wit-technique, namely, that absurdity in wit frequently stands for
derision and criticism in the thought behind the witticism, wherein the
wit-work follows the dream-work. This state of affairs, we find, is here
once more confirmed. That the derision and criticism are not aimed at
the agent, who appears in the former examples only as the whipping boy
of the joke, is shown by another series in which the agent, on the
contrary, is pictured as a superior person whose dialectics are a match
for any difficulty. They are stories whose façades are logical instead
of comical—they are sophistic thought-witticisms. In one of them (p. 83)
the agent knows how to circumvent the limping of the bride by stating
that in her case it is at least “a finished job”; another woman with
straight limbs would be in constant danger of falling and breaking a
leg, which would be followed by sickness, pains, and doctor’s fees—all
of which can be avoided by marrying the one already limping. Again in
another example (p. 81) the agent is clever enough to refute by good
arguments each of the whole series of the suitor’s objections against
the bride; only to the last, which cannot be glossed over, he rejoins,
“Do you expect her to have no blemishes at all?” as if the other
objections had not left behind an important remnant. It is not difficult
to pick out the weak points of the arguments in both examples, a thing
which we have done during the investigation of the technique. But now
something else interests us. If the agent’s speech is endowed with such
a strong semblance of logic, which on more careful examination proves to
be merely a semblance, then the truth must be lurking in the fact that
the witticism adjudges the agent to be right. The thought does not dare
to admit that he is right in all seriousness, and replaces it by the
semblance which the wit brings forth; but here, as it often happens, the
jest betrays the seriousness of it. We shall not err if we assume that
all stories with logical façades really mean what they assert even if
these assertions are deliberately falsely motivated. Only this use of
sophism for the veiled presentation of the truth endows it with the
character of wit, which is mainly dependent upon tendency. What these
two stories wish to indicate is that the suitor really makes himself
ridiculous when he collects together so sedulously the individual charms
of the bride which are transient after all, and when he forgets at the
same time that he must be prepared to take as his wife a human being
with inevitable faults; whereas, the only virtue which might make
tolerable marriage with the more or less imperfect personality of the
woman,—mutual attachment and willingness for affectionate adaptation,—is
not once mentioned in the whole affair.
Ridicule of the suitor as seen in these examples in which the agent
quite correctly assumes the rôle of superiority, is much more clearly
depicted in other examples. The more pointed the stories, the less
wit-technique they contain; they are, as it were, merely border-line
cases of wit with whose technique they have only the façade-formation in
common. However, in view of the same tendency and the concealment of the
same behind the façade, they obtain the full effect of wit. The poverty
of technical means makes it clear also that many witticisms of that kind
cannot dispense with the comic element of jargon which acts similarly to
wit-technique without great sacrifices.
The following is such a story, which with all the force of tendency-wit
obviates all traces of that technique. _The agent asks: “What are you
looking for in your bride?” The reply is: “She must be pretty, she must
be rich, and she must be cultured.” “Very well,” was the agent’s
rejoinder. “But what you want will make three matches.”_ Here the
reproach is no longer embodied in wit, but is made directly to the man.
In all the preceding examples the veiled aggression was still directed
against persons; in the marriage-agent jokes it is directed against all
the parties involved in the betrothal—the bridegroom, bride, and her
parents. The object of attack by wit may equally well be institutions,
persons, in so far as they may act as agents of these, moral or
religious precepts, or even philosophies of life which enjoy so much
respect that they can be challenged in no other way than under the guise
of a witticism, and one that is veiled by a façade at that. No matter
how few the themes upon which tendency-wit may play, its forms and
investments are manifold. I believe that we shall do well to designate
this species of tendency-wit by a special name. To decide what name will
be appropriate is possible only after analyzing a few examples of this
kind.
