Table Of ContentRedeeming Laughter
Redeeming Laughter
The Comic Dimension of Human Experience
PETER L. BERGER
W
DE
G
WALTER DE GRUYTER
BERLIN · NEW YORK
About the Author
Peter L. Berger is a University Professor at Boston University. He is
the author of many books in sociology and religion, including The Social
Construction of Reality (with Thomas Luckmann), The Sacred Canopy, A
Rumor of Angels and, most recently, A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an
Age of Credulity.
Copyright © 1997 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Berger, Peter L.:
Redeeming laughter : the comic dimension of human experience /
Peter L. Berger. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1997 DBN: 95.027928.5©
ISBN 3-11-015562-1 SG: 11
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berger, Peter L.
Redeeming laughter : the comic dimension of human experience / Peter L. Berger,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 3-11-015562-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Comic, The—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Wit and humor—Religious
aspects—Christianity. I. Title.
BR115.C63B47 1997 97-12095
233—DC21 CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Berger, Peter L.
Redeeming laughter : the comic dimension of human experience
1. Comic, The - Religious aspects 2. Comic, The - Psychological aspects
I. Title
152.4 ' 3
ISBN 3-11-015562-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
To the Memory of My Father
George W. Berger
Table of Contents
Prefatory Remarks,
Self-Serving Explanations and Unsolicited Compliments ix
Prologue xiii
PART I. ANATOMY OF THE COMIC
1 The Comic Intrusion 3
2 Philosophers of the Comic, and
the Comedy of Philosophy 15
3 Laughing Monks:
A Very Brief Sinitic Interlude 39
4 Homo Ridens:
Physiology and Psychology 45
5 Homo Ridiculus:
Social Constructions of the Comic 65
6 Interlude:
Brief Reflections on Jewish Humor 87
PART II. COMIC FORMS OF EXPRESSION
7 The Comic as Diversion:
Benign Humor 99
8 The Comic as Consolation:
Tragicomedy 117
9 The Comic as Game of Intellect:
Wit 135
vili Table of Contents
10 The Comic as Weapon:
Satire 157
11 Interlude:
The Eternal Return of Folly 175
PART III. TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF THE COMIC
12 The Folly of Redemption 187
13 Interlude:
On Grim Theologians 197
14 The Comic as a Signal of Transcendence 205
Epilogue 217
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 honor-
able occupations in our generally depressing age. Is this book to be
placed in the humor section? In religion? In sociology? The predomi-
nance 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 oppor-
tunity 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
χ Redeeming Laughter
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 nui-
sance 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 differ-
ent 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. Its 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 soci-
ety 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 sophisti-
cated 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 over-
come. The experience of the comic is, finally, a promise of redemption.
Religious faith is the intuition (some lucky people would say the convic-
tion) that the promise will be kept.
Even if the main argument of this book is stated in such a brief form,
it must be clear that it cannot be 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 meth-
