Regular visitors to “From Insults to Respect” know that from time to time I like to select one of Bob Dylan’s “Theme Time Radio Hour” shows to help enrich our understanding of an important topic. Bob’s shows have so far helped us to take an insightful look at why people might seek to insult us by calling us certain types of names, and at how crying, happiness, luck, and being rich or poor is related to respect.
Today, we turn to Bob’s show that explores the theme of “laughter,” a topic that is related to insults and respect in a number of ways. For instance, some people throw insults at us in a playful way in the hopes of provoking laughter. If we learn to take it well, laugh along, and show we don’t take ourselves too seriously, this potentially can enhance our reputation. Then there are situations during which someone throws out an insult in the hopes of humiliating us, and it leads to derisive laughs from those who are listening. In such situations, if we can learn to keep our heads up high while making allowances for the level of maturity of the insulter, this too can potentially enhance our reputation.
There are a host of other connections to laughter, insults, and respect as well. So, without further ado, let’s see what Bob has to contribute to this not always humorous subject.
Bob On the Theme of “Laughter”
After a few opening lines, Bob tells us:
Ernie Chaffin
“To start things off, the rockabilly performer with a mile high wide country streak. Here’s Ernie Chaffin, “Laughin’ and Jokin’.”
Hardly a funny tune, the lyrics have led many a hearty fellow to shed tears in his beer. Here’s a few of its lines:
Well, I’m laughin’ and jokin’ Tryin’ to fool a heart that’s broken Tryin’ to tell myself that I don’t love you no more
Well I’m jokin’ and clownin’ Gotta fool a heart that’s drownin’ Though I feel like dyin’ There’s no use to cryin’ no more
Got to hide somehow the way I feel I gotta save my pride, though I hurt inside ‘Cause you went back on the deal
The song deepens our understanding of both laughter and sadness because it reveals how some people think they might lose some respect if they appear, even to themselves, to be sad over the loss of a love. Better, they think, to appear to be laughing and joking about the whole mess. And yet, the song became a big hit in large part because in actuality most of us can deeply relate to someone who experiences at such times genuine sadness. Meanwhile, some may actually see through your pretense of taking the breakup so lightly. If they do, might this enhance or diminish the respect they have for you?
After the song, Bob tells us, with the sounds of an opera in the background, that,
“A lot of people laugh and joke no matter how they feel inside. The tradition of the sad clown goes back to at least 1892 when the opera “Pagliacci” was first performed. The opera is about the saddest of clowns. Enrico Caruso’s recordings of the arias of “Pagliacci” were the first records to sell over one million copies.”
I guess this makes it pretty clear that it’s not just rockabilly fans who can relate to the connection between laughter and sadness.
Next up, Bob plays us a little number by Clyde McPhatter, called “Everyone’s Laughing” that has a related theme. Let’s take a quick look at some of the lyrics:
Everyone’s laughing at me. Though everyone’s laughing, I hold my head up high, Fair weather friends, I just as soon forget. When we broke up, I wasn’t to blame, But everyone’s laughing at me just the same.
At this point the song eases into the most soulful saxophone rift this neck of the Milky Way. Listening to it, I found myself coming to an understanding that to “hold your head up high” in these types of situations doesn’t mean we have no feelings inside about what is occurring. To me, it’s a sign of maturity to be able to perceive rich soulful emotions deep within even while holding one’s head up high. To my way of thinking, there is missing in the lyrics of the song a mature understanding of why those who are laughing are doing this.
The singer of the song just labels the laughers, “fair weather friends.” Perhaps it would show more insight if he realized that perhaps the laughers were laughing because they knew deep inside that this type of breakup either has happened to them, or may very well at some point in their lives happen to them. Thus, they laughed because they are relieved that they are not the only ones that have to go through such a heartbreaking experience. Some sympathy for the laughers would be a mark, for me, of a higher level of maturity than the simple name calling that appears in the song’s lyrics.
A little later in the show, Bob tells us,
Bob Dylan
“You know, doing a show about laughter isn’t all fun or funny. A lot of times people laugh just to keep from crying. At other times, the tears come unexpected on the heels of a laugh. It’s like what Leonardo Da Vinci once said: ‘Between the expression of laughter and weeping there is no difference in the motion of the features of either the eyes, the mouth, or the cheeks.'”
In an earlier post (“Insults Among Friends: Why We Do It“) I discussed this biological connection. In brief, I described the theory that we have deep down in the emotional center of our brains, a sensitivity to any perception that we might have done something that might prove to be harmful. This perception is registered as a threat. It occurs so quickly that it arrives before some more thoughtful processing has occurred.
