CHAPTER XIV

RIDICULE, MALICE, AND THE HUMANE

        In the hunting out of the mean, the vulgar, and inferior under the dignified cloak of the great and the superior is there necessarily present an element of malice? Does ridicule disclose a mean, low, and malicious trait inhuman nature? Does ridicule consist not only in revealing the mean side of the object laughed at, but also of persons who make merry over the defects and shortcomings of others? In other words, is ridicule necessarily the outcome of malice?

        Some writers claim that the comic and the ludicrous flow from the malicious in human character. There no comic without malice. Thus Spiller gives the following definition of the comic: "The comic implies a humiliating situation where the sense of malice is aroused so far as it satisfies and mechanically occupies the attention." It is claimed that the comic writer displays his narrow-mindedness in his lack of sympathy, in his of realization of his common nature with the rest humanity.

        While there is some truth in the assertion that a number of jokes and comic situations have a malicious element in them, still on the whole the statement is incorrect; it is specially false of the higher manifestation of the comic and the ridiculous. Children and men in the lower stages of development, such as we find in the case of savages and barbarians, find enjoyment in the comic and in the ridiculous without any regard to the special humiliation of any particular persons and classes. There is just laughter at funny situations, comic saws, and plays. In so far as there is play with the serious side of life the malicious element is completely absent.

        There is comic play with the dignified and the sacred out of the exuberance of life. The inner sources of reserve energy are let free and man can see himself stronger, better, and superior to what he had been before. There is laughter, both as the result of the consciousness of his former weakness and shortcomings as well as from the present sense of power and play. "All pleasure," as Schopenhauer rightly puts it, "is derived from the use and consciousness of power." The malicious element is here entirely absent, and one who looks for fun, ridicule, and the ludicrous from the narrow standpoint of malice misses the fun of the play. There may be malicious laughter, but it is not true, conversely, that all comic laughter is malicious.

        There is the comic laughter at the fun of play. The child puts himself in an inferior position, as in the game of blind man's buff, to satisfy himself and his playmates in the manifestation of reserve energy which comes pouring forth to the surface of their active life. Man often laughs at himself for his own amusement and for the amusement of his fellow men. There is certainly no malice in that; there is the sense of one's limitations which is at the bottom of such self-derisive laughter.

        At the same time there is present the sense of the spiritual transcendence of the limitations, the sense that annuls such limitations by the consciousness of that fact. We may play at a game and laugh at ourselves and have others laugh at our clumsy, awkward, and ineffectual efforts. Many children and adults obtain immense pleasure from such games. They laugh uproariously at ea effort and consequent failure. There is not the least sign or feeling of malice about it.

        As we reach the highest forms of comic art the personal element becomes more and more eliminated and ridicule is directed against impersonal ideas, ideals, beliefs, and institutions. What underlies such ridicule is the righteous indignation against snares, deceptions, and illusions that veil truth and reality from the gaze of humanity. Laughter at the ludicrous is far from being malicious, in fact, it is directed against evil and malicious elements. This is the main power of the comic drama and of all comic wit. All the examples brought above from the immortal Aristophanes to Lucian, Cervantes, Voltaire, and others, go to prove the important function of comic art in social life.

        If tragedy, according to Aristotle, purges one of evil passions through sympathy with suffering, comedy purges the spectator or the hearer from the evils of life by means of sympathetic laughter. Laughter is direct against the inferior from the standpoint of the superior who is thus purified from all sense of malice. Laughter purges the superior from anger and vindictiveness with the inferior.

        In the higher forms of art ridicule flows from a source of recognition of a higher principle which is seen by the writer or poet who communicates his ideas, feelings, and ideals to the spectators, the audience, or the readers. Ridicule comes from a deep experience, from a profound knowledge of truth, and from a sympathy with human life. Through laughter man becomes purged of animal malice and rises to the highest forms human sympathy and divine love.

        The prophet Isaiah thunders his ridicule and invective against idol worshippers, both Israelite and Gentile, from the heights of monotheism which he has reached and to which he is anxious to lift up his fellow men: 

        The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with the line; he fitteth with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.

        He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash and the rain doth nourish it.

        Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh a graven image, and falleth down thereto.

        He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Ah, I am warm, I have seen the fire.

        And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. 

        The genius of the prophet places rightly the cause of the ludicrous when he tells us: 

        And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it; and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? Shall I down to the stock of a tree?  

        After the prophet has poured out the vials of ridicule on the idol worshippers he exclaims: 

        Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it; should ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.

        Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and He that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.

        I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I redeemed thee. 

        In another place the prophet takes up the same mockery and ridicule of idol-worship: 

        They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god, and they fall down, yea, they worship.

        They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place should he not be removed: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble. 

        The prophet soon becomes serious and declares the source whence the power of his ridicule has come: 

        Remember this, and shew yourselves men: bring it again to mind, O ye transgressors.

        Remember the former things of old: for I am God and there is none else: I am God and there is none but me,

        Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand. 

        Thus we find that ridicule may flow from the highest levels attained by man and may in turn give rise to love, mercy and forgiveness.

        Even Christ with his deep love and sympathy for erring humanity uses the potent tool of ridicule against the Pharisees and the false prophets: 

        Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

        Ye shall know them by their fruits . . .  

        And he adds the mordant ridicule: 

        Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  

        One cannot help finding ridicule in the casting out of devils: 

        So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine. 

        Now adds the Evangelist: 

        And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and, when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. 

        Christ ridicules the rich man by the metaphor of the camel and the needle. 

