The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (sites to read books for free TXT) 📖
- Author: Abraham Myerson
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in humor, one to seek a feeling of superiority by revealing the
inferiority of others in a surprising way, another to release a
burdensome[1] inhibition, a third to play with and in a sense
mock the disagreeable features of life, and the fourth to seek
detachment from one’s self, to seek relief from sorrow,
disappointment and deprivation by viewing the self as from afar.
[1] In this way humor is an effort for freedom; through humor one
tastes of experiences otherwise forbidden.
So there is a sarcastic humor which points out the foibles and
weaknesses of others either grossly or delicately. Usually these
others are those differing from one’s own group—the Irish, Jew,
farmer, Negro—and the jokes either deal with their personal
appearance (a low humor) or their characteristic expressions,
points of view and actions. The audience is convulsed at their
quaintness or folly, though often enough on the stage the comic
figure delivers a sort of wisdom mingled with his foolishness,
and this adds to the humorous explosion. The sarcastic humor in
its highest form reaches satire, where under a disguise powerful
institutions or the habit and ways of life of a group are
criticized. In polite society people are continually attacking
each other in a kind of warfare called repartee, in which the
tension is kept just without the bounds of real hostility, while
the audience sides with the one whose shaft is the most telling.
In the lower ranks this interchange, which is surprisingly
frequent, is coarse and insulting. It is supposed to be a test of
character to be able to “stand” these attacks with equanimity and
even to join in the laugh against oneself. To “kid” and take
“kidding” is thus an important social trait.
Humor is often used to expose the folly of the pretentious. Much
of the stock in trade of the humorist lies in his attack on the
pedant, the pompous, the great, the new-rich, the over-important
of one kind or another. To find them less than they pretend to be
gives two especial kinds of pleasure to the audience; the first
the stripping away of disguise (Bergson), and the second the
relief of our own feeling of inferiority in their presence by
showing how inferior they really are.
Since inhibition wears on us, the great inhibitions are directly
attacked by the humorist. Thus sex forms one of the great
subjects of humor, and from the obscene story told by those on
whom the sex inhibitions rest lightly to the joke about clothes,
etc., told by those who mock the opposite sex, the whole idea is
to bring about pleasure in the release of inhibitton and the play
of the mind around the forbidden. Freud has some interesting
remarks on this type of humor, which he regards largely as sexual
aggression. It is necessary to say that the release of inhibition
is always that of an inhibition not too strongly felt or
accepted. A really modest person, one to whom the sex code is a
sacred thing, does not find pleasure in a crude sex joke.
Similarly with the inhibition surrounding marriage, which is a
stock subject of humor. The overearnest person dislikes this type
of humor and reacts against it by calling it “in bad taste.” In
the Middle Ages (and to-day among those opposed to the Catholic
church), the priest and nun were slyly or coarsely attacked by
the humorist, and in all times those somewhat skeptical find in
religion, its ceremonials and customs, a field for joke and
satire.
The most interesting of the types of humor flirts with the
disagreeable. Man is the only animal foreseeing death and
disaster, and he not only quakes in the knowledge of misfortune,
but also he jokes about it. It may be that the excitement of
approaching in spirit the disagreeable is pleasant, and perhaps
there is pleasure in attacking disaster, even in a playful way.
The ability to joke about other people’s misfortunes is not, of
course, a measure of gallantry or courage and usually indicates a
feeling of superiority such as we all tend to feel in the
presence of the unfortunate, even where no element of weakness
has caused their mishap. But to joke about one’s own troubles,
danger and disaster at least indicate a sense of proportion, an
ability to stand aloof from oneself.
This propensity is remarkably manifest in hospitals, in war and
wherever disaster or danger is present. The soldiers nickname in
a familiar way all their troubles and all their dangers. The
popular phrases for dying illustrate this,—croaked, flew up the
spout, turned up the toes, etc. In the war the different kinds of
guns and missiles had nicknames, and puns were made on the
various dreaded results of injury. It was declared by the
soldiers that no missile could injure any man unless it has his
name and address on it, which is, of course, a poetical, humorous
comparison of the missile to a longed-for letter. I heard a
wounded man say the only trouble was that the postoffice
department mistook him for another fellow. Grim humor always is
evident in grim situations; it is a way of evasion and escape,
and also it is a challenge.
When one objectifies himself so that he sees himself, his
purposes and his weaknesses in the light in which others might
see him and find him “funny,” then he has reached the heights in
humor. Certain people are notoriously lacking in this quality of
detachment, and they cannot laugh at themselves or find any humor
in a situation that annoys, mortifies or hurts them. Others have
it to a remarkable degree, and if they possess at the same time
the art of telling the humorous story about themselves, they
become very popular. This popularity accounts for a good deal of
seeming modesty and humorous self-depiction; it is a sort of
recompense for the self-confessed foible and weakness; it is a
way of seeking the good opinion and applause of others and is
sometimes sought to a ridiculous extreme.
