Laughter and Symbolic Interaction

DAVIS’ STIMULATING PAPER throws out a challenge and justifies a renewed interest of Symbolic Interactionists in humor. Although I do not agree that SI is “a passe’ almost establishment paradigm,” and although I see no signs of a flagging interest in Mead, I see Davis’ characterization of the essence of humor as quite in keeping with the SI focus on the active, innovative nature of persons. So I agree with him. But I would go further. It is indeed true that when we see the fundamentals of our organized world suddenly questioned as by “status transfer,” we will often laugh. And perhaps the distancing that he refers to does protect us from being engulfed in it. But quite as often we do not laugh-we weep, we shake with fear, we become angry at those who allow such a thing to happen, and if the disorganization continues for long we experience unbearable tension to the point where we yawn to help relieve it or even avoid the situation. Sometimes we laugh till tears come into our eyes and sometimes we become so frightened that when we look around and see how frightened others are too, we break out in uncontrollable laughter at how silly we all look. The intertwined character of these emotions has been carefully studied by Jackins and Scheff, and I think the case for the relationship among them is quite strong. Both Jackins (1965,1973) and Scheff (1976,1977,1978,1979) (and I) take the view that such emotions overwhelm us unless we can discharge them by weeping, shaking, bristling, yawning and laughing. And the distancing phenomenon is quite as important in all cases. If we are too close we get swept up in our grief, fear, anger or tension and become rigid and unable to function at all. If we are too far away we do not experience the disorganization at all. So not merely distancing, but an appropriate distance is called for-close enough to experience the disorganization but far enough away to feel safe enough to deal with it by some form of discharge. On laughter itself, it seems to me that the experience of incongruity is not enough. There is a famous old story told of the humorists who go to a special place in heaven and proceed to tell each other their favorite stories. They discover that all jokes can be classified into 84 types with 10 jokes each. After awhile they decide to speed up the process of telling a joke, a man simply calls out “18, No. 4,” or “47, No. 5.” A comedian dies and goes to heaven where he is introduced to this system. He listens as numbers are called out and people break immediately into laughter. Then he hears one rather diffident person suddenly call out: “22, No. 6” but no one laughs. The man tries again “66, No. 10” and again no one laughs. Someone takes the newcomer to one side and explains sadly: “Stay away from that guy. He just doesn’t know how to tell a joke.”The suggestion here is that skill is necessary, but there is much more than a psychological dimension. Crucial is the social setting within which a joke is told; e.g., the fact that a Jewish audience will accept and laugh at Jewish jokes when told by a Jewish comedian at a B’nai B’rith fund raising luncheon or the sorts of social subtleties to which Rose Coser calls our attention in humor on hospital wards.