        It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

        Jesus heaps ridicule on the Pharisees, their vanity, conceit, and hypocrisy, by characterizing them as "blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” He compares the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the hypocrites to men who clean the cup on the outside and leave filth in the inside. Finally He likens them to white sepulchers beautiful on the outside and on the inside full of rot.  From the highest point of moral life reached by Christ nothing looked so small, so mean, and so low as conceit, vanity, and hypocrisy personified by him in the Scribe and the Pharisee. This meanness Christ pierces with the sharp shafts of his pointed ridicule. 

        When the woman of Canaan, a poor pagan woman came and worshipped him, saying, "Lord, help me," he humorously assumed the dignity of the aristocratic, exclusive Jew and scorned her with ridicule. 

        It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. 

        Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which are from their masters' table.  

        Thus the poor woman in her agony of grief replied and the love and pity for which the Gospels characterize Jesus stood revealed behind the veil of ridicule on Gentile and especially on the Canaanite. 

        Then Jesus answered and said unto her: O woman great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. 

        In his more playful moods, when Peter, one of favorite disciples, rebukes him for trying to challenge the scribes, the elders, and the priests in their own dens, Jesus replies: 

        Get thee behind me, Satan. 

       Behind the ridicule, or, rather, banter of Jesus there was no malice, there were pity, sympathy, and love for his persecutors, the Scribes and the Pharisees, on whom, however, he did not hesitate to pour the vials of his most invective ridicule. Ridicule may flow from the purest source of human love.

        Laughter, when free from all distressing and sad emotions, is essentially human, and, what is more, is humanizing, for it is the beginning of reconciliation with our opponents. When we can laugh we are ready to forgive. Laughter is the beginning of love. Only he can truly laugh who can survey things from ever rising mountain tops of human sympathy and love.

        To assert, then, as some do, with Hobbes that laughter, ridicule, and wit are intimately related to, and even their root in, the feeling of malice is to misunderstand one of the most fundamental of human functions. Even the laughter of derision and scorn has the divine in it, not only because, as we have just pointed out, it indicates a higher standpoint, at least a recognition of fact that he who is laughed at is on a lower plane of development, whether animal or human, but also because is the gleam of peace in a smile, however inimical, provided there is willingness on the scorned side to accept the olive branch of peace. If the ridiculed person is not proud, touchy, selfish, conceited, and vain the recognition of the ridicule is the best form of reconciliation and the formation of a deeper love. When Aristophanes ridiculed Socrates and his school, Socrates stood up the middle of the play that the people could compare the copy with the original. The Canaanite woman attracted the love of Christ when she humbly acknowledged the ridicule directed against her. Laughter, when taken in the spirit of recognition of shortcomings and reconciliation, makes for the best of friendship and the deepest form of human love.

        In the comic, as in all art, man is taken out of his narrow shell and made to transcend the limits of his individuality. Instead of being occupied with the constant harrowing cares and troubles of every-day life, with the struggle for existence and the fears of self-preservation, he is taken to a higher, freer region where the light of the sun is not dimmed by cloud and fear, where beauty never fades, where, fed on divine nectar of mirth and ambrosia of laughter, the joy of life ever fills the heart of man. Pain, misery, and sorrow touched by the magic wand of laughter, raising suffering and distressed men to the lofty regions of inexpressible joy by awakening the feeling of the power of the human individuality. Like tragedy, comedy sounds the depths of the human personality and reveals sources of human reserve energy of which man in his every-day life mains entirely unaware.

        Tragedy represents man struggling with overwhelming fate and misfortune, "a thinking reed resisting and opposing the elemental forces." The spectator catches a glimpse of the subconscious reserve energy stretching far into infinity. This glimpse is sufficient to have him lifted out of his narrow, individual cell from he which looks on the world. The bonds of individuality are momentarily broken and the person feels himself in harmony, in union, in deep sympathy with unhappiness a misfortune, a sympathy which purges away all the evil passions, as fire purifies gold from all dross. In tragedy the person becomes free from all fear of the blind, mental forces; he becomes a free spirit.

      In comedy the spirit of the human personality recognizes itself through joy.  The individual is lifted to a higher standpoint, to loftier regions from which, like the Olympic gods, he can look down rejoicingly on the doings of men. Man is lifted above the cares of humdrum life; he sees the struggles, the fears, the pains, the misfortunes, the distresses as trivial, small, and mean. Like the Olympic gods, he passes his time in joy and laughter. Man moves freely without fear, with a smile and with laughter, above the worldly elements of chance, accident, fortune, and misfortune. What is all that to him? He laughs in joy and cares little for the turmoil chaos of life. He sees nothing but the smiling light of the funny and the humorous. As the Bible puts it:  

        And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. 

        In the darkness of man's life laughter is the light of the spirit.  Through the comic the spirit of man moves above the darkness of the deep. Man soars above the gloomy void of existence, and smiles and laughs in joy.

        In the comic man transcends the evil spirit of dark malice, and from the depth of his subconsciousness there heave up forces, energies, higher views, and principles which make him recognize imperfections, defects, faults. Man can laugh at them through the ease and grace with which they are overcome and transcended. The malicious element when present must be hidden and transformed by a deeper insight and higher standard of life in order to gain the sympathy of laughter. The prickles of ridicule guard the joy of life and beauty of the mirth of laughter. Mirth, like Venus, may be born of the foam of life, but under the foam there are the depths of the ocean of being over which smile and laughter hover playfully.