INTERPRETACIÓN DE LOS DATOS

Up to this point the notion that humour can have a distinct function has been taken for granted while the thesis has outlined and examined the account Bergson gives o f this function. Underlying Bergson's notion of function is a corresponding notion that jokes necessarily have a butt. If, however, it is not necessary for a joke to have a definitive butt, or point, then it would seems less plausible for Bergson to hold that humour does have a distinct function, attempting to remove rigidity and inattention to life.

The thesis will now examine this line o f argument and question whether there 1. must be a single point to a joke, and 2. understanding this point is necessary if an individual is to know what they are laughing at. The thesis will now take an example to see if there can be multiple points to a joke.

Consider the story o f an American business man who offered the Pope a million dollars if he would substitute the phrase 'Shell Oil' for 'Amen' in all Catholic services ...if anyone is criticised in the story, it is the business man who is unable to see the difference between his sordid sphere of activity and the rarefied atmosphere in which the church operates. (AoL, p. 243)

Who is the butt o f this joke? Monro thinks it is the business man because he is trying to apply the logic o f his sphere o f activity to another one where it does not fit. So it is the businessman who is being criticised, shown to "have no values." It could of course be "Americans" who are being criticised, as they have such a crass way o f dealing with the world, thinking that they can just buy anything, as opposed to, perhaps, other businessmen. Alternatively, the same kind o f accusation could be being

levelled at oil companies, American oil companies, or Shell Oil. All these might be the butt o f the joke, but what about the church? Perhaps the joke is a critique o f the church, the Catholic church specifically, the current Pope o f the Catholic church, or the current Catholic service as in each case it could be an attack on that aspect o f the church, or the church as a whole, for its commercialism. Monro makes this point more forcibly with regard to Mr. Pickwick, (although he does not seem to realise it applies to this example) when he asks if individuals are laughing at the incongruity o f the individual (Mr. Pickwick) or what the individual is part of. (AoL, p. 99) The point is that even if there was the possibility o f picking out an individual who is apparently being criticised, it is in no way certain that the individual in question is the butt o f the joke as he may be being criticised only as a representative of a particular system. There is thus a question o f the level o f generality at which a joke is working, narrowing from the church to the individual Pope each being an engagement on a particular level with qualitatively different attention. The question though is which o f these levels should the joke be engaged upon.

Perhaps, although there can be multiple possible butts to a joke, the intention o f the teller, or the circumstance in which the joke occurs defines the specific butt from several possible ones. Turning to the question o f intention first, it can be asked whether it would be wrong to laugh at someone reporting the story to us if they did not intend it to be amusing. Whether someone intended a story to be amusing or not would seem irrelevant to its actual amusingness. Granted there might be circumstances where it was wrong to laugh, for social or cultural reasons,

but this would be a mere suppression o f amusement. What if the intention o f an individual when telling the 'Pope Joke' was to criticise the Pope and the individual being told the joke took the butt instead to be American business men? Would the laughter then be incorrect? What would 'incorrect' mean in this situation? The intention appears irrelevant. But surely there must be a notion o f missing the point of a joke. The thesis does not deny this as a possibility. What is important to note here is that missing the point o f a joke is to misinterpret the basic information which the joke provides - which would include not noticing a double meaning or pun, which would be seen on one level but not another. In the case o f the 'Pope joke' the information can be understood perfectly and yet yield, as has been shown, several interpretations. Thus on the one hand there are several interpretations relating to several levels which are all equally appropriate from the information which is given by the joke, and on the other, there is the possibility o f misunderstanding the basic information given by the joke.

Having dealt with the intention o f the teller, would the context necessarily limit the meaning of a joke? Certainly, if the 'Pope joke' was told in an environment which was anti-American, the joke's butt might well be interpreted as Americans. It might even be said that in such an environment taking the butt to be anything other than Americans would be a mistake. This thesis can quite happily accept this conclusion, because it would not prevent the other meanings being present. The environment might change the interpretation, but not the possible butts o f the joke, although this might suggest the butts were virtually present as tendencies. However not only can other environments give different

butts, which would be correct for that environment, the individual corresponding to the correct level, but also that there are environments or contexts which do not necessarily identify any particular butt to a joke. From this argument it follows that there is no necessary point to a joke, if, as is the case with the 'Pope joke' there are multiple butts, each of which in turn has a different point connected to it and a different level of possible attention.

In reply to the above, Bergson might have argued that the very fact one cannot give a definitive butt to the 'Pope joke' does not detract from the fact that there is rigidity in trying to impose the categories appropriate to one sphere o f activity onto another i.e. the inattention is a question of operating on the wrong level. However this Bergsonian line o f argument would have to, if it were to be effective, decide who was being criticised if laughter was to indicate the inattention to be removed, yet the possibility o f multiple butts would prevent this in certain environments. Bergson also cannot maintain that it is rigid thought which is being criticised as it is uncertain whose thought would be the object o f such a critique - which sphere placed in which.

There is a more general point which is sometimes made with regard to humour. If jokes do, o f necessity, communicate something, why are jokes left unamusing when they are analysed to explain their communicative point, if the point is in fact the amusing element? It could be argued that the presentation o f a point is as important as the point itself, so merely explaining or directly presenting the point would not be amusing. The other alternative is that in some jo k es it is the very ambiguity which is the

point and an explanation which resolves this ambiguity also destroys the joke.

Expanding the logic o f the latter position further. Swabey thinks that individuals must know what they are laughing at for that laughter to be comic (as opposed to merely mad, say). (Swabey, p. 3) This thesis, on the other hand, wishes to extend the current argument and maintain that amusement at something does not necessarily guarantee knowledge of a reason for laughter. If an individual senses that there is something incongruous in a situation, this can be enough without the necessity of further explanation to provide a reason for this laughter. 'G. E. Moore doing philosophy is like a man dancing in treacle' (H&I, p. 26) seems amusing without any need to move beyond the incongruity o f the statement itself: to say exactly what is incongruous about it.43 It is not always necessary for an individual to know why they are laughing in order for that laughter to be comic.

Certainly in talk about the comic there is the presumption that there is often a point to particular jokes, that something is being communicated. Swabey, as has already been detailed, claims that jokes must always have direction, import, gist etc. (Swabey, p. 16) This process of'getting a joke' presumes that in laughter individuals must know what they are laughing at, must know what is incongruous, say, in the joke. If "... you do not know what you are laughing at your laughter fails to be comic. Without

43 Clark interestingly thinks this example points to a deeper congruity, (HLST, p. 243) but fails to spell out exactly what this congruity might be.

penetration o f a confused state o f affairs and its transcendence, there is no relish o f the ludicrous." (Swabey, p. 3) What the thesis wishes to claim, however, is not that individuals are laughing at nothing, the claim is instead that amusement at something does not necessarily guarantee knowledge o f the reason for laughter, that is what makes something, for example incongruous. But in each o f the cases it is still the inattention, the placing o f things on the wrong level, which is at stake, so in this sense Bergson's account is still tenable - it is just that the corrective function appears to have been lost.