The Philosophy of Comedy | Henri Bergson

Nowadays, most people are unfamiliar with the French philosopher Henri Bergson, unless they are French or have some interest in continental philosophy. However, back in the early 20th century, it's hard to overstate just how famous Bergson was. He was more than an intellectual celebrity; he was an intellectual superstar, known internationally and even among the non-philosophically educated public. His lectures were at full capacity, and he met U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. He worked with the League of Nations and won a Nobel Prize for Literature.

And it is said that when he came to give a lecture in New York, it caused the very first traffic jam on Broadway. He had his own fans who would send him fan mail and obsess over him to the point of finding out where he lived and going to his home. It's even rumored that he had fans who tried to collect locks of his hair—a difficult task. Nevertheless, his fame was quite incredible, especially for a philosopher. One of the reasons he was well-liked by much of the public was his sense of humor. He went as far as writing a systematic philosophical analysis of laughter and comedy, which is quite a unique book, as there are very few influential works on comedy in the history of Western philosophy. After all, it's a challenging subject to philosophize about, because the variety of things we laugh at seems so broad and random that creating a single coherent theory behind it appears almost impossible.

Bergson's attempt is really remarkable because the basic framework with which he views comedy is deceptively simple, and yet he gets so much mileage out of it, covering such a wide range of different kinds of comedy in ways that are still applicable today. This book on laughter is probably the most systematic work on comedy in the canon of Western philosophy, and I think you will find it as interesting as I did because we all laugh and yet almost never reflect on why something made us laugh. Before presenting his view of what the core of comedy is, Bergson sets up the discussion by laying down three general principles of it. First, he says that not only are humans the only creatures who laugh, but also that only humans provide material for laughter. We don't typically find natural phenomena funny, for instance.

In most cases, we laugh at human behavior, things human beings say, or things made by humans. The obvious counterexample is animals, which we laugh at all the time. However, Berkson argues that even when we laugh at something an animal does, it is only because we perceive some human quality in them. Secondly, Berkson contends that comedy is based more on intellect than on emotion, because emotional investment tends to make things less funny. For example, if a person trips and falls in a funny way, you are less likely to find it funny if you primarily feel pity for them.

Or, if someone makes a joke at your expense, you're unlikely to laugh if it made you angry. Comedy must thus be, to an extent, emotionally detached. This would also explain why things that aren't funny in the moment can often become funny in retrospect, precisely when you're less emotionally invested in the scenario. Third, Bergson says that laughter is fundamentally social, and this seems intuitively right.

We are much more likely to laugh in groups than when we are alone. This is the psychology behind sitcom laugh tracks, which are designed to make you feel, even if not very successfully, like you're laughing with others, even if you're watching TV alone. So, laughter is human, intellectual, and social. This sets up the analysis, but it doesn't yet tell us anything about what makes things funny to us. To understand Bergson's approach to comedy, we need to start with the metaphysics it’s based on, namely the distinction between mere matter on the one hand and life on the other—two tendencies that are constantly interacting, with life appearing to predominate in some phenomena and mere matter in others.

It is associated with mechanism, inertia, repetition, and stagnation, whereas life is associated with the organic, change, creativity, and adaptability. These dual tendencies appear in everything from nature to human beings to entire societies. For Bergson, comedy, at its core, is explained by this distinction. Namely, comedy is derived from situations in which we should find life; instead, we find mere matter. Where we should find organic development, we find mere mechanism.

This might sound very strange for now, so let's take one of Bergson's first examples, the eternal classic of comedy: a person falling. Quote: "A man running along the street stumbles and falls. The passers-by burst out laughing. It is not his sudden change of attitude that raises a laugh, but rather the involuntary element in his clumsiness. In fact, perhaps there was a stone on the road he should have avoided or altered his pace for. Instead, through a lack of elasticity, absent-mindedness, and a kind of physical obstinacy—resulting from rigidity or momentum—the muscles continue to perform the same movement when the circumstances of the case called for something else." Bergson describes the man falling as momentarily appearing as a kind of automaton, an object.

If, in this man, life was the unchallenged guiding force, he would exhibit a kind of organic elasticity and adaptability, changing his movements to avoid tripping on the rock as circumstances require. However, the man, through absent-mindedness, continued the same movement even when a change was necessary. This is precisely what makes the absent-minded man similar to a mechanism. He keeps repeating a motion even when it is no longer warranted, much like a humanoid robot that only has one way of moving its legs. This distinction between life and mere matter lies in the capacity to change and adapt to environmental changes. The turning of life into an object is at the core of comedy.

