Table Of Contentii The Mirror of Laughter
Preface iii
First paperback edition 2012
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010018137
ISBN: 978-1-4128-1099-9 (cloth); 978-1-4128-4764-3 (paper)
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kozintsev, A. G. (Aleksadr Grigor’evich)
The mirror of laughter / Alexander Kozintsev.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4128-1099-9 (alk. paper)
1. Laughter--Psychological aspects. 2. Laughter--Philosophy. 3. Wit
and humor--Psychological aspects. 4. Wit and humor--Philosophy. I. Title.
BF575.L3K636 2010
152.4’3--dc22
2010018137
Contents
Preface vii
1. The Comical, or Imitation of Inferior People 1
1.1 Incongruity, Degradation, and Self-Parody: 1
The Implicit Narrator
1.2 Subject and Object: Relation and Metarelation 24
1.3 Funniness and Ridicule: An Essay on Nonentities 46
1.4 Who is the Inferior Other? 53
Notes 66
2. The Origins 75
2.1 Humor, Laughter, and the Brain 75
2.2 From Tickling to Humor 79
2.3 From Laughter to Humor 92
2.4 Play-Challenge, or James Sully Redux 99
Notes 119
3. Play, Language, Laughter 123
3.1 Orderly Play as a Metaphor of Culture 123
3.2 Disorderly Play as a Metaphor of Nature 127
3.3 The Anti-Referential Function of Language 134
3.4 Irony and Humor: The Two Ways of Playing with Signs 145
3.5 Humor and Laughter as a Species Reaction 157
Notes 163
4. Culture versus Nature 169
4.1 Emotions, Refl exes, Symbols 169
4.2 Laughter and Evil: The History of a Misunderstanding 176
Notes 192
Conclusions 195
References 203
Name Index 221
Subject Index 229
Preface
“Il n’y a de nouveau que ce qui est oublié” – “There is nothing new
except what has been forgotten,” Marie-Antoinette’s modiste Rose
Bertin is said to have remarked when the queen approved an old dress
Rose had refashioned for her. This sounds so much more reassuring than
Ecclesiastes’ dismal maxim! In the twenty-fi rst century, no scholar in
his/her right mind would seriously assert that s/he has come up with a
brand-new and overarching theory of humor and laughter. If the ideas I
advance appear too novel or even radical to certain readers, this would
only mean we have forgotten too much of what out predecessors have
done. I want this book to be a tribute to fi gures who seem infi nitely far
from the mainstream of humor research – James Sully fi rst of all, Sergei
Eisenstein, Luigi Pirandello, and a number of others.
The German Romantic writer and humor theorist Jean Paul compared
wit to a disguised priest who weds every couple. Now that the time has
come for a synthesis, perhaps the most fascinating challenge in humor
research is to cross disciplinary boundaries and link the various ap-
proaches that have been suggested – especially those that had appeared
so unsuited to each other, but that eventually proved incomplete without
each other. It came as a revelation to me that the best way of getting
a clue to the connection between humor and laughter (one of the most
mysterious connections in human mentality and behavior, and a forbid-
den ground for modern theorists after so many failures) is to couple the
radically subjectivist ideas of thinkers such as Kant and Jean Paul with
the utterly objective views of twenty-fi rst-century ethology and neural
science.
The most remarkable thing about such discoveries is that however
divergent – incompatible, in fact – the views may appear, they are all
useful in one way or other through a synthetic approach. I would go so
far as to say that not a single theory of humor ever formulated is “wrong
from beginning to end,” like Alice’s version of the poem she recited
for the Caterpillar. Even the ever-fashionable creators of mainstream
vii
viii The Mirror of Laughter
humor research such as Hobbes, Bergson, and Freud must be credited
with having made very astute observations. The challenge is to detect
these gems in a coal pile, pluck them from their original context, where
they are misleading, and view them in a new light. The number of ref-
erences may appear somewhat disproportionate to the modest size of
the book, but this may reduce the number of critics who will reproach
me for suggesting insane ideas, trying to reinvent the wheel, or both.
