I. Everything's Funny
As I said in a recent post, one of the things that the phrase torpedo the ark means to me is having the freedom to criticise everything under the sun - even if that risks offending others. Nothing is sacrosanct or off limits; everything can be targeted and everything can be ridiculed, mocked, or poked fun at because, as Larry David rightly informs his friend Richard Lewis, everything's funny - even the death of a beloved parakeet.*
Here, I'd like to expand on this idea with reference to the work of Georges Bataille and D. H. Lawrence ...
Here, I'd like to expand on this idea with reference to the work of Georges Bataille and D. H. Lawrence ...
II. A Philosophy of Laughter
Bataille discovered the importance of laughter very early on in his career as a writer.
It wasn't, however, until a lecture made many years later, in 1953, that he was able to admit with a smile that, insofar as he'd been engaged in serious philosophical work at all, he'd been constructing a philosophy founded upon (and exclusively concerned with) the experience of laughter as that which escapes reason and understanding.
In other words, it's not just the unknown or unknowable that causes us to laugh; laughter is itself inexplicable and we often have no idea why we laugh when we do - joy bubbles over or bursts forth unexpectedly and as a form of excess (or what Bataille terms unproductive expenditure).
And - crucially, from the perspective of ethics - laughter is often infectious; when we laugh, others laugh too. Indeed, whilst it's perfectly possible to weep alone, I'm not sure one can ever really laugh in isolation (without being a madman). It's laughter - not sorrow (or mourning) - that is the social practice par excellence.
But what, for Bataille, is there to laugh at?
The answer, as for Larry David, is everything: Bataille encourages us to laugh not just at the world and the things that are in it, but at being itself and, ultimately, at that which all being is a being towards: death. This is clear in his short poem entitled 'Laughter' [Rire]:
Laugh and laugh
at the sun
at the nettles
at the stones
at the ducks
It wasn't, however, until a lecture made many years later, in 1953, that he was able to admit with a smile that, insofar as he'd been engaged in serious philosophical work at all, he'd been constructing a philosophy founded upon (and exclusively concerned with) the experience of laughter as that which escapes reason and understanding.
In other words, it's not just the unknown or unknowable that causes us to laugh; laughter is itself inexplicable and we often have no idea why we laugh when we do - joy bubbles over or bursts forth unexpectedly and as a form of excess (or what Bataille terms unproductive expenditure).
And - crucially, from the perspective of ethics - laughter is often infectious; when we laugh, others laugh too. Indeed, whilst it's perfectly possible to weep alone, I'm not sure one can ever really laugh in isolation (without being a madman). It's laughter - not sorrow (or mourning) - that is the social practice par excellence.
But what, for Bataille, is there to laugh at?
The answer, as for Larry David, is everything: Bataille encourages us to laugh not just at the world and the things that are in it, but at being itself and, ultimately, at that which all being is a being towards: death. This is clear in his short poem entitled 'Laughter' [Rire]:
Laugh and laugh
at the sun
at the nettles
at the stones
at the ducks
at the rain
at the pee-pee of the pope
at mummy
at a coffin full of shit
at the pee-pee of the pope
at mummy
at a coffin full of shit
Commenting on the above verse, Nick Land writes:
"It is because life is pure surplus that the child of Rire - standing by the side of his quietly weeping mother and transfixed by the stinking ruins of his father - is gripped by convulsions of horror that explode into peals of mirth, as uncompromising as orgasm. [...] Laughter is a communion with the dead, since death is not the object of laughter: it is death itself that finds a voice when we laugh. Laughter is that which is lost to discourse, the haemorrhaging of pragmatics into excitation and filth."
Ba-dum-tsh!
III. Curb Your Enthusiasm
D. H. Lawrence is another writer who makes an important contribution to the philosophy of laughter - perhaps surprisingly so, as this self-styled priest of love is thought by many to be utterly humourless, though often unintentionally comic or absurd.
