had no fear of false judgment through content or tendency, we were
forced to the conclusion that the techniques of with themselves are
pleasure-sources; now we wish to ascertain whether the pleasure may be
traced to the economy in psychic expenditure. In a group of these
witticisms (plays on words) the technique consisted in directing the
psychic focus upon the sound instead of upon the sense of the word, and
in allowing the (acoustic) word-disguise to take the place of the
meaning accorded to it by its relations to reality. We are really
justified in assuming that great relief is thereby afforded to the
psychic work, and that in the serious use of words we refrain from this
convenient procedure only at the expense of a certain amount of
exertion. We can observe that abnormal mental states, in which the
possibility of concentrating psychic expenditure on one place is
probably restricted, actually allow to come to the foreground word-sound
associations of this kind rather than the significance of the words, and
that such patients react in their speech with “outer” instead of “inner”
associations. Also in children who are still accustomed to treat the
word as an object we notice the inclination to look for the same meaning
in words of the same or of similar sounds, which is a source of great
amusement to adults. If we experience in wit an unmistakable pleasure
because through the use of the same or similar words we reach from one
set of ideas to a distant other one, (as in “Home-Roulard” from the
kitchen to politics), we can justly refer this pleasure to the economy
of psychic expenditure. The pleasure of the wit resulting from such a
“short-circuit” appears greater the more remote and foreign the two
series of ideas which become related through the same word are to each
other, or the greater the economy in thought brought about by the
technical means of wit. We may add that in this case wit makes use of a
means of connection which is rejected by and carefully avoided in
serious thinking.[45]
A second group of technical means of wit—unification, similar sounding
words, manifold application, modification of familiar idioms, allusions
to quotations—all evince one common character, namely, that one always
discovers something familiar where one expects to find something new
instead. To discover the familiar is pleasurable and it is not difficult
to recognize such pleasure as economy-pleasure and to refer it to the
economy of psychic expenditure.
That the discovery of the familiar—“recognition”—causes pleasure seems
to be universally admitted. Groos says:[46] “Recognition is everywhere
bound up with feelings of pleasure where it has not been made too
mechanical, (as perhaps in dressing...). Even the mere quality of
acquaintanceship is easily accompanied by that gentle delight which
Faust experiences when, after an uncanny experience, he steps into his
study.” If the act of recognition is so pleasureful, we may expect that
man merges into the habit of practicing this activity for its own sake,
that is, he experiments playfully with it. In fact, Aristotle recognized
in the joy of rediscovery the basis of artistic pleasure, and it cannot
be denied that this principle must not be overlooked even if it has not
such a far-reaching significance as Aristotle assumes.
Groos then discusses the games, whose character consists of heightening
the pleasure of rediscovery by putting hindrances in its path, or in
other words by raising a “psychic dam” which is removed by the act of
recognition. However, his attempted explanation leaves the assumption
that recognition as such is pleasurable, in that he attributes the
pleasure of recognition connected with these games to the pleasure in
power or to the surmounting of a difficulty. I consider this latter
factor as secondary, and I find no occasion for abandoning the simpler
explanation, that the recognition _per se_, i.e., through the
alleviation of the psychic expenditure, is pleasurable, and that the
games founded upon this pleasure make use of the damming-mechanism
merely in order to intensify their effect.
We know also that the source of pleasure in rhyme, alliteration,
refrain, and other forms of repetition of similar sounding words in
poetry, is due merely to the discovery of the familiar. A “sense of
power” plays no perceptible rôle in these techniques, which show so
marked an agreement with the “manifold application” in wit.
Considering the close connection between recognition and remembering,
the assumption is no longer daring that there exists also a pleasure in
remembering, i.e., that the act of remembering in itself is accompanied
by a feeling of pleasure of a similar origin. Groos seems to have no
objection to such an assumption, but he again deducts the pleasure of
remembering from the “sense of power” in which he seeks—as I believe
unjustly—the principal basis of pleasure in almost all games.
_The Factor of Actuality_
The use of another technical expedient of wit, which has not yet been
mentioned, is also dependent upon “the rediscovery of the familiar.” I
refer to the factor of _actuality_ (dealing with actual persons, things,
or events), which in many witticisms provides a prolific source of
pleasure and explains several peculiarities in the life history of wit.