So far, you're probably not convinced, because obviously, people falling down or tripping is not the only thing we laugh at. This explanation might seem quite limited right now, but Bergson actually uses it to explain a whole range of comic phenomena. After all, another central element of comedy is repetition, and repetition is precisely what the mechanism is characterized by, in contrast to life, which is characterized by change and development. Repetition is the principle behind why we sometimes find look-alikes funny, for instance. Bergson writes, "Analyze the impression you get from two faces that are too much alike, and you will find that you are thinking of two copies cast in the same mold, in a word, of some manufacturing process or other. This deflection of life towards the mechanical is here the real cause of laughter."

And comic repetition can be not only visual repetition but also the repetition of sound or the repetition of a person's movements. I'm reminded of the old comedy sketch "Dinner for One," which I never found particularly funny, but my dad loses his mind laughing every time he sees it. He laughs harder each time the butler trips over the carpet tiger's head. This is an example of clumsy absent-mindedness, the incapacity of the butler to adapt his walk to the carpet, amplified by repetition. Repetition can also take the form of a habit that has become so ingrained that it functions like a machine. For example, in Charlie Chaplin's movie "Modern Times," the industrial worker uses a wrench on the production line so repetitively that he can't stop turning things with it, regardless of how the circumstances change, to the point of using it on a person's face.

Bergson also brings attention to how, when we watch a person speaking, if we notice a certain mannerism or gesture that they unintentionally repeat again and again, it starts becoming funny. This is precisely because this repetition resembles a mechanism, making the person appear as an automaton repeating a certain predetermined movement. Impersonations of people are funny precisely because they highlight these repetitions. Anyone who does an impersonation of Žižek will, of course, keep sniffling, touching their nose, and pulling on their shirt. None of these gestures are funny on their own, but it's the repetition that, by resembling a mechanism, makes them funny. The mannerisms resemble unconscious matter, as they result from a certain kind of absent-mindedness, just like a man tripping and falling.

As Birkson writes, "I find that a certain movement of head or arm, a movement always the same, seems to return at regular intervals. If I notice it and it succeeds in diverting my attention, if I wait for it to occur and it occurs when I expect it, then, involuntarily, I laugh. Why? Because I have now before me a machine that works automatically. This is no longer life; it is automatism established in life and imitating it."

It belongs to the comic. This is also the reason why gestures, which we would never dream of laughing at, become laughable when imitated by another individual. So, one of the laws of comedy that Bergson announces is that the attitudes, gestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion to how much that body reminds us of a mere machine. Furthermore, this explains one of the oldest and most widespread subjects of comedy: bodily functions. This, Bergson says, is especially humorous when our attention is abruptly shifted from conscious life to the unconscious body.

Imagine, for instance, a person giving a serious speech, and unintentionally, in the middle of it, they fart, or their stomach makes a loud noise. People find these kinds of situations funny, Bergson argues, precisely because we are suddenly taken away from the person's intentional, conscious speech down to the unconscious matter of bodily functions, from life to mere matter. Recently, I saw a Twitter thread of funny movie and TV show scenes that use dummies as a substitute for a person's body, which people tend to find really funny. It's a perfect illustration of Bergson's theory. We find it funny precisely because of the way a living person is momentarily turned into a mere object.

And then Bergson talks about caricatures. A caricature is kind of like an exaggeration of the materiality of a person's face. You take the physical features that define the person and push them to their limits, so to speak. The result is a depiction of what the face would look like if the rigid matter completely took over. As Bergson puts it, by finding and exaggerating the face's natural tendencies, beneath the skin-deep harmony of form, the caricaturist reveals the deep-seated recalcitrance of matter.

Comedic clothes also function through the interplay between life and matter, or the rigid and the organic. What we often find humorous in clothing is the phenomenon of rigid matter unsuccessfully attempting to follow the supple movements of a living body. Berkson writes that, "In every human form, our imagination sees the effort of a soul which is shaping matter, a soul which is infinitely supple and perpetually in motion. This soul imparts a portion of its winged lightness to the body it animates. The immateriality which thus passes into matter is what is called gracefulness."

Matter, however, is obstinate and resists. Where matter succeeds in dulling the outward life of the soul, petrifying its movements, and thwarting its gracefulness, it achieves, at the expense of the body, an effect that is comic. Comic movement is therefore also described by Berkson as the opposite of gracefulness. So far, we've been discussing physically based comedy, but Berkson's application of the theory does not end there. He also spends a lot of time talking about comedic characters. First of all, these characters are typically characterized by absent-mindedness, much like the person who falls over. In order for us to find a person ridiculous in a laughable way, they must be unaware of their own ridiculousness; if they were aware of it, they would try to change it or, at the very least, to hide it.