As seconds begin to pass, our reasoning has time to do its part and we may come to realize things actually are fine. This is experienced as a relief, which is expressed as laughter.
However, as we think upon this a little more, it may suddenly occur to us that we do have some reasons to feel threatened. At this point our emotional center, having already been sensitized from the earlier threat perception, leads to our laughter quickly turning to sadness.
When it comes to applying this theory to hearing jokes and finding them funny, for a fraction of a second we fear that we’re not getting the punch line. Then it begins to dawn on us, as our reasoning begins to have time to do some processing, that we have now got the joke. At this point, we feel relieved, and this is expressed as laughter.
However, something about the joke might bring up a memory of something sad. Since the threat region of our brain has already become sensitized from the fear of not getting the joke, we may quickly fall into sadness.
Okay, let’s move on. As Bob’s show starts to wind down, he starts to feel a little guilty.
“Here I promise you a show about laughter and it’s been one tear jerker after another. Why don’t we raise the roof a little and see if we can cheer everyone up.”
With this, Bob plays us a song from the Oklahoma Playboys called, “Laughing at Life.”
Don’t mind the rain drops Wait till the rain stops Smile through your tears, laughing at life No road is lonely, if you will only Lose all your blues laughing at life
Live for tomorrow, be happy today Laugh all your sorrows away Start now and cheer up The skies will clear up Lose all your blues laughing at life
The song is in a lively tempo, and is pretty cheery. Moments afterwards, however, Bob waxes philosophical with a quote from the Nobel Prize winning writer, Herman Hesse–“Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”
Mark Knopfler
Then Bob turns very serious by playing us the lovely, plaintive duet by Mark Knopfler and Van Morrison, “The Last Laugh.”
Don’t you love the sound Of the last laugh, my friend Don’t you love the sound Of the last laugh, at the end
Games you thought you’d learned You neither lost nor won The dreams have crashed and burned You still keep on, keepin’ on….
Van Morrison
They had you cryin’ And you came up smilin’ They had you crawlin’ And you came up flyin’ They had you cryin’ And you came up smilin’ And the last laugh, baby is yours
And don’t you love the sound The last laugh goin’ down? Well, don’t you love the sound Of the last laugh, goin’ down?
This is a fascinating song because the lyrics might lead you to think it has a delightful, upbeat celebration feel to it, but actually it is sung in the most mournful manner. It led me to feel Mark and Van were singing about the very last laugh that someone they cared about was having just before leaving this laughable and sorrowful world of ours.
As Bob’s show begins to wind down, he tells us,
Ricky Gervais
“Ricky Gervais is a funny guy. Sometimes I ask him questions and sometimes he lets me tape him. Listen to what he had to say. ‘I think my hero in comedy would be, if I could have two, would be Laurel and Hardy. It began and ended with them. Everything was done. They have that warmth, they have that dynamic, that relationship; you love them, you want to hug them. I think comedians should never be better than the audience. I hate a comedian that comes out and he’s slick and he’s cool, and he’s got these one liners. It won’t resonate, it won’t mean anything to me. I want a comedian that gets their hands dirty. You know, I like someone to laugh at them. I love everything about them. They were just lovable geniuses.”
It looks like Ricky and I have something in common. I too am a great admirer of Laurel and Hardy. I think that for me, because I liked them so much, when they started to get into trouble, I felt it acutely in my emotional threat center. Then, when I realized that they were just play acting, I would feel relieved, and end up laughing much harder than if the same thing happened to someone I cared less about.
Well, there you have it, a little meditation on the nature of laughing. I hope you enjoyed it. Please join us back here at “From Insults to Respect” soon. Until then, may you find wisdom in all of your humorous moments.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
A group of my male friends and I get together about once a month to play a little poker. Because my wife and I did some traveling last winter, I happened to miss a couple of these fun events. Upon my return, I was notified of when the next poker night would occur. As I arrived, one of my buddies, noticing my entrance, cried out, “Oh no, Jeff’s back!” On the heals of this comment came a chorus of moans, sprinkled with laughter. Accompaning all of this were some warm handshakes and pats on the back.
Mike Gilmartin, a fellow player, always writes up a little summary of the evening events. To give you a little flavor of how, upon my return, the rest of the evening went, I thought I would share with you his summary. I edited out some of it because unless you know the backstories of our relationships, you would have no idea what he was referring to. Here’s what is left:
THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER: YEAR 17, ROUND 6
First hand won: Unbeatable golf partners, Stevie Wonder & Mike, split the pot.
Last hand (showdown) won: Mike’s artfully constructed full-house is bulldozed by Gordie’s wild card-tainted straight flush.