There are witticisms which are entirely free from this condition, and in
a treatise on wit it is incumbent upon us to make use of such examples
almost exclusively. But we must not forget that we laughed perhaps more
heartily over such perennial witticisms than over others; witticisms
whose application now would be difficult, because they would require
long commentaries, and even with that aid the former effect could not be
attained. These latter witticisms contained allusions to persons and
occurrences which were “actual” at the time, which had stimulated
general interest and were endowed with tension. After the cessation of
this interest, after the settlement of these particular affairs, the
witticisms lost a part of their pleasurable effect, and a very
considerable. Thus, for example, the joke which my friendly host made
when he called the dish that was being served a “Home-Roulard,” seems to
me by no means as good now as when the question of Home Rule was a
continuous headline in the political columns of our newspaper. If I now
attempt to express my appreciation of this joke by stating that this one
word led us from the idea of the kitchen to the distant field of
politics, and saved us a long mental detour, I should have been forced
at that time to change this description as follows: “That this word led
us from the idea of the kitchen to the very distant field of politics;
but that our lively interest was all the keener because this question
was constantly absorbing us.” The same thing is true of another joke:
“_This girl reminds me of Dreyfus; the army does not believe in her
innocence_,” which has become blurred in spite of the fact that its
technical means has remained unchanged. The confusion arising from the
comparison with, and the double meaning of, the word “innocence” cannot
do away with the fact that the allusion, which at that time touched upon
a matter pregnant with excitement, now recalls an interest set at rest.
The many irresistible jokes about the present war will sink in our
estimation in a very short time.
A great many witticisms in circulation reach a certain age or rather go
through a course composed of a flourishing season and a mature season,
and then sink into complete oblivion. The need that people feel to draw
pleasure from their mental processes continually creates new witticisms
which are supported by current interests of the day. The vitality of
actual witticisms is not their own, it is borrowed by way of allusion
from those other interests, the expiration of which determines the fate
of the witticism. The factor of actuality which may be added as a
transitory pleasure-source of wit, although it is productive in itself,
cannot be simply put on the same basis as the rediscovery of the
familiar. It is much more a question of a special qualification of the
familiar which must be aided by the quality of freshness and recency and
which has not been affected by forgetfulness. In the formation of the
dream one also finds that there is a special preference for what is
recent, and one cannot refrain from inferring that the association with
what is recent is rewarded or facilitated by a special pleasure premium.
Unification, which is really nothing more than repetition in the sphere
of mental association instead of in material, has been accorded an
especial recognition as a pleasure-source of wit by G. Th. Fechner.[47]
He says: “In my opinion the principle of uniform connection of the
manifold, plays the most important rôle in the field under discussion;
it needs, however, the support of subsidiary determinations in order to
drive across the threshold the pleasure with its peculiar character
which the cases here belonging can furnish.”[48]
In all of these cases of repetition of the same association or of the
same word-material, of refinding the familiar and recent, we surely
cannot be prevented from referring the pleasure thereby experienced to
the economy in psychic expenditure; providing that this viewpoint proves
fertile for the explanation of single facts as well as for bringing to
light new generalities. We are fully conscious of the fact that we have
yet to make clear the manner in which this economy results and also the
meaning of the expression “psychic expenditure.”
The third group of the technique of wit, mostly thought-wit, which
includes false logic, displacement, absurdity, representation through
the opposite, and other varieties, may seem at first sight to present
special features and to be unrelated to the techniques of the discovery
of the familiar, or the replacing of object-associations by
word-associations. But it will not be difficult to demonstrate that this
group, too, shows an economy or facilitation of psychic expenditure.
It is quite obvious that it is easier and more convenient to turn away
from a definite trend of thought than to stick to it; it is easier to
mix up different things than to distinguish them; and it is particularly
easier to travel over modes of reasoning unsanctioned by logic; finally
in connecting words or thoughts it is especially easy to overlook the
fact that such connections should result in sense. All this is
indubitable and this is exactly what is done by the techniques of the
wit in question. It will sound strange, however, to assert that such
processes in the wit-work may produce pleasure, since outside of wit we
can experience only unpleasant feelings of defense against all these
kinds of inferior achievement of our mental activity.
_Word-pleasure and Pleasure in Nonsense_
The “pleasure in nonsense,” as we may call it for short, is, in the
seriousness of our life, crowded back almost to the vanishing point. To
demonstrate it we must enter into the study of two cases in one of which
it is still visible and in the other becomes visible for the second
time. I refer to the behavior of the learning child and to the behavior
of the adult under unstable toxic influences. When the child learns to
control the vocabulary of its mother tongue it apparently takes great
pleasure in “experimenting playfully” with that material (Groos); it
connects words without regard for their meaning in order to obtain
pleasure from the rhyme and rhythm. Gradually the child is deprived of
this pleasure until only the senseful connection of words is allowed
him. But even in later life there is still a tendency to overstep the
acquired restrictions in the use of words, a tendency which manifests
itself in disfiguring the same by definite appendages, and in changing
their forms by means of certain contrivances (reduplication, trembling
speech) or even by developing an individual language for use in
playing,—efforts which reappear also among the insane of a certain
category.
