Peter L. Berger – Redeeming Laughter. The Comic Dimension of Human Experience
Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1997. ISBN 3-11-015562-1
Prefatory Remarks, Self-Serving Explanations, and Unsolicited Compliments
People who work in bookstores tend toward a pessimistic worldview, or so I have observed. This is very understandable, given both the quantity and (mostly) quality of the merchandise they are obliged to sell. And then there is the problem of classification: just where in the store is a particular book to be located? I can foresee that this book will raise this question in a particularly irritating fashion, thus contributing to the malaise already afflicting what I consider to be one of the more honorable occupations in our generally depressing age. Is this book to be placed in the humor section? In religion? In sociology? The predominance of Jewish jokes might suggest Judaica, the defense of Oscar Wilde gay and lesbian studies. By currently fashionable principles of literary theory, the author is the very last person to say how a book is to be understood. Nevertheless, if a choice is to be made, I would suggest a division: some books under humor, some under religion. It is certainly about humor; and the underlying argument as well as the finale are religious, and the title intends to make this clear from the beginning.
People who review books are, of course, even more pessimistic than those who sell them. As someone once observed, even-handed malice is the cardinal virtue of the critic. This book will provide ample opportunity for the exercise of this virtue. It takes its material from many fields, in most of which I have no professional competence. I have made an effort to use my sources responsibly, and I have taken some advice, but I'm confident that there are misinterpretations and, more important, omissions at various points of my argument. This knowledge has caused periodic attacks of anxiety during my work on the book. I have consoled myself with two thoughts. First, the literature about the nature of the comic, while vast, is singularly unsatisfactory in answering some of the basic questions about the phenomenon, partly because so few authors have been willing to step beyond the boundaries of their professional competencies; in other words, the comic is a subject that cries out for unprofessional treatment. Second, I have reached an age, tottering on the edge of senility, where I can afford to be reasonably nonchalant about what people say about me. However, I will say this much in my defense: I have no delusions about being some sort of Renaissance man; I do have certain obsessions. I have been obsessed with the question of the nature of the comic all my life, ever since my father, an inveterate teller of jokes, encouraged me to tell my own about the time when I entered kindergarten, where according to reliable sources I made a nuisance of myself as I faithfully followed the paternal mandate. Sooner or later, I had to write this book.
It is easy to say what this book is not. It is not a jokebook, though I very much hope that readers will occasionally laugh. Put differently, it is a book about humor, but not primarily a humorous book. It is not a treatise in any of the intellectual disciplines from which it draws, and my own discipline of sociology is not at all central to my main argument. And, while it draws mainly on works of literature to illustrate the different modes of the comic, it is not a work of literary criticism.
This book is a prolonged reflection about the nature of the comic as a central human experience. lts main argument can be stated succinctly: Humor –that is, the capacity to perceive something as being funny– is universal; there has been no human culture without it. It can safely be regarded as a necessary constituent of humanity. At the same time, what strikes people as funny and what they do in order to provoke a humorous response differs enormously from age to age, and from society to society. Put differently, humor is an anthropological constant and is historically relative. Yet, beyond or behind all the relativities, there is the something that humor is believed to perceive. This is, precisely, the phenomenon of the comic (which, if you will, is the objective correlate of humor, the subjective capacity). From its simplest to its most sophisticated expressions, the comic is experienced as incongruence.
Also, the comic conjures up a separate world, different from the world of ordinary reality, operating by different rules. It is also a world in which the limitations of the human condition are miraculously overcome. The experience of the comic is, finally, a promise of redemption. Religious faith is the intuition (some lucky people would say the conviction) that the promise will be kept.
Even if the main argument of this book is stated in such a brief form, it must he clear that it cannot he sustained within any given intellectual discipline. Philosophy would be the only plausible candidate but, as becomes clear quickly, philosophers have been of only modest use in the exploration of the comic phenomenon. Having started on the argument, I had to improvise as I went along. I had no foolproof method at hand (the word foolproof, come to think of it, is very appropriate here). The aforementioned kindergarten stood in Vienna, which may be of methodological relevance. If I have a method at all here, perhaps it could be called a baroque one. It is based on the assumption that there are hidden connections and a hidden order behind the near-infinite richness of the empirical world, and that the order is ultimately God-given and salvific. Therefore, it does not matter where one begins an exploration or which path of inquiry one takes: the underlying realities will disclose themselves in one way or another. Put in baroque terms, the shortest distance between two points is the circle. Finally, when one gets there, one will laugh.
