What’s So Funny?

Humor is a universal language. As human beings, we all laugh.

Our giggle triggers (I’d be afraid to look that definition up on Urban Dictionary) vary based upon age, ethnicity, culture, our unique personalities, etc… So it makes sense that what is funny to one person may not be funny to another.

But as human beings, why do we laugh at all?

In their recently published book “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind,” Daniel Dennett and Reginald Adams Jr. use science, philosophy and psychology to try and discover some grand, unifying theory of humor. Their study targets five theories that may explain why we are the only living creatures with an exclusive funny bone:

#1: The Superiority Theory

These are the taunts and teases we learn about early in the schoolyard. We learn that certain words and phrases produce laughter for the masses but shame and embarrassment for an unlucky few. This type of humor and laughter is used for control and/or deflection from negative attention on ourselves.

#2: The Incongruity and Incongruity-Resolution Theories

This is one of the oldest and most developed theories of humor — adopted by Emmanuel Kant and refined by Schopenhauer. It roughly states that laughter happens when there is an incongruity between what we expect and what actually happens. (This makes me think of Chevy Chase, who always looked like a handsome, refined businessman or politician and then commenced to pratfalling over chairs, desks and side tables. It was physical, funny and unexpected).

#3: The Benign Violation Theory

Theorist Thomas Veatch offered up this model. It claims that we laugh when something is violated — like morals, social codes, linguistic norms, or personal dignity — but the violation isn’t threatening. (I think the TV show Family Guy makes its living on this one).

#4: The Mechanical Theory

This theory relies on the belief that repetitive, quirky character traits are funny. Many comic characters establish these odd traits and they become signature humorous qualities.

Whether it’s Charlie Brown getting his clothes knocked clean off by a screaming line drive or Curly from the Three Stooges swiping his face repeatedly with both hands, “woo-wooing” in frustration, we begin to laugh at the odd, expected behaviors of our favorite comic characters.

#5: The Release Theory

Freud thought that hilarity and laughter were reactions produced in order to release sexual or aggressive tension.

Freud needed to lighten up a little…

But there is a lot of truth in this theory as laughter is certainly an emotional outlet and (like crying) releases a lot of pent-up feelings in a healthy way.

While these theories carry a lot of weight, they certainly aren’t the be-all-to-end-all on the subject of why humans laugh.

One of the most intriguing thoughts on laughter and humor recently came from John Cleese of Monty Python fame, in his new autobiography, “So, Anyway…”. Cleese proposes the following:

“To ‘get’ a joke requires a mental skip, (a tiny little jump of the intellect, a minute hop that connects one thing to another), and the tricky part of constructing one is judging the width of the jump needed for the joke to be ‘got’. If you spoon-feed an intelligent audience and make the joke too obvious, they will not find it very funny. But the opposite danger is to make the jump too long, so that the connection is not made, and they don’t laugh at all.”

Ah, so there it is…

Perhaps, it is that “mental skip” that intellectual connection that stimulates our silly? Maybe, as higher-thinking animals (myself excluded), we will always find humor in the quirks and idiosyncrasies in the vast universe around us.

So, with every spit-take, with each pie in the face, it is now as it ever was.