Berkson writes that, "A comic character is generally comic in proportion to his ignorance of himself. The comic person is unconscious. Homer Simpson, for instance, is funny in part because he's unaware of the things that make him funny. And this lack of self-consciousness, this absent-mindedness, is a defect of life. That's why ignorance is such a common characteristic of a comic character."

Another common feature of a comic character is stubbornness. And what is stubbornness if not precisely that resistance to change that characterizes matter? A stubborn character will repeatedly behave in a particular way, even when the changing circumstances no longer call for it. In this case, it is not their physical movement that resembles an automaton, but their personality. Secondly, comic characters tend to be relatively simple and less prone to character development than dramatic characters.

Instead, they are typically manifestations of a type. Comic characters are typical, and these features make them appear less like organic life and more like mechanisms. Like machines, comic characters tend to repeat, almost as if they are mass-produced. Because of this, Bergson states that comedy is diametrically opposed to tragedy, which focuses more on exploring inner life. A good tragic character is precisely not typical.

A tragic character is unique, complex, and prone to development. In other words, they exemplify life. In tragedy, if a main character appears typical, we consider them poorly written. In comedy, on the other hand, comic characters are meant to be manifestations of a type, which is why character tropes are much more permissible in comedy than in drama. This also relates to the principle that comedy is emotionally detached.

A tragic character has a very active and unique inner life, and it is this inner life that makes us feel for them. With the comic character, it's the opposite, as we are less likely to laugh at a character if they express their feelings too strongly. Another way of putting this is that tragedy is about inner life, whereas comedy is about external appearances. That's why Bergson argues that, for a dramatic or tragic writer, self-reflection and introspection are the most important talents, whereas for a comic writer, observation is much more important, which makes sense when we think of the phenomenon of observational comedy. Such comedy functions not so much by revealing something unknown but by making us alert and bringing our attention to something that was unconscious or unintentional.

Concerning comedic types, think of all the memes about Drake that say, "Drake is the type of guy to do X, Y, and Z." They're funny precisely because they refer to a certain type of guy. It reduces Drake, a particular individual, to a certain type that we all recognize and that we see repeated in innumerable cases. This also applies to the current-day usage of Wojaks. A Wojak does not refer to a particular individual, but to a type of person.

And that's what makes them work as comedic means. Comic characters are not defined by what makes them unique, but by what makes them typical. They, too, fall under the broad comedic category of repetition. That's also why impersonation is inherently comic. This applies to real life as well.

If you see someone wearing the cargo shorts and Zelda shirt combo, you might find it funny because it refers to such a particular type of person—one that you've seen before. It's as if a person who should be a unique individual appears in a predetermined mold, as if they were mass-produced. That's also why cultural stereotypes are such a common subject of comedy. Comedy also extends by association, so in addition to the mechanization of the individual's personality, it extends to the mechanization of society as a whole, and even the mechanization of nature. Think of The Flintstones, for instance.

Bergson also doesn't forget forms of comedy based on language, such as puns and wordplay. He views this type of comedy with the same analytical approach. He sees this kind of humor as playing around with language as if it were a mechanism. In its living form, language is used to communicate or express something. However, wordplay takes advantage of what is unintentional in language—its materiality. In other words, it treats words like mere objects.

Hence, Bergson formulates this law of language-based comedy: a comic effect is obtained whenever we pretend to take literally an expression that was used figuratively. Once our attention is fixed on the material aspect of a metaphor, the idea expressed becomes comic. I think this is perfectly illustrated by this scene: "You're in big trouble, though, pal."

I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast. You eat pieces of shit for breakfast? No! So, Berkson's general method of identifying what makes for comic material is to begin by analyzing the characteristics we associate with life, and then deriving the opposites of these characteristics. Whenever life exhibits these opposites, it makes for comic material.

Life exhibits change and development, so when it instead appears as stagnation, inertia, or repetition, it becomes comic. Life exhibits gracefulness, so when it appears as rigidity or clumsiness, it also becomes comic. Life exhibits consciousness and intention, so when it appears as absent-mindedness and accident, it too becomes comic. As an evolutionarily minded thinker, Bergson believes that laughter and comedy must have developed because they serve some purpose or function. After all, laughter appears in all human cultures.

And the purpose it serves, for Bergson, is also tied to the distinction between life and matter. He argues that the central purpose of laughter is precisely to combat absent-mindedness, almost as if by laughing at a person, we awaken life where previously matter was predominant. By laughing, we call attention to the absent-mindedness that led the clumsy person to trip and fall, for instance, and thereby motivate them to be more attentive and mindful when they continue walking down the street. The way Bergson puts it, comedy happens when life forgets itself, and the purpose of laughter is therefore to wake it up again. It's because of this main purpose that laughter is inherently social and concerns mainly what is human.

