For me, the cruelty behind much of what we find funny reveals our need to admonish and denigrate.
A post back I mentioned this summer I wanted to throw some thought toward the meaning of laughter, the causes and the impostors.
I want to dig toward the core of all emotions and impulses, of course, so my notice starts with the involuntary variety. Throwing up, blinking, breathing even, laughter stands above those because we can resist the urge. If you have to puke, you have to puke. You won’t stop blinking, and breathing remains for even the worst of lungs.
But we control laughter, and other displays of emotions, so though we might feel them, we often have a choice to actually reveal them. Instantly, exhibiting ‘behavior’ becomes a social reality, allowing lines to be drawn, then redrawn, then redrawn again. So we shield things behind a wall of mild-manneredness and conventions.
Want proof? Don’t ‘laugh’ at funerals, don’t ‘get angry’ at weddings, don’t ‘cry’ in front of bullies.
Anybody with bones can laugh menacingly.
Laughter is different because it is both frivolous and of great import, often at the very same time. Crying is more black and white, either very happy or very sad (or sentimental), and there isn’t all that much ambiguity involved when someone does it.
Laughter can mean just about anything. Maybe that’s why there are a lot of prohibitions against its use.
Maybe that’s why we still do it.
Below the vids is my outline of this series.
Superfluous, completely unnecessary example 1
‘Because it’s funny’ laughter
The mocking kind
The scary kind
Post 1
The big set up
Laugh tracks
Group acceptance (the tribe)
Post 2
Aliens and the ape with the scary laugh
The sinister laugh
To talk about things otherwise unspoken
Post 3
The drug perspective – the giggles
Top it off with some health, y’all!
In conclusion:
To laugh is to cry, to cry is to laugh and other stuff primates do
The Fleet-footed Philosopher 