CHAPTER XXI

THE SLUGGISH AND THE LUDICROUS

From our standpoint we can realize why the awkward, clumsy, the mechanical, the automatic are ludicrous. It is because awkward and clumsy motor reactions are indications of the mind behind them and indicate a sluggish intellect. Now a sluggish mind is essentially regarded as a stupid mind, a mind falling below the normal intellect, and is on that account an object of ridicule, of jokes, and of the comic. It is not economy of motor reactions, nor is it economy and thriftiness that are involved here. On the contrary, it is the reckless expenditure, but without effort on the part of the person. We can spend all we want and there is more energy left. The person who spends his energy, physical and mental, with effort gives the impression of one who lacks energy and needs economy. When no disagreeable consequences are associated with such an impression the effect is invariably ludicrous.

The prodigal is rarely laughed at, it is the close, the stingy, the miserly that form the butt of ridicule. As Schopenhauer strongly puts it: "Avarice is the quintessence of all vices This utterly incorrigible sin, this refined and sublimated desire of the flesh, is the abstract form in which all lusts are concentrated, and to which it stands like a general idea to individual particulars. Accordingly, avarice is the vice of age, just as

extravagance is the vice of youth. Laughter never comes from economy, but from superabundance of energy. Laughter is by no means due to an economizing process, it is essentially a dissipation of energy. The ludicrous, the comic is the trigger that opens in the audience stores of accumulated reserve energy.

We may then say that suggestiveness, indirect suggestion in regard to inferiority in general and mental inferiority in particular, forms the mainspring, the chief source of the ludicrous and of the comic. In the last analysis, however, we may say that we ridicule stupidity in all its forms.

Sluggishness of mind, stupidity, especially human stupidity, under all its forms and disguises is the sole source of the ludicrous. All disguises are ludicrous, not so much because they are disguises, but because under them we discern the silly, the stupid, and the self-contented, arrogant, foolish ignorance. We laugh at the judge, at the lawyer, at the professor, at the physician, at the official who hide their ignorance and stupidity under the cloak of solemn ceremonies and obsolete meaningless mummeries. All ceremonies, all stereotyped, solemn actions are ridiculous, when behind them we discern the meaningless, the stupid, and the ignorant.

It is not the automatic, nor the "mechanical encrusted upon the living," as Bergson would have it, that brings about the ridiculous, but it is always stupidity revealed to the eye of intelligence. The very examples brought by Bergson show, not mechanism, but stupidity of the persons at whom the ridicule is directed.

An M. P. questions the Home Secretary on the morrow of a terrible murder which took place in a railroad carriage: "The assassin, after dispatching his victim,

must have got out the wrong side of the train, thereby infringing the company's rules." There is nothing mechanical about it except the fact that the remark shows the stupidity of the M. P. In the same way Doctor Bahis' maxim, "It is better to die through following the rules than to recover through violating them," is not an indication of the mechanical, but an example of stupidity, of lack of understanding of the actual purpose of medicine. This may be duplicated by the following anecdote: Irish doctor: Well, I've knocked the fayver out of him anyhow.

Wife: O Doctor, do you think there is any hope? Doctor: Small chance, I'm afeard, madam; but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing he died cured.

The stupid and therefore ludicrous side of the situation is brought out in the physician's last phrase that the patient died cured. This stupidity of misconceiving the end of cure, which should lead to life instead of death, is often directed against the surgeon who reports a successful operation and death of the patient. The stupidity ridiculed is against the professional narrow-mindedness which concentrates its attention on the knocking out of the "fayver," on the successful operation from a purely professional standpoint, without regard to the patient himself, for whose life and welfare the treatment and operation were undertaken. This sort of stupidity is common with professional men who think more of their profession than of the welfare of their patients and clients for whom the profession ultimately exists.

This stupid narrow-mindedness into which professional men are apt to drift forms the constant butt of ridicule. Bergson is right in his remark, though he gives

it the wrong interpretation: "Bridoison's words are significant: 'F-form, mind you, f-form.' A man laughs at a judge in a morning coat, and yet he would quake with dread at the mere sight of an attorney in his gown. 'F-form, all a matter of f-form.'" This is perfectly true. It is the function of ridicule to pierce the thick crust of professional bigotry. Pascal puts it quite forcibly:

"The greatest and most important thing in the world is founded on weakness; and the foundation is admirably firm; for nothing can be more certain than that the people will be feeble.

"Our magistrates are adepts in this mystery. Their halls of justice, their robes of scarlet and ermine, with the other insignia of their office, are all necessary."

It is the function of ridicule to rend the cloak of form and ceremony, and show the hidden emptiness, weakness, and stupidity. It is the function of ridicule to tear away the mantle that hides senseless form, hollow hypocrisy, and imbecility. We laugh at stupidity under all its forms and disguises. In fact, we may say that all ridicule, even where it concerns physical defects and motor clumsiness and awkwardness, is aimed at mental deficiency and intellectual turpitude. Stupidity is the target of the shafts of ridicule.

CHAPTER XXII

RIDDLE, DISSOCIATION, AND SURPRISE

Laughter is the result of tapping new sources of subconscious reserve energy; the element of suddenness, or of surprise must be taken into consideration. The turn in the joke or in the ludicrous must come in a sudden sharp way, thus heightening the contrast effects and setting the hidden energies into activity by liberating the unused, accumulated surplus energy. When the same joke is repeated a few times it becomes stale. When the result of the comic becomes known beforehand the laughter is deadened. Surprise at the unexpected, when of a pleasant character, is generally provocative of a smile or of laughter, but when connected with the elements of inferiority and stupidity of the object or of the given situation the laughable effect is irresistible.

The audience must have the feeling of expectancy and of surprise at the outcome. The outcome must not be too obvious. A veil must be skillfully thrown over the last results. The inference must be left to the listener or to the looker-on. As Aristotle would put it, the joke and the comic must be of the nature of an enthymeme, the conclusion should be omitted. A veil of a gauzy, transparent character must be thrown over the outcome. The conclusion must not be seen, and still it must be sufficiently indicated indirectly so that the audience should be sure to supply it from its own mental

resources.