CHAPTER VII

RIDICULE AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS

        While persons, classes, professions, institutions, beliefs are divested of their dignity, while they are thrown down from the superior position which they occupy in the eyes of the public, the public itself must be prepared to appreciate the funny and the ridiculous side of what is made an object of laughter. A Protestant, a Jew, a Mohammedan may enjoy a joke at the expense of Catholicism; a Catholic may laugh at some ludicrous aspect of some other faith. A good Catholic, however, will be horrified by a joke or anecdote on the Catholic faith; a religious person will be shocked at a jest at the expense of religion. As the ancient Greek put it, "We should praise the Athenians in Athens." "We here in America," our ex-president tells us, "hold in our hands the hope of the world."

        One cannot help agreeing with the Heraclitean paradigm: "Fools, even when they hear the truth, are like deaf men; of them the proverb holds true: being present they are absent."

        In order to appreciate joke the audience must already regard the object of the joke with lack of reverence. The audience must subconsciously be prepared to look upon the object of ridicule as inferior. The Humanists could ridicule mediaeval ideas, the Reformers could rail the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church, the French Encyclopaedists could treat lightly of the French institutions and beliefs, because the latter were already subconsciously undermined in the mind of the French nation. In order, then, that ridicule may successfully bring out the inferiority of the ridiculed object the public must be willing to accept such a relation of inferiority, nay, has already formed beforehand that view of inferiority subconsciously. The ridicule brings to the surface what has already been present in the subconscious region of the mind. As the great artist brings to the surface of consciousness the ideal of his time and gives expression to the subconscious strivings of his contemporaries, so does the great comic writer give expression to the subconscious views of his fellow-men in regard to ideals, beliefs, and institutions that are in the process of degeneration and generation, and of which the people are as yet unconscious, or but vaguely conscious.

        Such subconscious preparedness is one of the most fundamental conditions of the ludicrous. Aristophanes rails at the nascent ideas of cosmopolitanism against which the narrow spirit of Athenian aristocratic, exclusive democracy fought so desperately. In his "Frogs," however, he does not hesitate to treat irrelevantly the old religious beliefs; he makes a burlesque and farce of Bacchus and of Hades; Aeschylus is made a laughing stock for his clumsy, heavy, pompous, didactic verses. In his "Birds" Aristophanes, no less than the later irreverent Lucian and Voltaire, banters about the sacred, ancient, mythological beliefs; he holds up the gods for the amusement of his countrymen. The jokes of Aristophanes were keenly appreciated by the Greeks, because he expressed the subconscious tendencies of the Hellenic world.

        The Greeks, like the Hebrews, were exclusive in regard to all other nations. They were not in sympathy with the high and broad humanitarian morality taught by Socrates. Even Aristotle, the greatest thinker of antiquity, was Greek at heart; he maintained that the Greeks were masters by nature, and that all other nations, included by him under the disparaging term of barbarians, were the legitimate prey of the Hellenes, and especially of the highly intellectual and refined Athenians. The Greeks divided the world of mankind into Hellenes and aliens or barbarians, just as the Jew regarded himself as the chosen people of Yahweh, and regarded all other nations as benighted pagans, heathen, and Goim. Socrates, preaching in streets, market places, and gymnasia of Athens, could not have chosen a more unfavorable environment for the dissemination of his humanitarian philosophy. Like the ancient Hebrew prophets, with Jesus and the Apostles as their culmination, Socrates preached his cosmopolitan, humanitarian philosophy to a crowd that was called upon, in the name of a higher ideal, to renounce their privileges as superiors and put themselves on a level with the inferiors, barbarians and slaves. We know the bitter opposition of the Greeks and the Macedonians to the leveling and cosmopolitan spirit of Alexander of Macedon. Aristophanes, in addressing himself to the Greeks in his biting invective, in his ridicule at the newfangled ways of extreme, democratic institutions, at new ideas and ideals, found a sympathizing audience in the Athenian Demos whom he cajoled, whom he laughed at, but with whose interests he was in the deepest sympathy.

