Laughing and Laughter, the Reasons of Humor

Decades ago I had read a French Essay on Laughter, and the author posed two reasons why people laugh at things, or, well, three, and the third thing he did not much like.  Firstly, we laugh at anything which reveals our Mortal Condition – things that point out that we are mere animals and not truly spiritual beings, or, if we do not lose all Hope, that at the least our Spirituality is somewhat mixed with the Carnal.  Thus we laugh at the Scatological (jokes about Poop), or the Sexual.  We laugh at some rather dark jokes about Death (the doctor said he had two things to tell me.  That I only had six months to live, and that he should have told me five months ago).  The second thing that we find funny is Ambiguity, that is, when we find associations between things that are normally not connected, or in innuendo, where two things may be suggested at the same time – a pure thing and a not-so-pure thing.   All puns are funny for their ambiguity, and criticized for their inability to be translated into any foreign language.    The Frenchman allowed that a third category may exist for Laughter, but it should not be encouraged, and that was from laughing about something merely stupid or ridiculous, such as Woody Allen movies.  The Frenchman argued that laughing at Stupidity was just Humor for the Stupid.  Stupid people are not deep enough to contemplate the conflicts between their Spiritual and Animal Natures, and so nothing about their Mortal Condition can even evoke a simpleminded smile, and when they are so stupid they can barely understand one thing at a time let alone two things at once, then, well, they only think it is funny when they find something dumber than they are.

Well, I think the Frenchman was on to something, but saw only the negative pole of his Third Category  -- laughing at the Ridiculous.  He recognized that Stupid People would laugh at the Perplexing or that which evaded any sense or meaning.  The Frenchman failed to consider how this Same Category would apply to Intelligent People.  What of the Transcendent or that which is Amazingly Inexplicable?   When Archimedes was settling into the bathtub and saw the water level rise, and instantaneously arrived at the discovery of ascertaining Volume by Fluid Displacement, he laughed about it.  When Oppenheimer realized he could Destroy the Entire World and all Life on Planet Earth with Atomic Weapons by splitting little tiny atoms, well, he couldn’t stop laughing for a week.  The Scientific Community still thinks it’s hilarious.   Well, no, that is me trying to be facetious – Good Science versus Bad Science, but it’s not really funny.  But it is funny when we are surprised or delighted about things. 

So, yes, things can be so Amazing that they are funny.   I should not blame the Frenchman for not seeing it, because, well, after all, I read his essay almost 50 years ago and I only just thought of this additional factor now.  The circumstance was that I was tossed a Musical Solo without warning and with just seconds to deliberate performed it better than I had any reason to believe possible, and laughed about it afterwards, so much so, that I wondered what was so funny.

Oh!  Or perhaps the Laughing from Amazement Category is simply the inverse of the First Humor Principle, but instead of the Spiritual Being laughing at being found a mere Animal, this time the Animal is laughing at being shown to be a Spiritual Being.   We laugh and smile when we are shown our Transcendence.   

Ninety Nine Requisites for Civilization

(a Work in Progress) 

One.    Sustainable economic model.  Growth Capitalism is unsustainable.  Economics must be planned.

Two.    Government must be by Meritocracy.  Democracy does not represent everybody, only the winners.  Losers are virtually disenfranchised.  As Meritocracies select from every social sphere, a Meritocracy is certainly more of an Ideal form of Government.

Three   No cash money.  Transactions are to be electronic and recorded.

Four     Durable Property is to be registered and tracked.

Five      No marriage.  If Divorce is allowed then Marriage becomes a Legal Fiction anyway.  Quarrelling for Marriage in order to attain certain rights and benefits should not be an issue. Property rights and access to Services should not be linked to Marriage Status in any case.

Six       All Health Care is Public and free to the Public.  Policies regarding the extent of Health Care Services, that is, to what extent it is attempted to make sick and aging people immortal will be decided by responsible government agencies.   No Private For Profit  health Care will be available as this is only a mechanism for Rich People to take up all the good doctors for themselves and leave ordinary people with subpar services.   If the Rich and Powerful want good services for themselves, then they will work to guarantee good services for everybody – if they must feed from the same trough as everyone else, then the food will be good for everyone.

Seven   All Education will be Public and free to the public.  No For Profit Private Schooling will be available as this is only a mechanism for Rich People to take up all the good teachers for themselves and leave ordinary people with subpar services.   If the Rich and the Powerful want good education for their children, then they will work to have good public schooling.   Again, if they must feed from the same trough as everyone else, then the food will be good for everyone.