_The Witty Cynicism_
I recall the two little stories about the impecunious gourmand who was
caught eating “salmon with mayonnaise,” and about the tippling tutor;
these witty stories, which we have learned to regard as sophistical
displacement-wit, I shall continue to analyze. We have learned since
then that when the semblance of logic is attached to the façade of a
story, the actual thought is as follows: The man is right; but on
account of the opposing contradiction, I did not dare to admit the fact
except for one point in which his error is easily demonstrable. The
“point” chosen is the correct compromise between his right and his
wrong; this is really no decision, but bespeaks the conflict within
ourselves. Both stories are simply epicurean. They say, Yes, the man is
right; nothing is greater than pleasure, and it is fairly immaterial in
what manner one procures it. This sounds frightfully immoral, and
perhaps it is, but fundamentally it is nothing more than the “_Carpe
diem_” of the poet who refers to the uncertainty of life and the
bareness of virtuous renunciation. If we are repelled by the idea that
the man in the joke about “salmon with mayonnaise” is in the right, then
it is merely due to the fact that it illustrates the sound sense of the
man in indulging himself—an indulgence which seems to us wholly
unnecessary. In reality each one of us has experienced hours and times
during which he has admitted the justice of this philosophy of life and
has reproached our system of morality for knowing only how to make
claims upon us without reimbursing us. Since we no longer lend credence
to the idea of a hereafter in which all former renunciations are
supposed to be rewarded by gratification—(there are very few pious
persons if one makes renunciation the password of faith)—“_Carpe diem_”
becomes the first admonition. I am quite ready to postpone the
gratification, but how do I know whether I shall still be alive
to-morrow?
“Di doman’ non c’e certezza.”[42]
I am quite willing to give up all the paths to gratification interdicted
by society, but am I sure that society will reward me for this
renunciation by opening for me—even after a certain delay—one of the
permitted paths? One can plainly tell what these witticisms whisper,
namely, that the wishes and desires of man have a right to make
themselves perceptible next to our pretentious and inconsiderate
morality. And in our times it has been said in emphatic and striking
terms that this morality is merely the selfish precept of the few rich
and mighty who can gratify their desires at any time without deferment.
As long as the art of healing has not succeeded in safeguarding our
lives, and as long as the social organizations do not do more towards
making conditions more agreeable, just so long cannot the voice within
us which is striving against the demands of morality, be stifled. Every
honest person finally makes this admission—at least to himself. The
decision in this conflict is possible only through the roundabout way of
a new understanding. One must be able to knit one’s life so closely to
that of others, and to form such an intimate identification with others,
that the shortening of one’s own term of life becomes surmountable; one
should not unlawfully fulfill the demands of one’s own needs, but should
leave them unfulfilled, because only the continuance of so many
unfulfilled demands can develop the power to recast the social order.
But not all personal needs allow themselves to be displaced in such a
manner and transferred to others, nor is there a universal and definite
solution of the conflict.
We now know how to designate the witticisms just discussed; they are
cynical witticisms, and what they conceal are cynicisms.
Among the institutions which cynical wit is wont to attack there is none
more important and more completely protected by moral precepts, and yet
more inviting of attack, than the institution of marriage. Most of the
cynical jokes are directed against it. For no demand is more personal
than that made upon sexual freedom, and nowhere has civilization
attempted to exert a more stringent suppression than in the realm of
sexuality. For our purposes a single example suffices: the “Entries in
the Album of Prince Carnival” mentioned on page 108.
“_A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may always take a cab._”
We have already elucidated the complicated technique of this example; it
is a puzzling and seemingly impossible comparison which however, as we
now see, is not in itself witty; it shows besides an allusion (cab =
public conveyance), and as the strongest technical means it also shows
an omission which serves to make it still more unintelligible. The
comparison may be worked out in the following manner. A man marries in
order to guard himself against the temptations of sensuality, but it
then turns out that after all marriage affords no gratification for one
of stronger needs, just as one takes along an umbrella for protection
against rain only to get wet in spite of it. In both cases one must
search for better protection; in one case one must take a public cab, in
the other women procurable for money. Now the wit has almost entirely
been replaced by cynicism. That marriage is not the organization which
can satisfy a man’s sexuality, one does not dare to say loudly and
frankly unless indeed it be one like Christian v. Ehrenfels,[43] who is
forced to it by the love of truth and the zeal of reform. The strength
of this witticism lies in the fact that it has expressed the thought
even though it had to be done through all sorts of roundabout ways.
