COMEDY

LAUGHTER 131formula of juxtaposition alone were the trigger. As John Lippitt writes,‘even if, in any given example of humour, it is possible to identify anelement of incongruity, it is not necessarily this incongruity itself whichis the predominant reason for amusement. To put all the emphasis on afactor such as incongruity is to stress form or structure at the expense ofcontent’ (Lippitt, 1992:200). Presumably, then, there has to be a reasonwhy some things are funny and others are not, which leads us on toexplanations rooted in culture and the unconscious.RELIEF THEORY: FREUD AND SPENCERThe successor to incongruity theory was in some respects a continuedand internalized version of it. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuryconsiderations of laughter, particularly those of Herbert Spencer andSigmund Freud, saw the triggers of laughter not so much as arecognition of incongruity within scenarios or linguistic formulae, butas a symptom of division and struggle within the self, recognition, as itwere, of incongruous selfhood. This is known as ‘release’ or ‘relief’theory. The impact of Freud’s ‘discovery’ of the unconscious is clearlyof great relevance to an understanding of the process that recognizesconflicted impulses within subjectivity as a cause of laughter. From thisprinciple, Freud theorized that humour works because it appeals tounconscious thoughts that remain largely hidden in the majority of oursocial interactions. This would explain the concept of a relative andindividuated ‘sense of humour’ not shared by all, as individual psychesare wont to find different topics or ideas humorously appealing based onthe different experiences that have helped to shape them.The mechanics of Freud’s theory of laughter are not entirely his, butrather based in part on the work of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), thefather of evolutionary philosophy. Spencer attributed laughter to aphysiological cause, proposing the flow of ‘nerve force’, internal energythat is generated by cerebral activity and which circulates in the bodyuntil it is discharged by muscular action, such as conversation, orrespiration. On occasion, nervous energy will be displaced from itsproper outlet and redirect itself in short bursts of activity such as heavybreathing, jumping up and down, or rubbing one’s hands with glee.Laughter, like released steam pressure, is a manifestation of the internalredirection of nervous energy. This was not an entirely new idea. Theanonymous author of An Essay on Laughter (1769) describes thephysiological effect as a #8216;laughter-struggle’ (Anon., 1769:75), aninternal battle between the mind and the muscles. Spencer holds that