Best beat: Steve’s four kings put a whuppin’ on Almont’s four jacks in Bowling for Dollars….
Psychology major at work moment; In order to break his poker losing streak, Almont walks around the table three times, clicks his heels, and voila, starts winning.
Pie in the sky moment: Woody delivers two, count ’em, two pies for the game. When he is out of the room, there is talk of chipping in to buy him a frilly apron for next season’s games. Gordie will check with Nancy [Woody’s wife] to see if Woody favors gingham or polka dots.
Now we’re wondering why we missed him moment: Jeff’s return to the poker table reminds one and all that incoherence, forgetfulness, and ineptness are not all that admirable….
Thanks to all for playing.
A couple of weeks ago, I first brought up this topic of friends insulting one another (see post titled “Insults Amongst Friends“). There, in an effort to give you a sense of how this tends to get played out, I described some of the events that transpired when my friends and I recently went on a baseball trip. Today’s post is focussed on explaining why we do insult one another.
Why Friends Playfully Insult Each Other
One answer that quickly comes to mind is that it’s fun. The insults often lead to laughter, and laughter is typically a pleasant experience. If we do something that leads to a pleasant feeling, we tend to do similar acts in the future in the hope that it will again lead to pleasant feelings.
But this answer begs the question, why do insults among friends lead to laughter? Mike, the writer of the poker night summary I shared above, when asked this question, said that it is actually a way to say to your buddies that you like them without being mawkish about it.
His comment reminded me of a number of comedy roasts that are readily available on Youtube. If you’ve watched any of them, no doubt you’ve noticed that the person being roasted is actually the person being honored. Nevertheless, they are subjected to a barrage of insults most of the time, although there are, toward the end of a series of insults by each presenter, a sentence or two of heartwarming praise.
Mike, when I discussed this with him, added that, “Our friends, rather than feel bad because I insult them in my summary write-up, are more likely to actually feel bad if I accidentally forget to insult them. The insults are a way that brings us all together under the banner that “No shame is too great to bear.”
Although there is much truth to Mike’s take on this, I think there is a little more going on. In my view, most of the time that we laugh it’s because something reminds us of a shameful experience which touches a set of nerves even before we have time to think more fully about what is actually going on. Upon realizing we are among friends who all have had to undergo a shameful experience or two, it unites us in this common experience and we are relieved that this is being shared with those whom we are confident like us despite our very real shortcomings. It is this sense of relief that is expressed as laughter.
And our laughter serves as well as a special form of communication. When someone tries out a friendly insult, there is a very brief moment when the insulter and those listening in are not quite sure that the insulted party will take the kidding as a real insult intended to make someone actually feel awful. Doing something that leads to a friend feeling awful would be experienced as shame. When the target of the playful insult laughs, there is a sense of relief that the playful insult has been taken in a pleasant way, and it is this relief that is expressed as shared laughter among friends.
Laughter is believed to be instinctual because even people who are born blind and deaf still laugh. And those who study the connection of our brains and laughter have found that it begins by triggering some action in the oldest part of the brain, a part of the brain that came about when language and thinking development was at its most rudimentary stage. And so we are provoked to laugh at times even when we are not sure why we are doing it.
Professor Robert R. Provine
Robert R. Provine, is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Professor Provine conducted a number of studies of laughter and authored the book Laughter: a Scientific Investigation. One of his studies was a survey of laughter. He and some graduate students listened in on average conversations in public places and made notes. And in a survey of 1,200 “laugh episodes,” he found that only 10%-20% of laughs were generated by anything resembling a joke.
The other 80%-90% of comments that received a laugh were dull non-witticisms. For example, people often begin to laugh as they start to leave some people after a period during which they were all interacting and they began to say such things like, “I’ll see you guys later” and “It was nice meeting you.” Why would people be prone to laugh then?
Well, it seems to me that just as we are departing from an interaction with others, we may have deep down in the emotional center of our brains, some concern that our interactions might have come off as negative or even shameful. As we begin to observe the behavior of the other parties that were involved in the interaction, some may be perceived as indicating that things had gone well. Comments like, “Gee, this was really fun,” or “Let’s get together again real soon,” are monitored carefully to see if they are perceived as sincere. At such times, sometimes we begin to experience at some deep level of our emotional brain that some of these comments do indeed appear to be sincere, and a sense of relief is experienced. These perceived reliefs are expressed as laughter, or nervous laughter, as they are sometimes referred to.
Our laughter then communicates to others that at least someone enjoyed the interactions, and there is some relief experienced by the other parties concerned about how their own interactions were perceived, and the laughter spreads.
