Critchley's On Humour, Progressive and Digressive Motions
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I've written an essay on the introduction to Critchley's On Humour, but I need help understanding what Critchley means by the "progressive" motions in humor, though I think I understand "digressive" motions correctly. Will someone offer an explanation? What is the progressive motion in a joke like, "Why was six afraid of seven? ... Because seven eight nine."?
Simon Critchley explains and defends Laurence Sterne’s comedic technique as a general theory of humor. Sterne creates a comical effect by introducing digressions into his dialogue while maintaining a progressive flow. Progressive and digressive motions are only loosely explained in Critchley’s text, so I will try to imagine what they will have to mean if Critchley is using the terms consistently and coherently.
A dogmata/pragmata distinction is a motif of On Humour, starting with the introductory quote by Epictetus. It is left isolated in the text, at first, but it leaves the impression that humor is somehow related to what “Human beings are troubled with” (Epictetus Discourses).
An expected/accepted distinction is a theme of On Humour, first introduced as the structure of a joke, “We might say that humour is produced by a disjunction between the way things are and the way they are represented in the joke, between expectation and actuality [what is accepted, we might say]” (Critchley 1). Perhaps a digressive motion is the movement of the understanding contrary to its momentum, the expected. Early on, the author notes that this digressive motion is not the essence of humor, for a theory of humor itself may contain a disjunction between the expected and the accepted, but theories of humor are not humorous.
The history of the philosophy of humor provides both a ground from which we can depart in studying humor and a background against which we check our conclusions about the nature of humor. To provide a convincing case, Critchley will need to reconcile his theory of humor with the three giants he stands upon - Plato, Kant, and Freud. Somehow, the progressively digressive motions at play in humor will shed light on both the validities and holes within each theory of humor: superiority theory, incongruity theory, and relief theory.
In Critchley’s phenomenology of a joke, the joke is taken as the medium of humor par excellence. This strategy might close off potential non-joke aspects of humor (whatever they might be), but it highlights a condition for an effective humorous digression - “a social world that is shared” (Critchley 4). Though this phrase is bizarre because of its confusing redundancy, we might infer that the author is trying to say that common cultural practices are the departure point of a humorous digression. Where is the arrival? Does the progressive motion have a corresponding departure and arrival?
In discussing the change of situation that happens in a joke, Critchley points out the “liberation or elevation” that occurs (Critchley 9). Here, he indicates the arrival point of a humorous digression as a foreign perspective, “A true joke… lets us see the familiar defamiliarized, the ordinary made extraordinary, and the real rendered surreal” (Critchley 10).
Critchley explicitly claims that “jokes return us to a common, familiar world of shared practices, the background meanings implicit in a culture,” which suggests that there is a motion that arrives at the shared social world while departing from some particular, or private, world (Critchley 16). Since the digressive motion has already been established as departing from the shared social world, the author must be referring to the contrary motion in humor, progression. This interpretation makes further sense when Critchley also claims that jokes “indicate how those practices might be transformed or perfected,” for a normative indication is progressive by being concerned with pragmata, the things-at-hand (Critchley 16). Such indications are not digressive, for they don’t emphasize the distracting dogmata, the way things-at-hand are viewed. Critchley waits until the end of his introduction to clearly state these conclusions, “we progressively approach the things themselves, the various pragmata that make up the stuff of what we call ordinary life” (Critchley 21).
Critchley’s theory of humor may be consistently explained, but it is still not quite clearly explained, for the nature of the progressive motion’s arrival is still unclear. What is prescriptive in particular jokes? When I reveal that 6 was afraid of 7 because 7 “8” 9, where does the progressive motion of the understanding land? What is the pragmata to which we are returned?
I've written an essay on the introduction to Critchley's On Humour, but I need help understanding what Critchley means by the "progressive" motions in humor, though I think I understand "digressive" motions correctly. Will someone offer an explanation? What is the progressive motion in a joke like, "Why was six afraid of seven? ... Because seven eight nine."?
Simon Critchley explains and defends Laurence Sterne’s comedic technique as a general theory of humor. Sterne creates a comical effect by introducing digressions into his dialogue while maintaining a progressive flow. Progressive and digressive motions are only loosely explained in Critchley’s text, so I will try to imagine what they will have to mean if Critchley is using the terms consistently and coherently.
A dogmata/pragmata distinction is a motif of On Humour, starting with the introductory quote by Epictetus. It is left isolated in the text, at first, but it leaves the impression that humor is somehow related to what “Human beings are troubled with” (Epictetus Discourses).
An expected/accepted distinction is a theme of On Humour, first introduced as the structure of a joke, “We might say that humour is produced by a disjunction between the way things are and the way they are represented in the joke, between expectation and actuality [what is accepted, we might say]” (Critchley 1). Perhaps a digressive motion is the movement of the understanding contrary to its momentum, the expected. Early on, the author notes that this digressive motion is not the essence of humor, for a theory of humor itself may contain a disjunction between the expected and the accepted, but theories of humor are not humorous.
The history of the philosophy of humor provides both a ground from which we can depart in studying humor and a background against which we check our conclusions about the nature of humor. To provide a convincing case, Critchley will need to reconcile his theory of humor with the three giants he stands upon - Plato, Kant, and Freud. Somehow, the progressively digressive motions at play in humor will shed light on both the validities and holes within each theory of humor: superiority theory, incongruity theory, and relief theory.
In Critchley’s phenomenology of a joke, the joke is taken as the medium of humor par excellence. This strategy might close off potential non-joke aspects of humor (whatever they might be), but it highlights a condition for an effective humorous digression - “a social world that is shared” (Critchley 4). Though this phrase is bizarre because of its confusing redundancy, we might infer that the author is trying to say that common cultural practices are the departure point of a humorous digression. Where is the arrival? Does the progressive motion have a corresponding departure and arrival?
In discussing the change of situation that happens in a joke, Critchley points out the “liberation or elevation” that occurs (Critchley 9). Here, he indicates the arrival point of a humorous digression as a foreign perspective, “A true joke… lets us see the familiar defamiliarized, the ordinary made extraordinary, and the real rendered surreal” (Critchley 10).
Critchley explicitly claims that “jokes return us to a common, familiar world of shared practices, the background meanings implicit in a culture,” which suggests that there is a motion that arrives at the shared social world while departing from some particular, or private, world (Critchley 16). Since the digressive motion has already been established as departing from the shared social world, the author must be referring to the contrary motion in humor, progression. This interpretation makes further sense when Critchley also claims that jokes “indicate how those practices might be transformed or perfected,” for a normative indication is progressive by being concerned with pragmata, the things-at-hand (Critchley 16). Such indications are not digressive, for they don’t emphasize the distracting dogmata, the way things-at-hand are viewed. Critchley waits until the end of his introduction to clearly state these conclusions, “we progressively approach the things themselves, the various pragmata that make up the stuff of what we call ordinary life” (Critchley 21).
Critchley’s theory of humor may be consistently explained, but it is still not quite clearly explained, for the nature of the progressive motion’s arrival is still unclear. What is prescriptive in particular jokes? When I reveal that 6 was afraid of 7 because 7 “8” 9, where does the progressive motion of the understanding land? What is the pragmata to which we are returned?