        The ancient mythology was internally decaying among the ancient Greeks. The Athenian could not help laughing when Aristophanes directed his jibe against the old-fashioned, antiquated myths and old wives’ tales, as Plato characterized them. The keen mind of the ancient Greek could not accept literally and in good faith the stories and nursery-tales told him by the nurse-slaves, nor could he have faith in the holy legends related to him by his own mother and sister—all the more so as the Greek cherished a feeling of contempt for all women as inferiors to men in general and to gentlemen in particular. The Athenians were thus prepared subconsciously for the sharp, critical, overwhelming ridicule, scoffing, raillery, derision, and mockery of the Aristophanic plays and comedies.

        When the ancient faith died among the nations of the Greco-Roman world they enjoyed the jibes of Lucian against their gods. When the Catholic faith weakened in many European countries the people began to enjoy stories and anecdotes about priests and religion. When the mediaeval institutions, with their ideals and beliefs, began to totter the great French philosopher and satirist injected into them the poison of his raillery, and the whole of France and Europe were convulsed with laughter at the agonizing writhing of the old decaying order. Aristophanes, Lucian, Voltaire gave expression to the subconscious stirrings of the spirit of the times. The comic writer points out the weak, the inferior aspects of the object or subject which he makes the butt of his ridicule, but the people who are made to laugh must first of all be in deep, subconscious sympathy with the views of the scoffer. In military and theocratic societies the merchant, the trader, is an object of ridicule. In modern business communities the learned man, the thinker, is regarded as a ludicrous figure. Novels and stories have been written to that effect for the amusement of the practical business man.

        Ghosts are usually regarded with awe and with fear. A number of stories of ghosts and apparitions has [sic] been written to arouse the feeling of awe. The ghost is regarded as something mysterious, awe-inspiring and belonging to a supernormal world far superior to our material earthly existence. Harking back to our religious fears of old, ghosts belong to the superior divine world of spirits and gods. Ghosts have been worshipped by mankind as gods. This belief still lingers in our faith and is still deeply imbedded in our subconscious life. With the awakening, however, of the modern spirit of inquiry and scepticism, the world of ghosts has fallen into disrepute with the more educated classes. Accordingly w find that ghosts are treated with irreverence and are held to the ridicule of the subconsciously unbelieving crowd. To make a burlesque of a spectre is no longer a sacrilege as it would have been regarded in early ages of spirit worship. The spectres and ghosts begin to be utilized as material for the amusement of the multitude. Thus Thomas Ingoldsby, in the "The Ingoldsby Legends," ridicules the usual ghost stories by regarding them as dreams and silly nightmares.

"’Tis known how much dead gentlefolks eschew

The appalling sound of ‘Cock-a-doodle-do!’"

        In another story, "The Spectre of Tappington," the ghost is made to steal breeches and various other articles of apparel. When the victim regards the matter as a practical joke to his friend, the latter laughs:

        "Laugh as you will, Tom, be as incredulous as you please. One fact is incontestable—the breeches are gone! I am reduced to my regimentals and if these go, to-morrow! I must borrow of you!"

        Rochefoucauld says, "There is something in the misfortunes of our very best friends that does not displease us; certainly we can most of us laugh at their petty inconveniences, till called upon to supply them."

        The ghost is further put in a ridiculous light when the servant, in his Irish dialect, relates the way he has met with the apparition:

        "Sure then, and it’s meself will tell your honor the rights of it," said the ghost-seer. "Meself and Miss Pauline, sir,—or Miss Pauline and meself, for the ladies come first anyhow,—we got tired of the hobstroppylous skrimaging among the ould servants, that didn’t know a joke when they seen one; and we went out to look at the comet,—that’s the Rory-Bory-Ale-House, they calls him in this country,—and we walked upon the lawn,—and divel of any ale house there was there at all; and Miss Pauline said it was because of the shrubbery maybe, and why wouldn’t we see it better beyonst the trees, and so we went to the trees, but sorrow a comet did meself there, barring a big ghost instead of it."

        "A ghost, and what sot of a ghost, Barney?"

        "Och, then divil a lie, I’ll tell your honor, a tall ould gentleman he was, all in white, with a shovel on his shoulder, and a big torch in his fist,—though what he wanted with that it’s meself can’t tell, for his eyes were like giglamps, let alone the moon and the comet, which wasn’t there at all:—and ‘Barney,’ says he to me,—‘Cause why he knew me,—‘Barney,’ says he, ‘what is it you’re doing with the colleen there, Barney?’—divil a word did I say. Miss Pauline screeched and cried murther in French, and ran off with herself; and of course meself was in a mighty hurry after the lady, and had no time to stop palavering with him anyway; so I dispersed at once, and the ghost vanished in a flame of fire!"

