Theory of Humor Series, part 13, The Sociologists Had it Right

This series of blog posts began as an analysis of the comic quality of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy), by John Kennedy Toole. After about ten posts, I had only just laid out the theory of humor I am using to frame the analysis. In early 2018, I was invited to write a book chapter on Toole and Confederacy, so now I will only use this series of blog posts to more fully articulate that theory of humor.

I had been pacing myself at one posting per month, because I was running low on ideas about Confederacy of Dunces, but now that I am looking at all of humor, the entries have been piling up.

In my intense research leading up to my book chapter, I have stumbled across the research programme of the sociological analysis of humor. I believe that I need to modify my theory of humor (and the more I investigate, it has turned into my own theory of humor).

I found this sociological programme through this article: Weisfeld, Glenn. (1993). "The adaptive value of humor and laughter." Ethology and sociobiology 14 (2): 141-169. I read it because of the evolutionary angle. Weisfeld reflexively dismissed group selection citing the old canard of Williams, 1966. So I disagree with his evolutionary assessment. But then Weisfeld helpfully pointed to Fine's paper from 1983 and Martineau's paper from 1972. See citations below.

Fine and Martineau have opened up for me a world of studying the social functions of humor. The research programme has stretched back to the 1940s. Their work has caused me to reevaluate my theory of humor, broadening the "disparagement aspect" into a general "employment of humor for social ends."

The problem I see with the sociological programme is that the various researchers have mixed the interpersonal and small group social functions with the social functions operating at the scale of a mass industrial society. The reason that is important is because humor and laughter as instincts evolved in small groups. By focusing largely on ethnic groups and class conflict in large societies, the programme obscures the fact that the social functions of humor are part of the core of humor. That allows researchers, such as Hurley, Dennett, and Adams (see Part 14 of this series), to argue that the evolutionary origin of humor comes from the solitary functioning of the isolated brain.

I would write more, but I am just embarking on the exploration of this body of work.

Martineau, W. H. A model of the social functions of humor. In J. H. Goldstein & P. E. McGhee (Eds.), The psychology of humor. New York: Academic Press, 1972.

Fine. G.A. Sociological approaches to the study of humor. In Handbook of Humor Research, P.E. McGhee and J.H. Goldstein (Ed). New York: Springer-Verlag. 1983, Vol. 1, pp. 159-181.

NOTE from June 30th: In looking back over my notes, I see that a book I have been heavily influenced by, Michael Mulkay's On Humor (Basil Blackwell, 1988), bills itself a sociological study of humor. So my discovery of the sociological school is a bit backwards. I started in the sociological school. My bad.