My editors, who are naturally worried, have advised me that, in view of the complicated character of this book, I should give the reader some kind of preview or overview of the contents. Fair enough. So here goes: The book begins naively (or, which is more or less the same thing, phenomenologically) by just looking at the experience of the comic as it appears in ordinary life, without recourse to any academic disciplines. Overall, the book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with what could be called the anatomy of the comic –that is, with the question of just what it is. So as not to induce in the reader a state of unbearable suspense, let me say right away that no conclusive answer will be forthcoming (though some excellent reasons for why such an answer is not possible). Nevertheless, as one looks at the findings and the speculations coming out of different approaches, a clearer picture of the phenomenon does emerge. The approaches surveyed are those of philosophy, physiology (a passing glance only, since I'm not only incompetent but monumentally incompetent in this area), psychology and the social sciences. There are two interludes, tangents off the main argument. While my own education forced me to rely mainly on Western sources, it is important to keep in mind the universality of the comic phenomenon; one interlude, then, deals with humor in East Asia. The other interlude is a reflection on Jewish humor, which uniquely illustrates some of the points I want to make here.
Part II is a tour d'horizon of different genres, or forms of expression, of the comic. These are mostly illustrated by examples from literature. Of course, there is no intention here of presenting the authors of these works in any depth; they are simply used here as what Max Weber called "clear cases" -cases, that is, of the different comic genres. The comic forms of expression discussed (not necessarily an exhaustive list) are benign humor, tragicomedy, wit, satire, and (most important for the main argument) the strange counterworld of what the Middle Ages called "folly." Authors used by way of illustration are, among others, P. G. Wodehouse, Sholem Aleichem, Oscar Wilde, and Karl Kraus. (An odd collection, no doubt. If there is a comic section in the hereafter, I wonder how they get on together. The mind boggles at some of the possibilities.) I regret that I could not use any visual expressions of the comic here, but to do so would have made this book inordinately expensive and my editors even more worried.
Part III is my attempt to pull together the religious implications of the argument. It is, so to speak, an exercise in lay theology. (I am a Lutheran, of a rather heterodox sort, and I believe in the priesthood of all believers, ipso facto in the right of all believers to think theologically.) One chapter deals with the relationship of folly and redemption. An interlude tries to face up to the question of why it is that most theologians are such a humorless lot. The final chapter, looking at the comic as a signal of transcendence, narrowly avoids the charge of being a sermon. I conclude with the wonderful poem of Gilbert Keith Chesterton about the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
Some acknowledgments are in order. If I were to thank all the individuals who have helped me think about the nature of the comic (mostlv, by first making me laugh), I would have to go on for many pages, and my editors would pass from worry to rage. I should mention my oldest friend, Wolfgang Breunig, who was with me in the kindergarten where I first made a pest of myself as a teller of jokes, who still lives in the same house on the Petersplatz where he lived then, and who has endured my jokes ever since with admirable patience. This particular book was started (without rnalicious intent, I stipulate) by Ann Bernstein, who visited Boston a few years ago and, as intellectuals are wont to do, asked me what I was working on. When I answered that I wasn't working on anything in particular, she said, "Why don't you write a book on humor? You tell so many jokes." I replied that this was a ridiculous idea. Some three hours later it struck me that, of course, this is what I should do.
As I proceeded with this (literally) ridiculous project, a number of friends and colleagues made helpful suggestions. First among them is Anton Zijderveld, one of the very few sociologists who has done important work on humor. I would also like to thank Ali Banuazizi, John Berthrong, Noel Perrin, Christopher Ricks, and Ruth Wisse. I would very much like to say that any faults of this book are entirely due to them, while I am solely responsible for its merits.
Brigitte Berger has listened, patiently and critically, to my writings for almost as long as she has been listening to my jokes. This book, too, owes very much to her attention and suggestions. Diya Berger, whose smile becomes ever more knowing, has taught me much about the origins of humor in the wonders of childhood (see Chapter 4, note 9).
Finally, I want to thank my editors, Bianka Ralle and Richard Koffler. They have been greatly supportive.
[Is there something you don't understand? Something you want to discuss, or comment? Please don't have any doubt about it: email me. We both will benefit].
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Last updated on March 07, 2000