Anyway, if the entire construction eventually collapses (which can by
no means be ruled out), its foundation – the bibliography – will remain
intact. Whether by Robert Southey or by Lewis Carroll, the poem is still
about Father William.
Quite a few of my colleagues and friends found the manuscript a tough
proposition. Following their advice, which I gratefully acknowledge, I
have tried my best to make the text more readable. And still this is not a
page-turner for all. To those who will slam the book shut before getting
to the end, I wish to say that the larger share of the blame is mine, of
course, whereas the smaller share lies in the fact that those seemingly
fl ippant matters are strong meat, not milk. They defy common sense
and prompt us humans to look at our deeply contradictory biocultural
essence with closer attention. I wholeheartedly ask the impatient readers
not to rush to the Conclusions (to my conclusions, not only to theirs),
because in isolation from the main body of the book these may appear
paradoxical, which would again make the reader reluctant to struggle
through the entire text. By way of enticement, it might perhaps have been
wiser to intersperse the book with jokes, but I consider this a variant of
bait-and-switch tactics. After all, so many books about jokes – entire
joke books, in fact – have been published, and still humor and laughter
remain a mystery.
The fi rst chapter focuses on the philosophy, psychology, and what
has been traditionally regarded as the semantics of humor but eventually
proved a will-o’-the wisp. In the second chapter, biological facts about
laughter are discussed, and a hypothesis about the origins of laughter and
humor is formulated, or rather James Sully’s hypothesis is reformulated
in the context of modern knowledge. The third chapter addresses play,
serious and nonserious – in particular, linguistic play – as well as the
semantic, or rather anti-semantic, function of humor (special attention
is paid to the distinction between humor and irony and to the struggle
of language with itself). The theme of the fourth chapter is the confl ict
between culture and nature, specifi cally, the attempts to combine laughter
with violence.
Preface ix
As in the Russian version, “he” is used as an unmarked (generic)
pronoun when referring to man as Homo sapiens or to the philosophical
subject or object. When individuals (persons, speakers, and psychologi-
cal subjects) are concerned, gender-marked forms such as “s/he” and
“his/her” are used. Should the reader fi nd that I am less than consistent
in the usage of these pronouns, I will ask her to forgive me.
After the fi rst draft of my hypothesis had appeared (Kozintsev, 2002c)
and then after the publication of my book in Russia (Kozintsev, 2007a),
I received many letters from people whom I did not know personally.
Some of them eventually became my friends and, which is no less pleas-
ant, made friends with each other. Others carried on fi erce arguments
with me. Among those who wrote to me were psychologists, philolo-
gists, linguists, philosophers, anthropologists, ethologists, two priests,
and a clown. My thanks are equally due to all of them (the list of names
would be too long).
Among those who have contributed to the appearance of this greatly
enlarged English version, I am especially grateful to Richard and Ariadna
Martin. It was a pleasant surprise to me that Richard had volunteered to
translate the book before we got to know each other (now we are good
friends). He has spent tremendous time and effort to struggle with the
vagaries of my style, and he has always been patient with my nasty habit
of introducing changes after the fi nal – really, really fi nal – version has
been agreed upon. Richard’s comments and suggestions were invari-
ably useful. I also wish to thank Jessica Milner-Davis, who has greatly
encouraged and helped me in this enterprise. I am deeply obliged to
Irving Horowitz, who has accepted my manuscript for publication, to
Laurence Mintz, who has improved it by editing, and to all the staff of
Transaction Publishers.
I hope that this book will enlarge the circle of my correspondents.
Any comments, including the most merciless criticism (I do not doubt
that there will be more than enough given the unaccustomed nature of
my conclusions) will be accepted with gratitude. My postal address is
Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Universitetskaia nab., 3,
Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia. My e-mail address is agkozintsev@
gmail.com, and this is the address I prefer.