_Cynical Witticisms and Self-criticism_
A particularly favorable case for tendency-wit results if the intended
criticism of the inner resistance is directed against one’s own person,
or, more carefully expressed, against a person in whom one takes
interest, that is, a composite personality such as one’s own people.
This determination of self-criticism may make clear why it is that a
number of the most excellent jokes of which we have shown here many
specimens should have sprung into existence from the soil of Jewish
national life. They are stories which were invented by Jews themselves
and which are directed against Jewish peculiarities. The Jewish jokes
made up by non-Jews are nearly all brutal buffooneries in which the wit
is spared by the fact that the Jew appears as a comic figure to a
stranger. The Jewish jokes which originate with Jews admit this, but
they know their real shortcomings as well as their merits, and the
interest of the person himself in the thing to be criticised produces
the subjective determination of the wit-work which would otherwise be
difficult to bring about. Incidentally I do not know whether one often
finds a people that makes merry so unreservedly over its own
shortcomings.
As an illustration I can point to the story cited on page 112 in which
the Jew in the train immediately abandons all sense of decency of
deportment as soon as he recognizes the new arrival in his coupé as his
coreligionist. We have come to know this joke as an illustration by
means of a detail—representation through a trifle; it is supposed to
represent the democratic mode of thought of the Jew who recognizes no
difference between master and servant, but unfortunately this also
disturbs discipline and co-operation. Another especially interesting
series of jokes presents the relationship between the poor and the rich
Jews: their heroes are the “shnorrer,”[44] and the charitable gentleman
or the baron. _The shnorrer, who was a regular Sunday-dinner guest at a
certain house, appeared one day accompanied by a young stranger, who
prepared to seat himself at the table. “Who is that?” demanded the host.
“He became my son-in-law last week,” was the reply, “and I have agreed
to supply his board for the first year.”_ The tendency of these stories
is always the same, and is most distinctly shown in the following story.
_The shnorrer supplicates the baron for money to visit the bathing
resort Ostend, as the physician has ordered him to take sea baths for
his ailment. The baron remarks that Ostend is an especially expensive
resort, and that a less fashionable place would do just as well. But the
shnorrer rejects that proposition by saying, “Herr Baron, nothing is too
expensive for my health.”_ That is an excellent displacement-witticism
which we could have taken as a model of its kind. The baron is evidently
anxious to save his money, but the shnorrer replies as if the baron’s
money were his own, which he may then consider secondary to his health.
One is forced to laugh at the insolence of the demand, but these jokes
are exceptionally unequipped with a façade to becloud the understanding.
The truth is that the shnorrer who mentally treats the rich man’s money
as his own, really possesses almost the right to this mistake, according
to the sacred codes of the Jews. Naturally the resistance which is
responsible for this joke is directed against the law which even the
pious find very oppressing.
Another story relates _how on the steps of a rich man’s house a shnorrer
met one of his own kind. The latter counseled him to depart, saying, “Do
not go up to-day, the Baron is out of sorts and refuses to give any one
more than a dollar.” “I will go up anyway,” replied the first. “Why in
the world should I make him, a present of a dollar? Is he making me any
presents?”_
This witticism makes use of the technique of absurdity by permitting the
shnorrer to declare that the baron gives him nothing at the same moment
in which he is preparing to beg him for the donation. But the absurdity
is only apparent, for it is almost true that the rich man gives him
nothing, since he is obligated by the mandate to give alms, and strictly
speaking must be thankful that the shnorrer gives him an opportunity to
be charitable. The ordinary, bourgeois conception of alms is at
cross-purposes with the religious one; it openly revolts against the
religious conception in the _story about the baron who, having been
deeply touched by the shnorrer’s tale of woe, rang for his servants and
said: “Throw him out of the house; he is breaking my heart.”_ This
obvious exposition of the tendency again creates a case of border-line
wit. From the no longer witty complaint: “It is really no advantage to
be a rich man among Jews. The foreign misery does not grant one the
pleasure of one’s own fortune,” these last stories are distinguished
only by the illustration of a single situation.
Other stories as the following, which, technically again presenting
border-lines of wit, have their origin in a deeply pessimistic cynicism.