There is a similar phenomenon going on when we are amongst friends. When our friends point out our shortcomings, the emotional part of our brain begins to become concerned. The relief that we experience a fraction of a second later because we realize we are among people whom we have some good reason to believe like us despite our shortcoming is expressed as laughter. There is then some additional relief experienced by others from the sound of the insulted parties laugh and the laughter spreads.
Now, I hasten to point out that I have among my close friends, two guys who don’t take well to playful insults. Consequently, my friends and I largely respect this characteristic of them by avoiding throwing any barbed comments their way. Why make a friend feel bad just because the rest of us enjoy this fun form of interacting. So I urge you to keep this in mind. Consider keeping an eye out for those individuals. Some of them might laugh just out of concern that the rest of us might think less of them if they let on that they can’t take a playful joke, but inside they might be cringing. You can usually pick up who feels this way by the nature of their laugh, which typically is more halfhearted than typical. Sometimes they get obviously annoyed and defensive.
And if I might offer one more suggestion in this regard, consider the comedic roasting of an honored guest we see from time to time on TV. Just like those doing the roasting take a little time after the friendly insults to say some kind words, you might be wise to do likewise.
Well, that’s my post for this week. Until next time, may you all have some fun without hurting anyone’s feelings.
My Best,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Regular visitors to “From Insults to Respect” know that from time to time I like to select one of Bob Dylan’s “Theme Time Radio Hour” shows to help enrich our understanding of an important topic. Bob’s shows have so far helped us to take an insightful look at why people might seek to insult us by calling us certain types of names, and at how crying, happiness, luck, and being rich or poor is related to respect.
Today, we turn to Bob’s show that explores the theme of “laughter,” a topic that is related to insults and respect in a number of ways. For instance, some people throw insults at us in a playful way in the hopes of provoking laughter. If we learn to take it well, laugh along, and show we don’t take ourselves too seriously, this potentially can enhance our reputation. 
Then there are situations during which someone throws out an insult in the hopes of humiliating us, and it leads to derisive laughs from those who are listening. In such situations, if we can learn to keep our heads up high while making allowances for the level of maturity of the insulter, this too can potentially enhance our reputation.
The song deepens our understanding of both laughter and sadness because it reveals how some people think they might lose some respect if they appear, even to themselves, to be sad over the loss of a love. Better, they think, to appear to be laughing and joking about the whole mess. And yet, the song became a big hit in large part because in actuality most of us can deeply relate to someone who experiences at such times genuine sadness. Meanwhile, some may actually see through your pretense of taking the breakup so lightly. If they do, might this enhance or diminish the respect they have for you?“A lot of people laugh and joke no matter how they feel inside. The tradition of the sad clown goes back to at least 1892 when the opera “Pagliacci” was first performed. The opera is about the saddest of clowns. Enrico Caruso’s recordings of the arias of “Pagliacci” were the first records to sell over one million copies.”
Next up, Bob plays us a little number by Clyde McPhatter, called “Everyone’s Laughing” that has a related theme. Let’s take a quick look at some of the lyrics:
The singer of the song just labels the laughers, “fair weather friends.” Perhaps it would show more insight if he realized that perhaps the laughers were laughing because they knew deep inside that this type of breakup either has happened to them, or may very well at some point in their lives happen to them. Thus, they laughed because they are relieved that they are not the only ones that have to go through such a heartbreaking experience. Some sympathy for the laughers would be a mark, for me, of a higher level of maturity than the simple name calling that appears in the song’s lyrics.
In an earlier post (“Insults Among Friends: Why We Do It“) I discussed this biological connection. In brief, I described the theory that we have deep down in the emotional center of our brains, a sensitivity to any perception that we might have done something that might prove to be harmful. This perception is registered as a threat. It occurs so quickly that it arrives before some more thoughtful processing has occurred.
However, as we think upon this a little more, it may suddenly occur to us that we do have some reasons to feel threatened. At this point our emotional center, having already been sensitized from the earlier threat perception, leads to our laughter quickly turning to sadness.
However, something about the joke might bring up a memory of something sad. Since the threat region of our brain has already become sensitized from the fear of not getting the joke, we may quickly fall into sadness.Don’t mind the rain drops
The song is in a lively tempo, and is pretty cheery. Moments afterwards, however, Bob waxes philosophical with a quote from the Nobel Prize winning writer, Herman Hesse–“Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”
They have that warmth, they have that dynamic, that relationship; you love them, you want to hug them. I think comedians should never be better than the audience. I hate a comedian that comes out and he’s slick and he’s cool, and he’s got these one liners. It won’t resonate, it won’t mean anything to me. I want a comedian that gets their hands dirty. You know, I like someone to laugh at them. I love everything about them. They were just lovable geniuses.”
