CHAPTER VIII

THE LUDICROUS AND RESERVE ENERGY

        We must, however, also take into consideration the response of a normal amount of energy to an external stimulus found to be inferior in character. The superabundant, spontaneous overflow of unused energies gives rise to joy and its accompaniment, laughter. When we expect the normal and are adjusted to respond to it by an amount of energy, and then the subnormal is discovered, the amount of energy that is left goes into the overflow, giving rise to laughter.

        We have shown than any amount of superabundant energy, as in the case of children and vigorous people, gives rise to joy and laughter. Hence, when some source of reserve energy is tapped by an appropriate stimulus the result is joy and consequent laughter. In fact, we may say that any release of reserve energy is the source of all laughter. This holds true in the case of laughter due to the manifestation of animal spirits and sheer joy of living in growing animals, children, and healthy, vigorous people. What the joker, the comic writer, does is to release sources of reserve energy.

        When there is apparent difficulty, ease is shown to be present; where dignity is expected with its restraint and stiffness, lightness and freedom are shown to be possible; where there is resistance, there no opposition is shown; and where apparently effort is required, there relaxation is amply sufficient; where strength is expected, there weakness is proven; and where overwhelming effects of superior merits and qualities are expected, there weakness is proven; and where overwhelming effects of superior merits and qualities are expected, there are found demerits and defects. The superfluous energy in response to the stimulus is found superabundant and the overflow comes out in the hilarious laughter.

        The disposition to see all those states may have been subconsciously in the observer for some time, but passed unnoticed. This disposition is revealed by the appropriate joke or ridicule made by the person who first notices the changed attitude and has the power and the courage to express the subconscious changes. It is like water on a still, frosty day, a stone thrown into the liquid freezes the whole surface. The least motion brings about the crystallization into ice, the disposition to which was prepared by the low temperature of the water. The joke brings to light the disposition of the soul; the joke tumbles down structures hoary with age, but all rotten within. The structure appears strong superficially, it is good to look upon, but the first shock of ridicule shows weakness, and at the same time release subconscious energies which are for the first time brought to light by the laughing impact of the bearing down ridicule. We may lay it down as a law that whatever reveals weakness in an object of superior standing and releases in the audience subconscious sources of hidden reserve energy is a fit subject for laughter and ridicule.

     Conversely, as we have pointed out, when under ordinary normal circumstances, more energy is spent where less energy is requisite, the object is a matter of ridicule—the observer regards the object as ludicrous.

        This, however, does not mean that Freud and his followers are right in claiming that economy of energy is itself a groundwork of the ridiculous and the comic. It is not the economy that is the cause of laughter; on the contrary, the waste of energy may be very great and still the pleasure of the feeling of joy with its accompanying manifestations of laughter may be present. In fact, where economy is required there is little occasion for laughter. Laughter is the outburst of power, of manifestation of inner energy. In fact, the consciousness of waste, the consciousness that such extravagance is possible for us, the assurance that we possess great supplies of energy, such a state of consciousness is the very source of the feeling of superiority and joy, it is the main cause of laughter, ridicule, and the comic.

        Play is the manifestation of inner subconscious energies which have been laying dormant during our ordinary humdrum daily activities. The play of the comic is no exception. We laugh when hidden reserve energies are awakened in us. We laugh from the very joy of living. Animals and children in the exuberance of energy are hilarious and boisterous. Even serious-minded adults become full of joy and laugh when the tide of inner reserve energy keeps beating on their otherwise gray and monotonous shores of life.

        We do not wish for any economy of energy in our life of joyful activities—such economy is good for business, in manufacture, industry, and general occupation of life. There is no economy in the joys of our playful activities.

        In the ludicrous the important element is not economy. In fact, where such economy is present laughter is absent. The joys of laughter never go with economy of energy. It is the consciousness of the ease of expenditure, of waste of energy that forms the joy of laughter and the merriment of the comic. The very waste of energy with ease and grace, the consciousness of untold riches, the unconsciousness of all else that may take place afterward, these form the very backbone, the very essence of inner joy and laughter.

        Where there is relief from all economy of energy, wherever we can spend with ease and with grace al we will, there joy of laughter is present. As the smiling roses in June, as the gladsome summer fields, as glades full of daisies and buttercups and marigolds, as the rich green of the grass and the living limbs of the trees waving their rich vestments of leaves in the summer sunshine, and fanned by southern winds, come not out of the thrifty economy of some artificial greenhouse, nor from the parsimony of some commercial hothouse, but out of the exuberant womb of Mother Nature, out of the vast storehouse of the sun’s energy, where expenditure is not counted, whence endless hosts of life proceed, countless masses of rich vegetation, mighty trunks, starlike flowers, green foliage, and juicy fruits grow, bud, bloom, and ripen, so it is with laughter. Laughter comes not out of economy, but out of abundance.

        Consciousness of reserve energy gives rise to joy and merriment with their concomitant manifestations of smiling and laughing. Whenever and wherever a stimulus can tap a source of reserve energy which is mentally experienced as an abundance, joy and laughter come to life. There is no economy and no niggardliness in the source of laughter. Laughter is born of lavishness and dies with thriftiness. Out of ease, out of abundance laughter grows, flowers, and ripens its golden fruit. "They who sow in tears shall reap in joy" sings the psalmist. "Weeping walks he who draws the burden, but he comes with singing who carries the sheaves." The economy of sowing is sad, but the lavishness of the crop is full of mirth, joy, and laughter.

        This agrees with the Spencerian doctrine that any great accession of energy chooses laughter as its outlet. The laughter that goes with the ludicrous is present when anything regarded consciously as superior and subconsciously as inferior finds its expression of inferiority in the consciousness of the hearer or of the observer. The great task of comedy and of every amusement is to be able to tap ever new sources of latent, subconscious, reserve energy.

        We can well understand why Groos connects the enjoyment of the comic with the fighting instinct. There is a forward, assailing element in the comic and laughter. It is the daring to find inferiority and blemishes where until now there have been respect, reverence, and even fear. Laughter would never have come from the mere pointing out of defects, failures, and shortcomings; it mainly comes from exuberance of spirits, from latent reserve, subconscious energy which it awakens to activity. This reserve energy making man more active, more daring in regard to superior persons and objects of life, giving rise to the feeling of joy of life which accompanies the free manifestation of subconscious reserve energy, making man feel more courageous, more energetic, and apparently careless as to consequences, greatly resembles the fighting instinct.

        There is no need, however, to identify such a state with the fighting instinct, no more than an inventor or scientific discoverer should be literally identified with a scout or a spy. Under the influence of superabundant energy, under the influence of the manifestation of reserve energy, man can attempt more than in his ordinary normal condition. There is no more of the fighting instinct in it than there are actual aggression and fight in the self-sacrifice of martyrs for their beliefs and ideas, or in the preaching of Socrates, Jesus, and Buddha to a sinful, erring world. Laughter and the fighting instinct are akin only in so far as both of them are manifestations of superabundant energy. They differ fundamentally, inasmuch as fight involves a tendency to destruction of the object fought against, while in the ridiculous or the comic the tendency to destruction must, even in malicious laughter, be kept in the background, an in most cases must be completely absent from the consciousness of the audience. As Aristotle has pointed out long, "the ridiculous is a certain error and turpitude unattended with pain and destruction."