This applies also to the comic aspects of a person's personality. By laughing at a person for being ridiculous due to their ignorance, stubbornness, or vanity, we bring attention to these traits, making them aware of them and thereby motivating people to change. Society is a complicated entity, and for it to function well and harmoniously, members of society need to be alert, mindful, and capable of adapting themselves to their surroundings and to other people. Because of this, society is generally suspicious of that which is too rigid, and Burkson sees laughter as the means by which society combats such rigidity. I expect that many will be suspicious of this explanation, as it takes a very small step to use this rationale to justify bullying and humiliation. However, Burkson definitely acknowledges that laughter isn't always beneficial and can be callous and even cruel.

The waking up of life is only its general purpose, its reason for existing. Laughter isn't always beneficial; it can be callous and even cruel. Definitely, not all instances of laughter serve that purpose. Bergson also recognizes that comedy is, to some extent, culturally contingent, and its details are shaped largely by our culture and socialization. Certain things become funny, not because they are inherently humorous, but because we learn to associate them with something humorous.

Then they become indirectly humorous. Inversely, there are things that were previously humorous, which, by learning to associate them with serious matters, we stop finding funny. Bergson's view is that although the core of what constitutes the comic is universal, its shape can be extended or contracted by social factors. It's clear when reading this book that Bergson has an early 1900s sense of humor, as seen in his examples, such as a man being shot out of a cannon or clowns bumping into each other at the circus.

And yet, his analysis is still widely applicable to the things we laugh at today. I don't doubt that you can come up with a bunch of examples that aren't satisfyingly explained by Bergson's theory. Regardless, this book is an impressive work, given how systematic and coherent it is when treating such a multifaceted topic. I haven't even touched on his discussion of comedy's relation to children's toys or dream logic, or his beautiful analysis of art as a whole. Even if you disagree with Bergson's approach, reading this book provides a great opportunity to reflect on why we laugh at certain things.

It's not a very long book, and as far as 20th-century French philosophy goes, it's written very clearly, with vivid language and plenty of examples for illustration. So, for anyone who is interested in comedy enough to reflect on it, there's no excuse not to read it. We can end the video with this quote, which summarizes the relationship between life and comedy: "Were events unceasingly mindful of their own course, there would be no coincidences, no conjunctures, and no circular series."

Everything would evolve and progress continuously. If all men were always attentive to life and if we were constantly in touch with others as well as with ourselves, nothing within us would ever appear to be the result of the workings of strings or springs. The comic is the sight of a person that reveals their likeness to a thing. That aspect of human events, which, through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, automatism, and movement without life, expresses individual or collective imperfection that calls for an immediate corrective.

This corrective is laughter, a social gesture that singles out and represses a special kind of absent-mindedness in men and in events. And now I'd like to thank my patrons, who support me so gracefully and mindfully that they are never laughable: 404 Error, Just Undo It, Andre Oliva, Beetle Scratches, Ben E., Blue Blue Blue, Celsius Enjoyer, Circadia, Confirmatio Namai Matthew Dominic, Daniel Swing, Daniel Zotner, Drain Gang, Evie Rosk, Eric Owens, Felon Mask, Florida Sucks, Francois Yue Wu, Harbin Moths, Hong Kong Aesthetic, Ian Fowler, John Dipagani, Katy Perry is JonBenét Ramsey, Kelly Huyskamp, Clemen Feiss, M. Lim, Marius Labontiu, Max Bendik, Max Murphy, Najib Safiaddin, Nathaniel Lark, Nathaniel Owen, Obaminards, Paul Winfer, PDXJ Morris, Polcat, Post Elvis, Procyon, Rachel Ann, Radical Q, Sky, Stax Myrner, Vigtor Redko, Bao Tzu-Yi, Yesterday's Rice, and Yang Hwang-Gwa, as well as all of these wonderful patrons. This video topic was voted for by my patrons, and if you support me on Patreon, you will be able to participate in deciding what the next video will be about, as well as receiving access to video scripts, occasional supplementary notes, and reading material.

Bergson's "On Laughter" has been one of the most enjoyable works of philosophy I've read for this channel, so I highly recommend it to everyone. Some might be disappointed that I didn't discuss Bergson's philosophy more generally, but I may create another video on him in the future, as I find his philosophy of time and memory to be fascinating. It's simply harder to create a video about that topic. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you're having a good day. Thank you.