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Episode 57: Henri Bergson on Humor (Citizens Only)
On Bergson's Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1900). What is humor? Bergson says that, fundamentally, we laugh as a form of social corrective when others are slow to adapt to society's demands. Other types of humor are derivative from this: just as the clown falls on his face because of a (pretended) physical flaw, as if he's a machine that doesn't work and so Continue Reading …
Topic for #57: Henri Bergson on Humor
Here's the episode. What is humor? Henri Bergson's Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1900) states that humor is a social tool by which we mildly scold each other for being insufficiently adaptive and flexible. On this account, the paradigm of humor is the absent-minded person, but any form of idiocy or freakishness or social ineptness also works: what's funny Continue Reading …