Mind's Eye Re: Humour

Aristotle's theory of comedy was lost along with other great works-
probably burned in the fire that destroyed the library at Alexandria.
And lost plays might have cast a different light on your summation of
tragedy and comedy. As it is, you seem to skip over the females- what
about Antigone, for instance, along with many other notable Greek
female characters and goddesses- also Roman? What about the strong
women of the Old Testament? Perhaps it was Christianity that usurped
female virtues and powers along with the secular tides that followed.

At any rate, tragedy views man as nobler than usual and comedy views
man as ignoble but there are many variations. Probably pure laughter
is based in delight and is positive in nature, The other extreme would
be cruelty, as you say. But the absurd can be cruel as it diminishes
hope. Wit is used to show off intelligence/education. Mockery is
probably an offshoot of conquests. Lewd humour often masks fear. So on
and so forth...

On Nov 24, 12:51 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> While there is only speculation about how humor developed in early
> humans, we know that by the 6th century BCE the Greeks had
> institutionalized it in the ritual known as comedy, and that it was
> performed with a contrasting dramatic form known as tragedy. Both were
> based on the violation of mental patterns and expectations, and in
> both the world is a tangle of conflicting systems where humans live in
> the shadow of failure, folly, and death. Like tragedy, comedy
> represents life as full of tension, danger, and struggle, with success
> or failure often depending on chance factors. Where they differ is in
> the responses of the lead characters to life's incongruities.
> Identifying with these characters, audiences at comedies and tragedies
> have contrasting responses to events in the dramas. And because these
> responses carry over to similar situations in life, comedy and tragedy
> embody contrasting responses to the incongruities in life.
>
> Tragedy valorizes serious, emotional engagement with life's problems,
> even struggle to the death. Along with epic, it is part of the Western
> heroic tradition that extols ideals, the willingness to fight for
> them, and honor. The tragic ethos is linked to patriarchy and
> militarism—many of its heroes are kings and conquerors—and it
> valorizes what Conrad Hyers (1996) calls Warrior Virtues—blind
> obedience, the willingness to kill or die on command, unquestioning
> loyalty, single-mindedness, resoluteness of purpose, and pride.
>
> Comedy, by contrast, embodies an anti-heroic, pragmatic attitude
> toward life's incongruities. From Aristophanes' Lysistrata to Charlie
> Chaplin's The Great Dictator to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11,
> comedy has mocked the irrationality of militarism and blind respect
> for authority. Its own methods of handling conflict include deal-
> making, trickery, getting an enemy drunk, and running away. As the
> Irish saying goes, you're only a coward for a moment, but you're dead
> for the rest of your life. In place of Warrior Virtues, it extols
> critical thinking, cleverness, adaptability, and an appreciation of
> physical pleasures like eating, drinking, and sex.
>
> Much humour is cruel - but try and read cruelty in to 'Doctor, doctor,
> I've lost an electron'.  'Are you sure'?  'Yes, I'm positive'.
>
> What do we think humour is?

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