        Frank Stockton with American levity, free from tradition and superstition, treats ghosts with contempt and covers them with ridicule. In his story, "The Transferred Ghost," he makes ghosts look for positions as his countrymen do for government places, and one of such ghostly place hunters gets himself into trouble by obtaining in his haste an extremely uncomfortable position to a vigorous old man who refuses to die. The poor ghost is full of terror of the old man and is haunted by the very presence of the living reality. The tables are thus turned, the ghost is haunted by the living. The superior is lowered and becomes inferior. At the same time there is a by-play of misapprehension in the conservation between the ghost and the principal character—the young lady present thinks that the words directed to the unseen and inaudible ghost are meant for her. The ghost finally finds his rest when he gets transferred to another position.

        A similar play of the comic we find in Stockton’s "The Spectre Mortgage." The superior dignities and moral elevation associated with ghosts are treated with similar frivolity, ghosts are reduced from their high position which they claim in the fancy and beliefs of the people. The ghost is an old buck, he makes love to a young lady who laughs at the poor devil, he collapses as soon as he discovers the young lady was only fooling with him. This is accompanied with a by-play of misapprehension between lovers, a situation which enhances the comic play.

        From our present vantage ground we can well see how our theory of the ludicrous agrees with the theory of Bain: "The degradation of some personal interest possessing dignity in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion." In fact, the idea of inferiority must already be lodged subconsciously in the mind of the audience that laughs at the joke. Unless a bond of sympathy be established between the audience and the person who ridicules, the ridicule is a failure.

        There is apparently no sympathy for the object or subject of ridicule in the lower form of the comic. Such a feeling seems to destroy the success of ridicule, there must be a subconscious tie of sympathy between the man who makes the comic sally and the audience. In the lower forms of comic art what the comic writer or the man who laughs at somebody or at something guards against the awakening of sympathy or pity. Such emotions are the antitoxin of the low stages of the ludicrous. The merits, virtues, pain, and suffering of the butt of ridicule are put in the background, and only the demerits, the failings, the failures, the defects, the shortcomings are in the foreground before the audience. The audience in this respect is distracted form all other consideration.

        Perhaps we may say that in all art a slight of hypnoid-like state must be induced in the audience. In the theater where comic plays are presented the conditions of hypnoidization are favored by the distraction of attention from all other objects, from all other qualities of the object against which the comic is directed. Then there is again the fixation of attention and limitation of voluntary movements which form the main conditions n the process of induction of subconscious states.

        Our view of the comic includes all other theories proposed since the time of Aristotle for the explanation of the ludicrous, the funny, the comic. "The ridiculous," says Aristotle in his "Poetics," "is a certain error, and turpitude unattended with pain and destruction. Thus, for instance, a ridiculous face is something deformed and distorted without pain." Here Aristotle points out the fact that the ridiculous deals with making the subject of ridicule inferior, and he also refers to the fact that the sympathy of he hearer is not awakened. When the object is made ridiculous the fact of its pain and misery or destruction which may result should be put in the background. The joke, ridicule, or comedy must be presented in its artistic garb with no harmful consequences to the butt of ridicule. Like all art, the comic must be performed for its own sake with no special purpose except the higher ideal requirements of abundance of energy, of ease and grace absent in the object laughed at.

        The motive which forms the source out of which the ridiculous arises is disguised and hidden from direct view. Bain corrects Aristotle’s definition by adding that Aristotle would have been nearer the mark, if he had expressed it "as causing something to appear mean that was formerly dignified; for to depict what is already under a settled estimate of meanness has little power to raise a laugh."

        Hobbes maintains that "Laughter is a sudden glory arising from sudden conceptions of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." This theory fully agrees with our own, only Hobbes gives give it in a short definition which he has left without any further development.

        We shall, however, see further that, although Aristotle and Hobbes are right in the main, there are other and higher aspects of the ludicrous which do not fully fall within the frames of their definition. We cannot help agreeing with Bain when he says that "the comic is fed by false or faded dignities; by affection and hypocrisy; by unmeaning and hollow pomp."