Eight   No expectation of Public Privacy.  All public movement, all public commerce, and all public communication will be observed and recorded, and archived as it is deemed appropriate.   So far as I see, Privacy Laws serve only to protect Criminals and Terrorists.  Honest People have nothing to hide.   In fact, Honest People have everything to gain from complete surveillance, and that is that they will never be falsely accused of anything.  The Records of Truth will always be their Alibi.  And Criminals will no longer be able to hide behind Privacy, pretending to be outraged whenever they are caught raping, murdering and pillaging the honest and up-front community.

Nine    Concentration of Wealth must be prevented.  Of the 21 Known Civilizations, all have collapsed due to complication involving Concentration of Wealth issues, where Rich People accumulated the greatest part of Wealth and Economic Power to themselves, depriving the Public Sector of the barest resources to maintain all the necessary Public Infrastructures.   No Family Wealth will be passed down  to the next undeserving generations .  Also, among the people an approximate economic equality will be maintained.  I would suggest something like a 7 Tiered Income Plan, where the highest paid people will not receive more than about 5 times more than those getting the First Rung Payments.  Each advancing Pay Rung would provide a 33.33% increase over the previous Pay Rung, going up 7 steps.   The Pay Multipliers would be as this – 1 then 1.33 then 1.8 then 2.4 then  3.2 then 4.2 then 5.6.  Such a system would allow for the full range of remuneration from young people still living as dependents to those at the top of their careers and social influence.  Again, if all people must live within such a system, then the pay will be fair.  Again, if everyone must eat from the same trough then those in power will make sure the food is good. 

Ten    There will be no ‘Serving Time’ from Criminal Behavior.  Criminals will not be re-integrated back into Society until there is a Strong Scientific Probability that the Criminal Behavior issue had been addressed and rectified.  Having the option for Capital Punishment not only offers a strong source of negative motivation for the criminal, it also can relieve society from an interminable obligation to guard and care for a hopelessly negative Being, if that is how the criminals Psychological Appraisal works out.  

Eleven    Crimes of Passion and Crimes committed without strong motives of interest or advantage, where the motivational thinking seemed weak or mislead, will be deemed Non-Criminal  and will be assigned to Agencies which will provide Re-Education Resources or Psychological Intervention resources.  Those who comply will receive no Systematic Demerits for their transgressions.   Of course, for the non-remedial, there will have to be a continued supervision where the Public would be deemed to be endangered.

Twelve    No Private Arsenals.   Government cannot share the capacity for Force and Duress with Power-Seeking  Individuals who will use their Arms to set up personal zones of absolute influence – Bank Robers, Muggers, husbands who threaten to shoot wives and children, etc.   Hunting as a Sport can be permitted as long as the Weapons involved are stored within Public Facilities.  No one should ever be allowed to take home a gun.

Thirteen    One Language.  All previous Civilizations failed to a greater or lesser degree in the requirement to get everyone speaking the same language.   Fairness would require an Intra-Global Committee of the Best Linguistic Scholars to assemble, and not be allowed ‘out’, until they have constructed a language that includes some of the best of all the major language groups, that is consistent in its spelling and grammar, and where ease of learning is balanced with its final level of utility for those who will have to use it to convey the most intelligent thinking and reflecting.   For instance, the English Progressive Tense, that is those puzzling ‘ing’ endings, while it is difficult to learn, it provides a Thought-View of the action verb that is not certainly understood in languages that do not have the progressive tense.   Yes, some Great Literatures will recede and be forgotten, but a New Language opens the Gates for new Opportunities to write New Masterpieces…. Like as Shakespeare had played wild with the New English just after the period when most of Educated England had been speaking French and plays in English was rather still something of a novelty.  A New Language will give us New Shakespeares.   

Fourteen    One Political Jurisdiction.  More than one Political Jurisdiction leads to competition for resources, and that leads to Balance of Power Politics, and that leads inevitably to War.  And the problem with War is that it is extremely likely that the most undeserving and immoral Political Organization will win.  History is practically an uninterrupted chronicle of Barbarian Victories over more peaceful Civilizations.  The Job of Civilization is to reach out and be Inclusive, incorporating and civilizing the Barbarians before they can become a Problem for others besides just themselves.