However, as Judith Ruderman points out, the mistaken idea that Lawrence had no sense of humour is an opinion held for the most part by those who are misled (or disconcereted) by his intensity. He is often over-earnest and can sometimes be a bore. But Lawrence also values (and utilises) humour in his work, often deliberately undermining his own seriousness and tendency to preach.
Ruderman also reminds us of this crucial passage written by Lawrence in his essay on Edgar Allan Poe (a passage that LD would surely approve of):
"The Holy Ghost bids us never to be too deadly in our earnestness, always to laugh in time, at ourselves and at everything. Particularly at our sublimities. Everything has its hour of ridicule - everything."
The Holy Ghost, according to Lawrence, also helps us to keep it real; "not to push our cravings too far, not to submit to stunts and high falutin, above all not to be too egoistic and willful [...] to leave off when it bids us leave off".
In other words, the Holy Ghost helps us curb our enthusiasm and recognise that the latter - particularly when tied to moral and ideological fundamentalism - is what threatens us today.
Notes
*I refer here to a scene in the first episode of the ninth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm entitled 'Foisted!', dir. Jeff Schaffer, written by Larry David and Jeff Schaffer (2017): click here.
Bataille, 'Nonknowledge, Laughter, and Tears', in The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge, ed. Stuart Kendall, trans. Michelle Kendall and Stuart Kendall, (University of Minnesota, 2001).
Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism, (Routledge 1992), p. xvii. The translation of the poem is also found here.
Judith Ruderman, 'D. H. Lawrence on Trial Yet Again: The Charge? It's Ridiculous!', Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, ed. Susan Reid, Vol. 5, Number 1, (2018), pp. 59-82.
D. H. Lawrence, 'Edgar Allan Poe', Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 73.
Bataille, 'Nonknowledge, Laughter, and Tears', in The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge, ed. Stuart Kendall, trans. Michelle Kendall and Stuart Kendall, (University of Minnesota, 2001).
Nick Land, The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism, (Routledge 1992), p. xvii. The translation of the poem is also found here.
Judith Ruderman, 'D. H. Lawrence on Trial Yet Again: The Charge? It's Ridiculous!', Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, ed. Susan Reid, Vol. 5, Number 1, (2018), pp. 59-82.
D. H. Lawrence, 'Edgar Allan Poe', Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 73.
Laughter, tears and the catalytic role of social contagion is an interesting (I guess universal) topic, not forgetting the pivotal part of 'enthusiasm': a word that means, of course,' the god(s) within' ('en + theos'). As the German Romantics understood, when we are enthused, we are closest to the gods, most 'outside ourselves'. Interestingly, it appears that enthusiasm first got saddled with a perjorative association from the Puritans during the time of Shakespeare, who found what they perceived as excessive religious rapture unbecoming - or, perhaps more importantly, uncontrollable. For them, of course, Shakespeare's theatre was scarily pagan - bawdy, uproarious, and meddling with many dark states of possession and passion. Like Blake, he knew, of course, that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
ReplyDeleteIt's those people, curiously, who seem to be suspiciously over-heated advocates of the philosophical art of laughter (Nietzsche, Bataille, Lawrence et al) who come across as the least funny people themselves. (I have yet to see a picture of any of them so much as crack a convincing smile - Nietzsche presumably grew his absurd moustache to keep people from looking at his mouth expressing anything at all.) Paradoxically, by contrast, it's sad, forlorn and tragic figures like Stan Laurel and Tommy Cooper who tend to make one smile and laugh the most.
I don't find 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' a straighforwardly 'funny' show (and rarely if ever an exercise in laugh out loud comedy). For me, it's more about squeezing out bullets of embarrassment from the central character's itself in many ways puritanical, hyper-fussy perfectionism and propensity for social boorishness - even though Larry quite often might be 'right', at least in his own mind! When his wife Cheryl does the sane thing and leaves him, rather than laughing at his misfortune he spends hours in and out of therapy trying to win her back (which actually produces one of the true vintage episodes, with Steve Coogan's superlatively judged cameo, 'The Therapists'). Essentially, as with the character of Basil Fawlty from whom I would suggest CYE borrows, it's essentially a portrait of narcissistic self-centredness in action. Accordingly, it tends to make us cringe behind our fingers rather than guffaw from our gut.
