Comic Relief, pages 91-145 (1st response)

            Despite the length, I actually was relieved by the comic of pages 91-145 (unlike previous chapters)! The material covered intellectual and moral virtues promoted by humor in Chapter 6 (ex: open-mindedness, honesty with oneself, and graciousness) and compared humor to philosophy in promoting a curious, imaginative, and critical attitude. (Chapter 7) The author presented some interesting ideas, like the Eight Traditional Moral Objections to laughter (humor is insincere, idle, irresponsible, hedonistic, diminishes self-control, hostile, fosters anarchy, is foolish). However, the wordiness used to elaborate on these ideas made getting through this section quite difficult.

            Some of my favorite things to learn were that “laughter not only reduces anxiety, but also reduces pain/boosts the activity of the immune system!” Humor also can be a psychologically healthy way to respond to setbacks. Not all humorous situations call for concern or action…people engage in humor to keep emotionally cool and in command of their skills. We also learned about the harmful effects of humor-1) irresponsibility, 2) blocking compassion, and 3) promoting prejudice (by doing that, we categorize all members of a group).

            In Chapter 6, Aristotle categorized 2 kinds of virtue: intellectual or moral. We learned that amusement allows us to transcend narrowly focused, emotional responses to situations and also about the benefits of being able to laugh at yourself. Learning about humor during the Holocaust was also interesting, as were the similarities between stand-up comedy and humor. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything else interesting until the end of Chapter 8 when it discussed Zen and quotes “we get by with a little help from our friends.” Beatles song, anyone!? J All through that section on page 144, I was thinking about the show, Modern Family. The author talks about how comedies often feature simultaneous interlinked plots to emphasize human interdependence and that’s exactly what that show does! All in all, the last three chapters kept my attention much better than did previous readings (even though it was really long).