Funny question!
Isaac Asimov wrote a short story in which it turned out to
be an alien experiment on humanity. Personally I do not think that he believed
a word of his own story, and neither do I. That is my story and I am sticking
to it! Or maybe it is sticking to me... Actually Charles Darwin, who was by any
reasonable measure decidedly a genius, wrote a book on the expression of
emotions in man and other animals. It left a great deal unanswered, but it is
hardly fair to blame Darwin
for that; much of that puzzle still is unanswered today.
Let's get the apologies over to begin with. My reply will be
half anthropomorphic and wholly handwaving. Got that? Then let's go rollicking on,
holding our sides all the while!
Amusement is one of our emotions that is based on emotional
conflict. Another such example is embarrassment, as the late Konrad Lorenz vividly
described in his work on geese. I think he did so in his characteristically
brilliant book "On Aggression".
One of the first things to get clear is that every form of
amusement (I refer here to anything that we laugh at, but it occurs to me that
much of what I am about to say might apply to other senses of the word) has to
do with some form of stress: shock, surprise, or threat. The smile accordingly,
appears to be derived from the snarl. Laughter seems to stem from defensive
aggression noises. Sometimes hysterical or desperate weeping sounds (horribly)
like laughter. And laughter is a common reaction to helpless despair in many
cultures, such as Roman slaves jesting about their probable crucifixion, or an African
peasant's breaking into hearty chuckles when asked what would happen if the
rain did not come. "Then we'll all starve!" I saw that in a
documentary. The commentator missed the point: "The joke's on us!"
was his interpretation. To anyone with a closer acquaintance with the culture,
it meant: "We're stuffed!" The attitude was more one of dignified
despair than sporting amusement. It was not so much entertainment, as accommodation
to the stress.
You may or may not have heard the Swazi "Retreat Song"
by Miriam Makeba. It seems to be available on line. It sounds strikingly jolly,
but the prospect is anything but. It stems from a time before any Geneva
convention, and in Africa a defeat could mean
wiping out, and often did. So cheerfully
tell the women and youngsters to "Run like hell!"
Yeah...
Now, very commonly primates will shadow a threat when they
are fairly sure that they are safe; for instance monkeys might follow a lion or
tiger, with plenty of sounds of defiance and alarm, whereas they might make off
in a hurry if they spot a leopard. The occasion for expressing themselves
safely to an object of dread appears to be valuable educationally, as well as
emotionally. Another well-known anthropoid, Winston S. Churchill, remarked that
it is exhilarating to be shot at without effect. And he should know.
And why do you suppose that people enjoy thrillers and
horror movies?
Think about how parents teach their children about all the
dangers out there, and the pleasures of contemplating them in various ways.
Think of how such experiences shade off into humour.
You should be able to derive a continuum from a horrified
dying screech, all the way to a wry grin at the thought of the politician who
had to see his doctor because he had accidentally told the truth due to a
misunderstanding.
Don't rupture yourself in either case,
Jon
