{"id":2121,"date":"2014-01-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wptest\/2023\/09\/06\/a-philosophical-discussion-of-comedy-and-laughter-and-an-analysis-of-the-potential-benefits-they-offer-society\/"},"modified":"2014-01-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T00:00:00","slug":"a-philosophical-discussion-of-comedy-and-laughter-and-an-analysis-of-the-potential-benefits-they-offer-society-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/2014\/01\/12\/a-philosophical-discussion-of-comedy-and-laughter-and-an-analysis-of-the-potential-benefits-they-offer-society-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Philosophical Discussion of Comedy and Laughter and an Analysis of the Potential Benefits They Offer Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thesis: Absolute freedom of comic expression is a prerequisite for a fair and functional society and can provide a form of abstract social mobility. Some forms of comic performances can be considered artistic.<\/p>\n<p>Objective: To explain the philosophical theories concerning why we laugh, to demonstrate these theories through contemporary and historical comedy, and to determine the extent at which comedy is relevant today.<\/p>\n<p>The Superiority Theory: Do we enjoy laughter because we enjoy the suffering of others? Is it just a method for self-elevation? Plato, Hobbes, and Descartes think so. <\/p>\n<p>The Relief Theory: \u2018laughter does in the nervous system what a pressure-relief valve does in a steam boiler.\u2019 Nervous energy from insecurities can be released through laughter, according to Freud and Spencer. <\/p>\n<p>The Incongruity Theory: When something seems out of the ordinary, or incongruous, we laugh. Aristotle, Kant and Kierkegaard agreed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hew Rous-Eyre, 2014, Stage 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,22,123],"tags":[224,68,32],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-201","category-abstracts","category-stage-3-abstracts","tag-comedy","tag-descartes","tag-freud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}