I believe that whatever the motive which actuated the child when it
began such playings, in its further development the child indulges in
them fully conscious that they are nonsensical and derives pleasure from
this stimulus which is interdicted by reason. It now makes use of play
in order to withdraw from the pressure of critical reason. More
powerful, however, are the restrictions which must develop in education
along the lines of right thinking and in the separation of reality from
fiction, and it is for this reason that the resistance against the
pressures of thinking and reality is far-reaching and persistent; even
the phenomena of phantasy formation come under this point of view. The
power of reason usually grows so strong during the later part of
childhood and during that period of education which extends over the age
of puberty, that the pleasure in “freed nonsense” rarely dares manifest
itself. One fears to utter nonsense; but it seems to me that the
inclination characteristic of boys to act in a contradictory and
inexpedient manner is a direct outcome of this pleasure in nonsense. In
pathological cases one often sees this tendency so accentuated that it
again controls the speeches and answers of the pupils. In the case of
some college students who merged into neuroses I could convince myself
that the unconscious pleasure derived from the nonsense produced by them
is just as much responsible for their mistakes as their actual
ignorance.
_Reproduction of Old Liberties_
The student does not give up his demonstrations against the pressures of
thinking and reality whose domination becomes unceasingly intolerant and
unrestricted. A good part of the tendency of students to skylarking is
responsible for this reaction. Man is an “untiring pleasure seeker”—I
can no longer recall which author coined this happy expression—and finds
it extremely difficult to renounce pleasure once experienced. With the
hilarious nonsense of “sprees” (_Bierschwefel_), college cries, and
songs, the student attempts to preserve that pleasure which results from
freedom of thought, a freedom of which he is more and more deprived
through scholastic discipline. Even much later, when as a mature man he
meets with others at scientific congresses and class reunions and feels
himself a student again, he must read at the end of the session the
“_Kneipzeitung_,” or the comic college paper, which distorts the newly
gained knowledge into the nonsensical and thus compensates him for the
newly added mental inhibitions.
The very terms “_Bierschwefel_” and “_Kneipzeitung_” are proof that the
reason which has stifled the pleasure in nonsense has become so powerful
that not even temporarily can it be abandoned without toxic agency. The
change in the state of mind is the most valuable thing that alcohol
offers man, and that is the reason why this “poison” is not equally
indispensable for all people. The hilarious humor, whether due to
endogenous origin or whether produced toxically, weakens the inhibiting
forces among which is reason and thus again makes accessible
pleasure-sources which are burdened by suppression. It is very
instructive to see how the demand made upon wit sinks with the rise in
spirits. The latter actually replace wit, just as wit must make an
effort to replace the mental state in which the otherwise inhibited
pleasure possibilities (pleasure in nonsense among the rest) assert
themselves.
“With little wit and much comfort.”
Under the influence of alcohol the adult again becomes a child who
derives pleasure from the free disposal of his mental stream without
being restricted by the pressure of logic.
We hope we have shown that the technique of absurdity in wit corresponds
to a source of pleasure. We need hardly repeat that this pleasure
results from the economy of psychic expenditure or alleviation from the
pressure of reason.
On reviewing again the wit-technique classified under three headings we
notice that the first and last of these groups—the replacement of
object-association by word-association, and the use of absurdity as a
restorer of old liberties and as a relief from the pressure of
intellectual upbringing—can be taken collectively. Psychic relief may in
a way be compared to economy, which constitutes the technique of the
second group. Alleviation of the already existing psychic expenditure,
and economy in the yet to be offered psychic expenditure, are two
principles from which all techniques of wit and with them all pleasure
in these techniques can be deduced. The two forms of the technique and
the resultant pleasures correspond more or less in general to the
division of wit into word- and thought-witticisms.
_Play and Jest_
The preceding discussions have led us unexpectedly to an understanding
of the history of the development of psychogenesis of wit which we shall
now examine still further. We have become acquainted with the successive
steps in wit, the development of which up to tendency-wit will
undoubtedly reveal new relationships between the different characters of
wit. Antedating wit there exists something which we may designate as
“play” or “jest.” Play—we shall retain this name—appears in children
while they are learning how to use words and connect thoughts; this
playing is probably the result of an impulse which urges the child to
exercise its capacities (Groos). During this process it experiences
pleasurable effects which originate from the repetition of similarities,
the rediscovery of the familiar, sound-associations, etc., which may be
explained as an unexpected economy of psychic expenditure. Therefore it
surprises no one that these resulting pleasures urge the child to
practice playing and impel it to continue without regard for the meaning
of words or the connections between sentences. Playing with words and
thoughts, motivated by certain pleasures in economy, would thus be the
first step of wit.
