Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour

by Michael Billig

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.

Genres: Sociology, Humor, Social Science

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Michael Billig is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University . Working in contemporary social psychology, he trained in Bristol with Henri Tajfel as an experimental psychologist and helped design the so called minimal group experiments which were foundational to the social identity approach. He moved away from experimental work to considering issues of power, political extremism and ideology in a series of important books. His Social Psychology and Intergroup Relations (1976) offered a trenchant critique of orthodox approaches to prejudice in psychology. Fascists (1979) helped reveal the classic fascist and anti-semitic ideology underlying the UK's National Front at a time when it was bidding for political legitimacy and electoral success. In the 1980s his focus shifted to everyday thinking and the relationship between ideology and common sense. This strand of work is shown in the collectively written work Ideological Dilemmas (1988 - with Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton and Radley), Banal Nationalism, and in his major study of ideology and the UK royal family, Talking of the Royal Family (1998, 2nd Edition).

His influence runs across the social sciences and he has been one of the key figures highlighting and reinvigorating the use of classic rhetorical thinking in the context of social issues. For example, he shows that attitudes are best understood not as individual positions on topics, but as emergent in contexts where there is a potential argument. This perspective is introduced in his book Arguing and Thinking (2nd Edition, 1996) and has been the basis for innovative approaches to topics as diverse as psychoanalysis, humour and nationalism. It is also an important element to discursive psychology.

Billig is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University where he has worked since 1985. He is a member of the internationally influential Discourse and Rhetoric Group, working with figures such as Derek Edwards and Jonathan Potter.

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billing is looking only at humour as a means of social control, which, he points out, is often sidelined in favour of less negative uses of humour in culture, and this made the book an interesting read.

I actually found the first section pretty boring: Billig discusses the social function of laughter as described by Freud, Bergson, Hobbes, etc. This really dragged for me, however I acknowledge that if you have never read any of these theorists then this background would be essential.

In part two (sadly, much smaller) things picked up enormously. Billig makes interesting links to the contemporary use of 'negative' laughter in a culture where Bakhtin's notion of carnival is no longer a brief respite from the usual order. Rather, we live in perpetual carnival: a late-capitalist embrace of the grotesque, the excessive, and the inversion of high and low. I would have liked this to be unpicked in much more detail. Make the first section 1/3 of the size, make section two 3 x the size, and look at a range of elements of pop culture and the social function of humour for, say, viewers of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. This would tie directly into Billig's discussion of Rowlandson's caricatures as social critique.

So, I would have liked it to be slightly different, however for what it is it was still an enjoyable book.

[Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Third reading. I am contemplating a new course addressing the perennial issue of laughter: is laughter (toward others) benign or is it harmful? Hobbes and Aristotle argued harm; most of the 20th c psychologists believe in its benefits.

A startlingly book about the role of humor in society, to discipline us. We are made complicit in sustaining hegemony with each laugh.

[delievi · Rating 4 out of 5]

i didn’t laugh while reading this book, very disappointing..xDxDXd

[Jarda Kubalik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that was another heavy text to go through for me. I found especially useful the argument built against the uncritical acceptance of humour as a panacea. I am training to research humour in education and linguistics and I was exactly this kind of positivist first.
The sections of the three main strands of humour theories are well researched, maybe too well in fact, resulting in vast amount of information. The author certainly did his reading.

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent!