Humor

In ancient times, humor or comic was strictly censored. In places like Greece and Egypt, jokes were even forbidden in social situations. Considering the almost taboo nature of humor, it's hardly surprising that humor never received particular attention from ancient scholars. Plato was averse to humor as jokes and sarcasm weren't encouraged and men and women were anticipated to be serious as opposed to frivolous about all issues. Some ancient scholars went along to the extent to argue that humor could result in sarcasm, disrespect, vulgar or volatile discourse and finally anger, resentment and even murder. Top Trending Stories from Lifestyle

Regardless of this there are several interesting anecdotal evidence that humor was used as a means to express wit and learning. Consider French writer Voltaire or even in relatively modem times Oscar Wilde and his extremely witty characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray. These writers used wit and humor to influence people, to stir emotions in their readers and their conversing abilities were fresh and exciting. Humor typically has an element of shock and awe and readers or listeners are shaken beyond their limits of self-control to burst into laughter. Uncontrollable laughter as related to humor was from the strict moral laws of Plato. Even Aristotle seemed to think in a few restrictions on humorous conversation. Humor was suitable for a clown in restricted scenarios and serious self-respecting men and women did not engage in buffoonery.

In a way humor is like alcohol or an addictive substance. It enables you to lose your self-control. Plato argued that humor can result in violent reactions and laughter often results in a lack of self-control. Maybe, this perceived danger of humor, the fact humor could make people a slave with their emotions is among reasons why humor has been so tightly controlled and censored by ancient scholars. Moreover the typical belief was that humor could result in jokes about serious issues as people might not manage to draw the line regarding where they need to stop joking and become serious. Top Trending Stories from Lifestyle by Blindchase.com

A recent example of humor gone bad could be the case of Charlie Hebdo. The magazine has been under repeated attacks as their humorous cartoons on Prophet Muhammad and on the aftermath of Italian earthquake were considered in bad taste and insensitive. The idea of humor has been anthropologically tied to aggressive and mocking behavior of apes. However historically humor has been linked with a form of play so humor is primarily put on situations which are comic. However, laughter has often been associated with scorn, mockery and sarcasm.

Philosophically, humor has been explained with the superiority theory, the relief and incongruity theory. Superiority theory shows that humor and ridicule are often used against an adversary as by joking about someone, we establish our superiority. This theory shows that laughter helps us to determine superiority. The Relief theory shows that humor is a form of relief of the nervous system and laughter acts as a valve and helps in relieving the pent-up nervous energy. click it