tiresome ways. Adler tells us that all human motivation can be reduced to a general striving after superiority of some kind. 2 He also tells us that throughout the whole of its development, the child suffers from a feeling of inferiority in regard both to its parents and the world, 3 and that when this, as it were, normal feeling of inferiority in children happens to be complicated by some organic deficiency or debility, it produces a much more acute feeling of inferiority. 4 He proceeds to show that every effort is made by the child to overcome this feeling of inferiority, 5 and that when the latter is abnormally severe, the effort to overcome it is correspondingly frantic. 6 Even in normal children, however, the customary, or what might be called the "routine" feeling of inferiority, suffices, according to Adler, to account for the unremitting restlessness of the child, his itch to be doing something, his longing to play various parts, to measure his strength against all comers, his habit of But if Adler had known the theory of laughter expounded in this book, would he not most certainly have added laughter to the list of childhood's incessant activities, accounted for by a sense of inferiority? Psychologists tell us that to make the facial expression peculiar to a given mood tends to evoke the mood itself in the mind. To force oneself to cry inevitably calls up a melancholy state of mind. To force oneself to utter angry words soon makes one feel angry. But, if that is so, to laugh, to show teeth, must also summon to the mind the mood associated with laughter — the feeling of superior adaptation, no matter how inferior one's position may be. Who, then, most needs the constant tonic, the constant support of this feeling of superior adaptation, to overcome their haunting sense of inferiority, if not children? Who most needs to show teeth, every hour, every minute of the day, if not these weak, ignorant dwarfs in a world of giants stuffed with all sorts of mysterious knowledge? Hence the gratitude, the slavish worship, that children offer to all those who make them show teeth. Hence the persistent cry of "Again!" after any scene, performance, or prank, that has made them show teeth, and hence, too, the almost neurotic readiness which numbers of them display to burst into laughter at the smallest provocation. 7a Oh, for that crown of laughter, that gift of self-glory that makes mean midgets feel kings among giants! The laugh is compensatory. It relieves the constant The mental mechanism by which all these benefits are secured may be unconscious, but the benefits themselves are real. Naturally it is not claimed here that all children's laughter is of this compensatory kind. A good deal of it among healthy children is of that subjective kind accounted for by feelings of extreme well-being, of successful, faultless functioning, and of high spirits; by a condition, in fact, in which the impulse to show teeth is, as it were, always on the threshold, waiting for the most trifling excuse to be indulged. But if we are to distinguish between children and adults of the same class; if, that is to say, we are to find out why, all things being equal, children will tend to laugh very much more than adults who are as healthy and carefree as they, then it seems to me we must have recourse, for a satisfactory explanation, to the definition of laughter advanced in this book, associated with Adler's theory of the compensations sought by all those suffering from a sense of inferiority. Think of the joy over Jack the Giant Killer, over the Brer Rabbit stories, over Jack and the Beanstalk! In all these stories, a small insignificant creature performs a feat against severe odds, against a creature greater than himself. Think also of Mr. Kimmins's valuable discovery that the misfortunes-of-others stories practically disappear as a cause of laughter from among children from twelve to eighteen years of age, except when they relate to adults. 8 There can be but one inference. This is a decadent age. It is an age in which, although longevity may be more general, the joie de vivre has undoubtedly declined. Quite apart from the millions who are acutely deranged mentally, or severely disordered physically, and who are distributed over the asylums, homes, hospitals and special schools of the land, even for those who are seen up and about, working and playing, it is an age of much secret dysfunctioning, of much hidden debility, of terrible sub-acute discomfort — an age of much conscious physical inferiority. 9 The vast increase in the medical profession during recent years, 10 the fantastic increase in the power of this profession, and the complementary enormous multiplication of patent and proprietary remedies (particularly aperients and aids to digestion), tell their own tale of unpublished, unreckoned physiological misery and desolation. Even the growing dissatisfaction with the medical priesthood and their power, and the surprising increase and prosperity of quacks and charlatans of all kinds, points to the longing felt by the population as a whole, to be rid of tiresome and sometimes distracting chronic disturbances in their systems, and to resort to any means, however heterodox, to achieve that end. Speaking at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Insurance Committees at Brighton, on October 17th, 1931, Mr. C. J. Bond, a member of the He went on to say that a man now had a longer expectation of life by some nine years and a woman by some twelve or thirteen years than existed half a century ago. But it was possible to live longer and yet not to be more vigorous and healthy, and he wanted a populace which would not only live longer but would be more vigorous. 