Fifteen    Population Control.  This a natural correlation to Sustainability and Economic Planning.  No factor stains resources more than an ever expanding Population.  Modern Society has mostly relied upon the ‘Miracle’ of Science to multiply resources  to keep even with the multiplying population count, but what Natural Science points out in a thousand ways is that every System is subject to Saturation.  There can be too many people on the face of the earth, until the System becomes Self-Poisoning – correcting its own imbalance by attacking its own very Self.   And, yes, while Nature can take care of the Problem by itself, if left to that point, it all becomes most frightfully ugly, collapsing all Order and Civilization along the way.  Civilization must take charge and arrange for Sustainable Population levels on its own, intelligently and compassionately.  If not every woman can fit into the Planning for having a baby, then at least every woman should be included in the Mothering Plan for infants and Young Children.   And children should not be produced haphazardly.  Parents should be selected for a broad range of qualities and talents, with the idea for both expanding the Human Potential and maintaining those attributes we already possess.   Also, by limiting Population, more focus can be concentrated upon education.

Sixteen     One Religion.  One of the broadest intellectual fallacies current in the literatures of the Modern World is that all Religions are basically the same.  Well, if they were, we would not be having so many problems with Religion.  Take Christian Protestantism – a rejection of Jesus in a headlong effort to turn Paul into a virtual God who teaches that what God does not personally come down into the World to stop with His own Hand is by default allowed and even Blessed by God.  So we have all these Protestants who for centuries have believed that all the Crime, Slavery, Exploitation, and War they have brought among us was all part of God’s Divine Plan, only because they were able to ‘get away with it all’. Other World Religions, who react so violently against insult that one can hardly dare mentioning them by name, well, they cannot claim to be favored by God for any great success, illicit or otherwise, but their belief is that if they have not succeeded, it is because they have not taken enough Extreme Measures.  It’s odd, but in the Christian World a Martyr is  come one who has been victimized for Righteousness.  But in this Other Altar-Religious World a ‘martyr’ is someone who lashes out with violence and murder to get all the things that he thinks God owes him.  And then, if he succeeds, he is as good as any Christian Protestant for claiming that Success in Crime is obviously God’s Plan and God’s Reward for, well, for what?  It can’t be for Righteousness.  Oh!  This is where both Paul and that Other Prophet had to create a New Virtue… a virtue that required no real goodness, the Virtue of Faith.   Well, such Anti-Religions cannot be allowed to continue in their corruption of the Public Sense of Morality.  Religion must be about instilling a sense of Love, Public Cooperation, Honesty, Morality, Righteousness and Big-Heartedness.   There should be only One basic Religion, but as in the Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist Spheres, it can be permitted that various Sects may arise, each focusing on some special Saint, Avatar or Angel to their particular liking.   The most important Test is that there should never be any Teaching that Evil should ever find some Reward or Blessing from God, whether by some Morbid Faith or in God’s failure to prevent moral outrages being interpreted as God’s Plan by some predestined and deterministic Default.   But plenty of people think this way, and for a long while they should take up a great many places in the Re-Education Schools and Institutions.

Seventeen    Engineering the Planet.   Sometimes one has to prime a well with water before you can get any more water.   Rain Forests are self-perpetuating.  The deep Green of their foliage absorbs the Sun’s radiant heat, sucking it into the very wood by the biochemical process of photosynthesis,  so that Rain Forests give off a coolness that condenses  the moisture-rich warm air that blows in over them, creating Rain, which, in turn is evaporated up and passed downwind to drier regions where various meteorological conditions can bring it out in Rain.  Well, one can wait for perhaps thousands of years for a Rain Forest to spontaneously arise, or one can plant one and lay in irrigation until it begins to ‘take’ on its own.  With the End of Growth For Profit Capitalism, where nothing is done unless for some private want or pleasure, and where Economic Planning takes over where Ends are Planned, ostensively for Good or Practical reasons, then we would think that some effort should be put into Re-Vitalizing the planet.  Of course, everything depends upon Energy Resources.  Huge Irrigation Networks, such as had been built by the Roman and Chinese Civilizations, require vast inputs of Labor and Energy.  If such resources become available, well, it would be Noble to use them to Noble Purpose.   We can think likewise for restoring Animal and Plant biodiversity.

