From Thomas Hobbes' fear of the power of laughter to the
compulsory, packaged "fun" of the contemporary mass media, Billig
takes the reader on a stimulating tour of the strange world of
humour. Both a significant work of scholarship and a novel
contribution to the understanding of the humourous, this is a
seriously engaging book' - "David Inglis, University of Aberdeen
"
This delightful book tackles the prevailing assumption that
laughter and humour are inherently good. In developing a critique
of humour the author proposes a social theory that places humour -
in the form of ridicule - as central to social life. Billig argues
that all cultures use ridicule as a disciplinary means to uphold
norms of conduct and conventions of meaning.
Historically, theories of humour reflect wider visions of
politics, morality and aesthetics. For example, Bergson argued that
humour contains an element of cruelty while Freud suggested that we
deceive ourselves about the true nature of our laughter. Billig
discusses these and other theories, while using the topic of humour
to throw light on the perennial social problems of regulation,
control and emancipation.
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