_A patient whose hearing was defective consulted a physician who made
the correct diagnosis, namely, that the patient probably drank too much
whiskey and consequently was becoming deaf. He advised him to desist
from drinking and the patient promised to follow his advice. Some time
thereafter the doctor met him on the street and inquired in a loud voice
about his condition. “Thank you, Doctor,” was the reply, “there is no
necessity for speaking so loudly, I have given up drinking whiskey and
consequently I hear perfectly.” Some time afterwards they met again. The
doctor again inquired into his condition in the usual voice, but noticed
that he did not make himself understood. “It seems to me that you are
deaf again because you have returned to drinking whiskey,” shouted the
doctor in the patient’s ear. “Perhaps you are right,” answered the
latter, “I have taken to drinking again, and I shall tell you why. As
long as I did not drink I could hear, but all that I heard was not as
good as the whiskey.”_ Technically this joke is nothing more than an
illustration. The jargon and the ability of the _raconteur_ must aid the
producing of laughter. But behind it there lies the sad question, “Is
not the man right in his choice?”
It is the manifold hopeless misery of the Jews to which these
pessimistical stories allude, which urged me to add them to
tendency-wit.
_Critical and Blasphemous Witticisms_
Other jokes, cynical in a similar sense, and not only stories about
Jews, attack religious dogmas and the belief in God Himself. The story
about the “telepathic look of the rabbi,” whose technique consisted in
the faulty thinking which made phantasy equal to reality, (the
conception of displacement is also tenable) is such a cynical or
critical witticism directed against miracle-workers and also, surely,
against belief in miracles. Heine is reported to have made a directly
blasphemous joke as he lay dying. _When the kindly priest commended him
to God’s mercy and inspired him with the hope that God would forgive him
his sins, he replied: “Bien sûr qu’il me pardonnera; c’est son métier.”_
That is a derogatory comparison; technically its value lies only in the
allusion, for a métier—business or vocation—is plied either by a
craftsman or a physician, and what is more he has only a single métier.
The strength of the wit, however, lies in its tendency. The joke is
intended to mean nothing else, but: Certainly he will forgive me; that
is what he is here for, and for no other purpose have I engaged him
(just as one retains one’s doctor or one’s lawyer). Thus, the helpless
dying man is still conscious of the fact that he has created God for
himself and has clothed Him with the power in order to make use of Him
as occasion arises. The so-called creature makes itself known as the
Creator only a short time before his extinction.
_Skeptical Wit_
To the three kinds of tendency-wit discussed so far—exhibitionistic or
obscene wit, aggressive or hostile wit, and cynical wit (critical,
blasphemous)—I desire to add a fourth and the most uncommon of all,
whose character can be elucidated by a good example.
_Two Jews met in a train at a Galician railway station. “Where are you
traveling?” asked one. “To Cracow,” was the reply. “Now see here, what a
liar you are!” said the first one, bristling. “When you say that you are
traveling to Cracow, you really wish me to believe that you are
traveling to Lemberg. Well, but I am sure that you are really traveling
to Cracow, so why lie about it?”_
This precious story, which creates an impression of exaggerated
subtlety, evidently operates by means of the technique of absurdity. The
second Jew has put himself in the way of being called a liar because he
has said that he is traveling to Cracow, which is his real goal!
However, this strong technical means—absurdity—is paired here with
another technique—representation through the opposite, for, according to
the uncontradicted assertion of the first, the second one is lying when
he speaks the truth, and speaks the truth by means of a lie. However,
the more earnest content of this joke is the question of the conditions
of truth; again the joke points to a problem and makes use of the
uncertainty of one of our commonest notions. Does it constitute truth if
one describes things as they are and does not concern himself with the
way the hearers will interpret what one has said? Or is this merely
Jesuitical truth, and does not the real truthfulness consist much more
in having a regard for the hearer and of furnishing him an exact picture
of his own mind? I consider jokes of this type sufficiently different
from the others to assign them a special place. What they attack is not
a person nor an institution, but the certainty of our very knowledge—one
of our speculative gifts. Hence the name “skeptical” witticism will be
the most expressive for them.