This playing is stopped by the growing strength of a factor which may
well be called criticism or reason. The play is then rejected as
senseless or as directly absurd, and by virtue of reason it becomes
impossible. Only accidentally is it now possible to derive pleasure from
those sources of rediscovery of the familiar, etc., which is explained
by the fact that the maturing person has then merged into a playful mood
which, as in the case of merriment in the child, removes inhibitions. In
this way only is the old pleasure-giving playing made possible, but as
men do not wish to wait for these propitious occasions and also hate to
forego this pleasure, they seek means to make themselves independent of
these pleasant states. The further development of wit is directed by
these two impulses; the one striving to elude reason and the other to
substitute for the adult an infantile state of mind.
This gives rise to the second stage of wit, the _jest_ (_Scherz_). The
object of the jest is to bring about the resultant pleasure of playing
and at the same time appease the protesting reason which strives to
suppress the pleasant feeling. There is but one way to accomplish this.
The senseless combination of words or the absurd linking of thoughts
must make sense after all. The whole process of wit production is
therefore directed towards the discovery of words and thought
constellations which fulfill these conditions. The jest makes use of
almost all the technical means of wit, and usage of language makes no
consequential distinction between jest (_Scherz_) and wit (_Witz_). What
distinguishes the jest from wit is the fact that the pith of the
sentence withdrawn from criticism does not need to be valuable, new, or
even good; it matters only that it can be expressed, even though what it
may say is obsolete, superfluous, and useless. The most conspicuous
factor of the jest is the gratification it affords by making possible
that which reason forbids.
A mere jest is the following of Professor Kästner, who taught physics at
Göttingen in the 16th century, and who was fond of making jokes. Wishing
to enroll a student named Warr in his class, he asked him his age, and
upon receiving the reply that he was thirty years of age he exclaimed:
“Aha, so I have the honor of seeing the thirty years’ War.”[49] When
asked what vocations his sons followed Rokitansky jestingly answered:
“Two are healing and two are howling,” (two physicians and two singers).
The reply was correct and therefore unimpeachable, but it added nothing
to what is contained in the parenthetic expression. There is no doubt
that the answer assumed another form only because of the pleasure which
arises from the unification and assonance of both words.
I believe that we now see our way clear. In estimating the techniques of
wit we were constantly disturbed by the fact that these are not peculiar
to wit alone, and yet the nature of wit seemed to depend upon them,
since their removal by means of reduction nullified the character as
well as the pleasure of wit. Now we become aware that what we have
described as techniques of wit—and which in a certain sense we shall
have to continue to call so—are really the sources from which wit
derives pleasure; nor does it strike us as strange that other processes
draw from the same sources with the same object in view. The technique,
however, which is peculiar to and belongs to wit alone consists in a
process of safeguarding the use of this pleasure-forming means against
the protest of reason which would obviate the pleasure. We can make few
generalizations about this process. The wit-work, as we have already
remarked, expresses itself in the selection of such word-material and
such thought-situations as to permit the old play with words and
thoughts to stand the test of reason; but to accomplish this end the
cleverest use must be made of all the peculiarities of the stock of
words and of all constellations of mental combinations. Later on perhaps
we shall be in a position to characterize the wit-work by a definite
attribute; for the present it must remain unexplained how our wit makes
its advantageous selections. The tendency and capacity of wit to guard
the pleasure-forming word and thought combinations against reason,
already makes itself visible as an essential criterion in jests. From
the beginning its object is to remove inner inhibitions and thereby
render productive those pleasure-sources which have become inaccessible,
and we shall find that it remains true to this characteristic throughout
the course of its entire development.
We are now in a position to prescribe a correct place for the factor
“sense in nonsense,” (see Introduction, page 8), to which the authors
ascribe so much significance in respect to the recognition of wit and
the explanation of the pleasurable effect. The two firmly established
points in the determination of wit—its tendency to carry through the
pleasureful play, and its effort to guard it against the criticism of
reason—make it perfectly clear why the individual witticism, even though
it appear nonsensical from one point of view, must appear full of
meaning or at least acceptable from another. How it accomplishes this is
the business of the wit-work; if it is not successful it is relegated to
the category of “nonsense.” Nor do we find it necessary to deduce the
resultant pleasure of wit from the conflict of feelings which emerge
either directly or by way of “confusion and clearness,” from the
simultaneous sense and nonsense of the wit. There is just as little
necessity for our delving deeper into the question how pleasure can come
from the succession of that part of the wit considered senseless and
from that part recognized as senseful. The psychogenesis of wit has
taught us that the pleasure of wit arises from word-play or from the
liberation of nonsense, and that the sense of wit is meant only to guard
this pleasure against suppression through reason.
_Jest and Wit_