Does the task of laughing at everything/everyone include laughing at (and/or finding nothing 'sacred' in) oneself? If so, may I propose the blogmaster consider publishing a suite of his cringeworthiest life-moments/secrets - it could be called 'On Laughing Myself to Death'. We could all join in by laughing at the hitherto unhilarious stories from his life and ours of demented relatives, abortions, and personal tragedies of miscellaneous hues. (I'm sure there are many people who practise what they preach in this domain, but just can't think of any right now.)
For the moment, though, I'm unclear, Stephen, whether you want to promote a notion of Bataillean 'rire' as surplus expenditure, or curb y/our enthusiasm. (Or, indeed, have your happy cake and eat it.)
PS Isn't calling laughter 'inexplicable' just an unncessary mystification of the phenomenon? If anything, the world would probably be a better place if we thought more about WHY we laugh (which often has, I think, a lot to do with our vicarious participation in misadventure and cruelty).
ReplyDeleteThank you, Simon, for these remarks.
DeleteNot sure I agree that to be enthused is to step outside the self: aren't you conflating it with another Greek term, ékstasis?
Also, it wasn't only the Puritans who used the word enthusiasm in a perjorative sense (and with reference to the theatre): post-English Civil War, it was widely used in a political context as a synonym for fanaticism.
Is it really so surprising that comic entertainers like Stan Laurel and Tommy Cooper make us laugh more than than Nietzsche, Bataille, or Lawrence? But it's not the kind of laughter that they provoke that interests me here.
I don't share your reading of Curb (and to suggest that the fictional Larry David 'borrows' from Basil Fawlty is a misunderstanding of both characters).
Yes: laughing at everything means laughing also at oneself. But that doesn't mean moral confession and washing one's laundry in public.
Finally, re: the PS: what's mystifying about the term inexplicable?
Thanks for your remarks on my remarks, Stephen. Just briefly:
DeleteI realise the historical narrative about Puritanism and enthusiasm has other correlates, but I wasn't interested in those here - I wanted to illustrate how the suppression of enthusiasm can be seen to have 'puritanical' aspects. (Many anti-enthusiast msierabilists have, I find, quite a marked puritanical streak.)
No, it isn't surprising (to me) that Laurel and Cooper should make us laugh more than Nietzsche and Lawrence, which was why I mentioned it. My point, to repeat, is/was that the other writers under discussion, who emphasise comedy/laughter over-heatedly in their thought, usually are not themselves funny. Something to do, one suspects, with taking themselves too damn seriously, and radiating intensity rather than bonhomie.
My reading of CYE is just that - a 'reading', which is all any of us can make. It's 'meaning' is contestable, obviously. To speak of 'misunderstanding' it or Fawlty Towers implies a notion of hermenutic fundamentalism I find odd and ill-fitting to the performance arts generally. The influence of Fawlty on Curb is pretty self-evident to me - here's a link to an interview with Jeff Garlin, who talks about its importance for him, which clearly percolates through the show.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/jun/22/jeff-garlin-curb-your-enthusiasm
The concept of washing 'dirty' laundry in public (as well as why it 'shouldn't' be done) is itself arguably a puritan signpost, where 'dirty' delineates, I think, things which are seen as shameful or taboo (but which, paradoxically, we typically all share). Personally, speaking as one of those of us dedicated to dissolving distinctions between all manner of x and y, I'd suggest the public/private cult has to be the first (or last) fence to fall.
Finally, the concept of inexplicability implies mystification par excellence, I'd have thought. Though I love mystery, is anything 'inexplicable' in the end? It's just a word for what we can't understand, which is wonderful of course - but also (which is not) what we don't want to try to.