In the course of our discussion of the tendencies of wit we have gotten
perhaps many an elucidation and certainly found numerous incentives for
further investigations. But the results of this chapter combine with
those of the preceding chapter to form a difficult problem. If it be
true that the pleasure created by wit is dependent upon the technique on
one hand and upon the tendency on the other hand, under what common
point of view can these two utterly different pleasure-sources of wit he
united?
B. SYNTHESIS
IV
THE PLEASURE MECHANISM AND THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF WIT
We can now definitely assert that we know from what sources the peculiar
pleasure arises furnished us by wit. We know that we can be easily
misled to mistake our sense of satisfaction experienced through the
thought-content of the sentence for the actual pleasure derived from the
wit, on the other hand, the latter itself has two intrinsic sources,
namely, the wit-technique and the wit-tendency. What we now desire to
ascertain is the manner in which pleasure originates from these sources
and the mechanism of this resultant pleasure.
It seems to us that the desired explanation can be more easily
ascertained in tendency-wit than in harmless wit. We shall therefore
commence with the former.
The pleasure in tendency-wit results from the fact that a tendency,
whose gratification would otherwise remain unfulfilled, is actually
gratified. That such gratification is a source of pleasure is
self-evident without further discussion. But the manner in which wit
brings about gratification is connected with special conditions from
which we may perhaps gain further information. Here two cases must be
differentiated. The simpler case is the one in which the gratification
of the tendency is opposed by an external hindrance which is eluded by
the wit. This process we found, for example, in the reply which
Serenissimus received to his query whether the mother of the stranger he
addressed had ever sojourned in his home, and likewise in the question
of the art critic who asked: “And where is the Savior?” when the two
rich rogues showed him their portraits. In one case the tendency serves
to answer one insult with another; in the other case it offers an
affront instead of the demanded expert opinion; in both cases the
tendency was opposed by purely external factors, namely, the powerful
position of the persons who are the targets of the insult. Nevertheless
it may seem strange to us that these and analogous tendency-witticisms
have not the power to produce a strong laughing effect, no matter how
much they may gratify us.
It is different, however, if no external factors but internal hindrances
stand in the way of the direct realization of the tendency, that is, if
an inner feeling opposes the tendency. This condition, according to our
assumption, was present in the aggressive joke of Mr. N. (p. 28) and in
the one of Wendell Phillips, in whom a strong inclination to use
invectives was stifled by a highly developed æsthetic sense. With the
aid of wit the inner resistances in these special cases were overcome
and the inhibition removed. As in the case of external hindrances, the
gratification of the tendency is made possible, and a suppression with
its concomitant “psychic damming” is thus obviated. So far the mechanism
of the development of pleasure would seem to be identical in both cases.
At this place, however, we are inclined to feel that we should enter
more deeply into the differentiation of the psychological situation
between the cases of external and internal hindrance, as we have a faint
notion that the removal of the inner hindrance might possibly result in
a disproportionately higher contribution to pleasure. But I propose that
we rest content here, that we be satisfied for the present with this one
collection of evidence which adheres to what is essential to us. The
only difference between the cases of outer and inner hindrances consists
in the fact that here an already existing inhibition is removed, while
there the formation of a new inhibition is avoided. We hardly resort to
speculation when we assert that a “_psychic expenditure_” is required
for the formation as well as for the retention of a psychic inhibition.
Now if we find that in both cases the use of the tendency-wit produces
pleasure, then it may be assumed _that such resultant pleasure
corresponds to the economy of psychic expenditure_.
Thus we are once more confronted with the principle of _economy_ which
we noticed first in the study of the technique of word-wit. But whereas
the economy we believed to have found at first was in the use of few or
possibly the same words, we can here foresee an economy of psychic
expenditure in general in a far more comprehensive sense, and we think
it possible to come nearer to the nature of wit through a better
determination of the as yet very obscure idea of “psychic expenditure.”
A certain amount of haziness which we could not dissipate during the
study of the pleasure mechanism in tendency-wit we accept as a slight
punishment for attempting to elucidate more complicated problem before
the simpler one, or the tendency-wit before the harmless wit. We observe
that “_economy in the expenditure of inhibitions or suppressions_” seems
to be the secret of the pleasurable effect of tendency-wit, and we now
turn to the mechanism of the pleasure in harmless wit.