"You really had to be there" - the explanation when the funny line or event doesn't sound funny when related. You had to be there for all the contextual cues and shared understanding - the extreme case being the "private joke" only open to a few initiates.
Can we have a "private joke argument" that there cannot be humour that only one person appreciates? Is the last sentence an example?
Public jokes are private jokes whose shared base of understanding is so wide we just presume anyone outside is "humourless". Perhaps this may be useful analogy with ethical understanding. Crispin Wright wrote somewhere (I think it's in "Truth And Objectivity") that some arguments for "moral realism" can also be run equally well for "comic realism", which nobody advocates. Maybe the lesson is: things are *really* good or bad in the same sense they are *really* funny or not: we are entitled to a human-centred reality, which is not the atoms&void reality of physicalism.
A few weeks ago I saw a particular musical group playing in their usual amateurish style. The lead singer made lots of comments about lack of rehearsal, technical glitches etc. He got a big laugh for the line "If you were watching Bruce Springsteen... you'd be having a bloody good time!" What started as a line defiant proclaiming the authenticity and superiority of indie music, flips over to the opposite. And we all laughed. An outsider would wonder "what's funny, why is all this lack of professionalism so pleasing if you're paying for it?" Well... it is... but it wouldn't be if we didn't know the score already.
There's a little video that pops up on social media with a person showing an orangutang a simple sleight of hand trick (the object is mysteriously gone). The orangutang stares for second, befuddled and then explodes in knee slapping laughter. Compare with a similar setup but with a human victim of a 3-card monte scam...
"You really had to be there" - the explanation when the funny line or event doesn't sound funny when related. You had to be there for all the contextual cues and shared understanding - the extreme case being the "private joke" only open to a few initiates.
Can we have a "private joke argument" that there cannot be humour that only one person appreciates? Is the last sentence an example?
Public jokes are private jokes whose shared base of understanding is so wide we just presume anyone outside is "humourless". Perhaps this may be useful analogy with ethical understanding. Crispin Wright wrote somewhere (I think it's in "Truth And Objectivity") that some arguments for "moral realism" can also be run equally well for "comic realism", which nobody advocates. Maybe the lesson is: things are *really* good or bad in the same sense they are *really* funny or not: we are entitled to a human-centred reality, which is not the atoms&void reality of physicalism.
A few weeks ago I saw a particular musical group playing in their usual amateurish style. The lead singer made lots of comments about lack of rehearsal, technical glitches etc. He got a big laugh for the line "If you were watching Bruce Springsteen... you'd be having a bloody good time!" What started as a line defiant proclaiming the authenticity and superiority of indie music, flips over to the opposite. And we all laughed. An outsider would wonder "what's funny, why is all this lack of professionalism so pleasing if you're paying for it?" Well... it is... but it wouldn't be if we didn't know the score already.
I think you’re right about incongruity. But then the interesting question isn’t why we laugh but why we ever stop laughing.
Right! This is where Steve Martin's theory points, as well: comic incongruity is everywhere, even in its seeming absence, if only we look for it.
There's a little video that pops up on social media with a person showing an orangutang a simple sleight of hand trick (the object is mysteriously gone). The orangutang stares for second, befuddled and then explodes in knee slapping laughter. Compare with a similar setup but with a human victim of a 3-card monte scam...