Eighteen    Pay for Compliance.   Right now, in our somewhat Pre-Civilized State, we have institutionalized a kind of Labor Slavery where most of those being paid are being paid for their Labor.  It is Servitude or Starve.   People are told that if they do not like their Jobs then they are perfectly free to quit.  Well, yes, but then there is rent to pay and people need to eat.  So, basically, servitude is forced upon most everyone.   And, yes, in the Barbarian State where all priorities are set by the demands of Growth Capitalism, this makes sense – Capital needs to enslave Labor.  But when Civilization takes birth and Economic distribution is Planned, then what will the mechanism for Distribution of Wealth be if not an exchange of Money for Labor.  Keep in mind that all the really necessary manufacturing that the World requires could be done within 100 square miles and by a tiny fraction of the World’s Population, as China is presently demonstrating.  Many places in the World do not have local resources or access to cheap transportation infrastructures, whereby it would cost more to make the people ‘ go to work’ then simpl.y to just give them free money.   Look at the high cost of labor in some countries.  In America if a person gets a job, then they need a car, work cloths, and then they develop expensive tastes which need to be satisfied, and they end up costing the Planet more than if they were simply paid to stay home and live on the cheap.  So this brings us to the idea of why not paying people Money for just their Social Compliance and Good Behavior?  In the pre-civilized state social compliance is enforced negatively – People are threatened with jail and prison.  And this only enforces a kind of bare-minimum of correct social behavior – it is not so much that Virtues are encouraged as Vices are punished.  All the Shady borderline behaviors are allowed to go on under all the un-turned rocks of Society.  But if people were paid for their Social Compliance then all the motivations would be in a positive direction.  Exactly what is a Social Compliance.  Well, first, I could think of wearing a ID locator devise and a camera and listening set.  A Total Surveillance Society would need a great many surveillance devices, of which many could be rigged upon street poles and hilltop towers.   But it would not take much subversion to detect ‘blind-spots’  or use sabotage to create blind-spots, and so actual members of the public walking around with surveillance gear would help to fill in any possible gaps.   Yes, the modern sensibility would be appalled at setting up so many spies, but we already have such a thing, and we call it the Police Department.   We dress the Spies in Blue Uniforms so they are easy enough to detect and avoid.   Using the Multitude of Ordinary People would only be to follow the same principle of implementing Social on-the-street observation, only it would be much more efficient and comprehensive.   Oh, and then there is the matter that such Surveillance People could neither easily be the Victim of a Crime or especially not a Perpetrator.   They could be Safe from Others, and Society would be Safe from them.  We would call that a Win Win scenario, no?  Then, of course, people could contribute freely to the Arts, Education and the Medical Services Community.  These Social Contributions could be figured into the 7 Grade Pay Scale as mentioned in Item Nine above.

Twenty     No more Lawyers.  Civilization can satisfy all the needs of Justice with Magisterial Justice, that is, by setting all legal matters simply before the Courts – the Judges and their Legal Secretaries and Legal Clerks.  In some Societies the obvious impression is that those with the best lawyers and legal resources get the best results out of their Legal Systems, and those with little or no money effectively have no access to Legal Resources.    Civilization would require that everybody have equal access to the Courts.  To discourage frivolous lawsuits, it must be in the exceptional instances whereby not every lawsuit have some criminal component, that is, that no lawsuit should ever get as far as the courtroom without one or both of the parties involved criminally refusing to settle for what is ‘Right’.  Of course, one of the major innovations in the Justice System is that the Staffs of Legal Clerks and Secretaries advise and counsel  the parties of lawsuits regarding their legal rights and the rights of those in their opposition.   One might worry of the honesty of such a system, but in this legal framework, as well as with the Police and all other Public and Political Servants, all Income would be from only one Source, their Government Check, and all their Property would be subject to periodic audit.  Also, it would be a good idea that Police and Judges never work in the same district as their family and close family connections.  Presently Judges now decide cases in their own communities where they know all the families involved and where they are members of the same Country Clubs as many of the Lawyers that appear before them – that is, they work in a huge web of conflicting personal interests.  All that needs to stop.

Twenty One    No Elections for Sheriffs. Judges or Police.   Honesty, how can a Sheriff ever arrest anybody who has voted for him, or whose vote in the next Election may be critical.  Likewise with Judges and Police.  It must have been the silliest or most inherently Corrupt notion coming out of Democracy, that Law Enforcement could be subject to Popular Vote – as it would set up a situation whereby any faction that could reasonably present itself as the Deciding Vote could quite possibly get away with murder.