11 There never was an age in which, on the one hand, petty, tiresome, and wearing physical disabilities of all kinds were more common among the supposed healthy members of the community; and in which, on the other hand, there was such a crushing burden of diseased children and adults weighing down the sound and the healthy, who are the only support of the asylums, homes, hospitals, special schools and infirmaries in which all this human rubbish is housed. But this is also an age of humiliations of another kind for man. It is an age in which man's environment has grown extremely complicated, and in which the complications themselves tend, though they are his own creations, to master him. Machinery is only one What could be more natural, therefore, than that this age, like the age of infancy and childhood, and like the Age of Aristotle, should be hypergelastic? What could be more obvious than that it should unconsciously desire the tonic of showing teeth to support its sinking spirits? The aching feeling of inferiority, whether from debility or bewilderment and perplexity, must be quenched, stifled, forgotten. Literary pro- " Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs," said Nietzsche, who had no idea of the theory of laughter expounded in this book. And he added: "He alone suffers so excruciatingly that he was compelled to invent laughter." 12 This age, our age, is an age of much secret suffering, of much hidden inferiority. It longs, like the child, for the crown of laughter, that will at least lend it for a space the feelings of a king. This alone explains the resolute clamour for humour to-day, the worship of humorists, and the ridiculously high esteem in which a sense of humour is held by all those who do not think of probing beneath the shining surface of modern life. Watch the neurotic fury with which the average man and woman will defend the sense of humour if you attack it. Watch the persevering eagerness with which they display, whenever they possibly can, the whole of their dentition, even if it is false. Reflect on the misery of their secret lives, if you happen to know them well. Then ponder their unreasoning worship of humour as an end in itself. And, if you do not conclude that the modern craze for showing teeth is neurasthenic and morbid, if you do not suspect that The provocation of such a theory alone would more than justify the effort I have made in the present volume. That the whole of modern Anglo-Saxon adulthood, therefore, by their hypergelasticism and exorbitant clamour for humour, should be not merely resorting to a childlike expedient for overcoming their sense of inferiority, but should also be content to let it rest at that, and should not cast about them, as even children There seems to be a danger that laughter is becoming no more than one of the many anodynes with which modern men are rocking themselves into a state of drowsy insensibility. There is a very distinct danger that it is helping to make tolerable a condition which should be intolerable and utterly beneath the dignity of adults. And that is why, in the Introduction, I emphasised the fact that there was cowardice in the modern resolute pursuit of humour. While, however, I described in some detail how this cowardice is manifested by the most prominent of our modern humorists, I have, until now, only hinted briefly at the manner in which it is displayed by the crowd. If, however, we understand the hypergelasticism of our age, and its exaggerated exaltation of humour, as neurotic compensations for a consciousness of inferiority which is becoming every day more acute, we immediately see the connexion between cowardice and the rage for humour, and we have only to observe the look of settled hopelessness in the faces of our fellows when their features are at rest, in order to understand that when such lives have recourse to showing teeth in order to recover buoyancy, they must either, like cravens, have relinquished all other means, or else have failed to perceive that other means for an escape from inferiority are at hand. The first is that the cause of laughter and humour is in such powerful hands to-day, is so stoutly and formidably defended, and has so much prestige and popularity, that, once in a way, a writer may surely be permitted to leave the almost routine business of praising, exalting and worshipping laughter and humour to their professional and other backers. The second is that in this book I set out to accomplish two tasks — to explain laughter, and to ascertain the condition men are in when they laugh excessively and unduly exalt humour. In dealing with the second part of my task, therefore, I was bound to touch on the pathology of modern life; because, if the validity of my charge be admitted, if it may be regarded as proved, and if there really is such a thing to-day as an exorbitant clamour for laughter and humour, then a pathological condition is implicit in this exorbitant clamour; for you cannot have excess with normality. But, quite apart from this pathological aspect of the subject, as I am no moralist in the puritanical sense, I cannot admit that I have left laughter without a character. For in the definition I have given of it, which allows full scope for all those laughs that spring from mere nonsense, merely subjective states, wit and mere absurdities, I have attempted no more than to do belated justice to a very much underrated English philosopher, and to rescue him from the hands of those who have grown either too soft, too squeamish, or too sensitive, to bear to think that their beloved laughter I still feel able to defend laughter as a glorious pastime, although I see in every laugh under the sun that element of self-glory which Hobbes's noble mind detected. But then, perhaps, I have not allowed myself to be convinced, either by modern legislation, or modern claptrap, that the highest object of every man's life is self-effacement, self-belittlement, self-abnegation, and, if possible, self-sacrifice. I see a higher purpose in life for the individual than that he should make himself his neighbour's servant or daily help, although I readily admit that there are millions of individuals whose one form of usefulness would vanish if they did not stand by their neighbour in this way. The whole world, however, surely does not wish to fashion itself upon the inevitable destiny of this section of humanity. In self-sacrifice for the neighbour, as in its worship of humour, I think this age has gone too far. Therefore I see no objection to continuing our fidelity to laughter, although it has at its root that factor of self-glory so objectionable to modern taste. I do but warn readers that, in our excessive longing to show teeth there may be neurotic compensation, in which case, whether for the individual or the nation, it is high time to think of other remedies than the exaltation of humour. |
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