Dear Simon,
DeleteIronically, there's nobody more enthusiastic than a puritan; even if they pose as modest and restrained. What is the hysteria that characterised the Salem Witch Trials, for example, if not an expression of religious fervour and enthusiasm? One seeks to curb the latter not in the name of misery, but gay insouciance or happy indifference.
Tommy Cooper doesn't make laugh in the profound sense that Nietzsche makes joyful; he might be a professional entertainer, but the latter is a comedian of the ascetic ideal. The laughter of a studio audience - what Nietzsche would call the laughter of the herd - is as nothing to the laughter that comes from the heights.
As you know, I don't buy into the relativism of all readings being equally valid, legitimate, and worthy of consideration: some are bad readings and some are just wrong; i.e. misreadings whose meaning isn't contestable so much as mistaken. If this makes me a 'hermeneutic fundamentalist' then so be it (though I don't think it does).
If the only piece of evidence you can find linking Curb to Fawlty Towers is an old interview with Jeff Garlin (for a British paper on the eve of a UK performance) in which he claims to love British humour (mentioning not only Fawlty Towers, but also Monty Python and even the Goons), then you don't have a very strong case.
Yes, Garlin in his role as Jeff Greene is central to the show (and yes, he's an executive producer). But it's very much Larry David's baby and Larry is in the tradition of great American Jewish humour (Don Rickles, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, et al).
Also, Curb is very much influenced by the same team of writers, directors, and producers who gave us Seinfeld: Alec Berg, Larry Charles, Jeff Schaffer, et al. To talk about the homeopathic influence of John Cleese on the show might seem 'self-evident' to you, but I don't recognise it.
Good luck with the illiberal insistence on dissolving the public/private distinction - wonder where that will take you and how that will work out?
Right back at you, Stephen! :-)
ReplyDeleteNo, puritans and enthusiasts aren't at all the same, as I understand them - the more gods one connects to, the less 'pure' one is. I've made the best case as I can here, with reference to Shakespeare and the tradition of theatre.
The Salem witch trials are best understood, I'd suggest, as the misogynistic/scapegoating persecution and prosecution of those who put themselves outside the law of Christian men, and consorted with evil. But psychological notions of 'purity' afflict and affect most of us in one way or another.
I'm not sure what the dubious dualism between 'profound' comedy and (by implication) superifical entertainment hangs on (or what is being hung on it) and am surprised to see it employed here to say the least. The trouble with the laughter of the heights, whatever and wherever it was, was Nietzsche essentially talking to an audience of one. If the idea that other people find Laurel and Hardy funny makes them less joyful (or profound), so be it.
I don't think I claimed the contestability of meaning means that all readings of texts are equally valid. There are, for example, 'truer' (or more stirring) interpretations of dreams, for instance, I'd agree. BIt does seem to me strangely authoritarian to speak of 'misunderstanding' the likes of Curb, as if that show were prosecuting some kind of monolithic comedic narrative a priori that a self-selecting minority 'gets'. It would be more surprising if the likes of CYE didn't echo, in some ways, great shows like Fawlty Towers - e.g. through Cleese's exploitation of exaggeration and embarrassment for comedic effect - and Garlin's interview is hardly surprising here. The arts tend to be fairly incestuous. There's be no Larry David without Woody Allen, for example, as you point out.
The notion of 'private' life is, I'd suggest, a mostly inimical (modern) social construction. And I've made my point about the moral puritanism of (not) washing one's dirty linen in public for other readers' consideration, so rest my case here.
"A case that needs to be rested is one reliant upon tired arguments."
ReplyDeleteI think of it as more like just a dignified withdrawal by one who's said all he thinks he needs to. :-)
ReplyDeleteHave you never heard the old showbiz saying: Always leave 'em laughing -? I was trying to finish with a joke, rather than make a dignified exit ...
ReplyDelete