Evening star., 1924-08-10
.LAUGHLESS WORLD
SEENBY TEACHER
Philosophy Professor Warns
That Too Much Intelligence
Is Dangerous.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, August $50 little
genuine laughter is left in the world
now that we already are forced to re-
sort to the synthetic smiles of comic
strip artists and vaudeville joke
smiths, and the time is approaching
when there will not be a laugh left
in the entire world. according to DR..
Charles Gray Shaw, professor Of
philosophy at New York University,
who made his gloomy forecast for a
Summer school audience at the uni
versity.
Man may be defined as a creature
of laughter and tears" DR.. Shaw said.
IF pacificism, socialism and the like
are seeking to efface all tears, 1T may
happen that certain other causes will
work for the destruction of laughter.
Primitive men did not know enough
to laugh, since wit involves certain
amount of intelligence. The men of
the future will know too much to
laugh at anything.
Sees Age of Sobriety.
Men are tending toward an age of
sobriety, in which laughter will have
no more real place than alcohol in
the United States. In the sober Pc
riod of scientific and social thought
there may be museums which will
preserve our jokes and comics the
way we keep the memorials of the
Stone Age. The case will be labeled
The Age of Laughter
Laughter arises from the twin
causes of incongruity and inequality.
The laugh is at once Of physical and
social origin. We laugh at what we
do not understand or at what seems
inferior to u.s. In both cases our
pride induces us to assume an exalted
position and lofty air. Men used to
laugh at Columbus and Galileo. Now
they try to joke about Einstein and
Freud. But the supply of good laughs
is becoming less and less as men
grow more and more wise.
Laugh at Interiors.
''On the social side we are prone to
laugh at people who appear inferior
or who are forced to assume degrad-
ing positions. The prince laughs at
the pauper, the city person smokers
at the countryman, and the native
citizen smiles at the immigrant. Let
a person lose his hat, Slip on a ba-
mana peel or sit on his hat, and we
have laugh. But these mishaps are
only the signs of incongruities and
inequalities which the future will
prone. Then we will stop laughing.
laugh or see the socialist smile? Are
Einstein and Trotsky famous for their
jokes? Would Lincoln have been hu-
morous If his administration had been
like that of Taft? Those who are so
advanced as to see their way through
all incongruities and inequalities
never stop TO laugh at anything
When all men are fully evolved
laughter Will die natural death. In
deed, 1T is safe to predict that war and
laughter will depart hand in hand
Jokes That Have Passed.
The comic figures of the past are
taking leave, although they linger
like a woman on her neigh boris door
step. We used to laugh at the old
maid but bobbed hair. feminine eman-
clpation and new light on matrimony
are making that joke out of date
Then we had our laugh at the drunk
en-, man but the eighteenth amendment
killed that joke. In place Of such
comical figures we keep up a dying
laughter by an appeal to bananas and
Fords. Anything for the sake of a
laugh.
The laugh is going fast We have
passed from the age of Shakespeare
to that of Ibsen. Jokes are kept
alive by professionals who are like
doctors administering oxygen. Since
men and women are no longer funny
We Will laugh at animals like Ignatz
the mouse and krazy Kat. But the
life OF laughter cannot be saved. He
laughs best who laughs first"