Spencer and Freud on Laughter and Humor

The theories of humor and laughter by Spencer and Freud reminded me and explained in greater detail the idea we discussed in class which is that humor does not always equate to laughter and laughter does not always equate to humor. Spencer talks about how human emotion can utter a physical response. He discusses how when one experiences a certain weight of emotion, their body has a physical response to the felt emotion. Specifically, in terms of laughter he says that one produces laughter when extreme or nervous excitement is felt, “In a modified form this principle holds with voluntary acts. Nervous excitation always tends to beget muscular motion; and when it rises to a certain intensity always does beget it” (Freud 100). While, nothing in a given situation may be humorous, it can still produce laughter. To draw from an example from my own life, I drove with my friend on Saturday to Southern Virginia to pick up his new puppy. When we walked in, I held him and immediately started laughing due to the increase of excitement. I was excited to see the puppy when we were driving, but my excitement exponentially increased when I was able to hold him which produced my laughter.

Freud talks about the humor theory in which he explains different situations where humor can occur. As he explains, “There are two ways in which the process at work in humor may take place. Either one person may himself adopt a humorous attitude, while a second person acts as spectator, and derives enjoyment from the attitude of the first; or there may be two people concerned,  one of whom does not himself take any active share in producing humorous effect, but is regarded by the other in a humorous light” (Freud 112). This reminds me of my relationship with my roommate. I consider myself a funny person, or at least try to be, and so I possess the humorous attitude while she acts as a spectator to my jokes. Although, opposingly she does not necessarily possess a humorous light, but I treat her in a humorous light. For example, the other day she was struggling to put on her boots, and I watched her laughing. Since it was a very normal activity, it was because I see her in the humorous light that produced my laughter.

Additionally, Freud analyzes the link between the conscious and unconscious mind in regards to wit saying, “I was led to assume that wit originates in the momentary abandoning of a conscious thought to unconscious elaboration, wit being therefore the contribution of the unconscious to the comic” (Freud 116). By this he means that a joke made with wit typically involves something that one was thinking and had no real intention of saying until the joke was made. When I think about that, I think about how sometimes there’s no real way to say that thing you were thinking to someone other than by making a joke about it. Like how sometimes I make a joke out of something when there is real meaning behind it, but it would be rude if I came out and said that thing in a non-joking manner. I think this idea is also very applicable to David Sedaris. For example, when he finds out from Lisa that Tiffany had gotten her toxicology report and learns she strangled herself with the bag he is just thinking about which bag she used, “It’s hard to find a bag without writing on it—the name of a store, most often. LOWE’S, it might read. SAFEWAY. TRUE VALUE. Does a person go through a number of them before making a selection, or, as I suspect, will any bag do, regardless of the ironic statement it might make?” (Sedaris 320). A big part of Sedaris dry and ironic wit is this presence of the unconscious mind at work. His unconscious thoughts come alive to produce humor. The physical attributes to humor and laughter as expressed by Freud and Spencer are applicable to every day life and the humorous works we have read thus far.