The character and the state of culture stand revealed in the type
of humor enjoyed. If a man laughs heartily at sex jokes, one may
at least say, that while he may live up to the conventions in
this matter, it is certain that he regards the inhibitions as
conventions, even though he give them lip-homage. No one finds
much humor in the things he holds as really sacred, and if these
are attacked in the joke he may laugh, but he is offended and
angry at heart. Any man permits a joke on women in general, but
he will not permit an obscene joke about his wife or his mother.
Humor must not arouse the anger of the audience or the reader,
and in this it resembles wrestling matches and friendly boxing,
which are pleasant as attacks not seriously intended, but the
blows must not exceed a certain play limit or war is declared.
To be entertained, to entertain, to escape from fatigue,
monotony, inhibition, to seek excitement, to while away the time
and thus to escape from failure, regret and sorrow are parts of
the life and character of all. They who have nothing else but
these activities in their lives are to be pitied, and they are
unwise who allow themselves too little amusement and recreation.
But we have not spoken of pleasure as a whole, pleasure apart
from entertainment, play and humor. The satisfaction of any
physical desire is pleasant, so that to eat and drink and have
sexual relations become great pleasure trends. There are some who
live only for these pleasures, ranging from glutton to epicure,
from the brutally passionate to the sexual connoisseur. Others
whose appetites are hearty subordinate them to the main business
of their lives, achievement in some form. There is a whole range
of taste in pleasures of this kind that I do not even attempt to
analyze at this point, even if it were possible for me to analyze
it.
Pleasure in dress, in ceremonials, in all the ornamentation of
life, forms part of the artistic impulses. The love of music is
too lofty to be classed with the other pleasures. This is true of
only a few people. For most of us music is an entertainment and
is usually poorly endured if it constitutes the total
entertainment. As part of the theater, of the movie, of dancing,
it is “appreciated” by everybody. To most it stirs the emotions
so deeply that its pleasure vanishes in fatigue if too long
endured. The capacity to enjoy music, especially the capacity to
express it, is one of the great variables of life. It is true
that the poseurs in music and the arts generally seek superiority
by pretending to a knowledge, interest and pleasure they do not
really have, just as there are some who really try to enjoy what
they feel they should enjoy. Nowhere is there quite so much
pretense and humbug as in the field of the artistic tastes.
Nowhere is the arbitrariness of taste so evident, and nowhere is
the “expert” so likely to be a pretender. I say this in full
recognition of the fact that science and religion have their
modes and pretenses as well as art.
The “progress” of man is marked as much as anything by a change
in “taste,” change in what is considered mannerly, beautiful and
pleasant. This progress is called refinement, although this term
is also used in relation to ethics. Refinement in cooking leads
to the art of the chef. Refinement in dress becomes developed
into an intricate, ever-changing relation of clothes and age,
sex, time of day, situation, etc., so that it is unrefined to
wear clothes of certain texture and hues and refined to wear
others. Refinement in manner regulates the tone of voice, the
violence of gesticulation, the exhibition of emotions and the
type of subjects discussed, as well as controlling a dozen and
one other matters, from the way one enters a room to the way one
leaves it. The savage is unrefined, say we, though he has his own
standards of refinement. An American is a boor if he tucks his
napkin in at the neck and uses bread to sop up the gravy on his
plate, whereas Italians find it perfectly proper to do these
things and find the bustle of the American life totally
unrefined.
That refinement and developed taste are matters of convention and
entirely relative is not a new thesis; it is an old accepted
truth. What I wish to point out is this, that every development
in refinement adds some new pleasure to the world but subtracts
some old ones. He who develops his musical tastes from ragtime to
the classics finds joys he knew not of, but is offended and
disgusted whenever he visits friends, attends a movie or a
theater. When people ate with their fingers there was little to
be disgusted at in eating; when people need spotless linen and
eight or ten forks, knives, and spoons for a meal, a single
disarrangement, a spot on the linen, is intolerable. The higher
one builds one’s needs and tastes, the more opportunities for
disgust, disappointment and discontent.
Most of the people of the world have never understood this. To
the majority, acquisition, the multiplication of needs, desires
and tastes constitute progress and seem to be the roads to
happiness. Get rich, have horses, autos, beautiful things in the
house, servants, go where you please and when you please,—this
is happiness. The rich man knows it is not, and so does the wise
man. Desires grow with each acquisition, the capacity for
satisfaction diminishes with every gratification, novelty
disappears and with the growth of taste little disharmonies
offend deeply.
Some men have reacted in this way against gratification and
satisfaction,
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