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Better to Laugh: Linking Humor, Creativity, and Intelligence
| Article
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20333 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1992 |
753 Words |
| Author
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Victor Raskin
Victor Raskin is professor of linguistics at Purdue
University. He is editor in chief of the quarterly magazine
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. As a
contributing editor to the Culture section, he has prepared
the special series The Mission of Humor, which continues
publication in this issue of THE WORLD & I. The series, which
began in the April 1992 issue, will conclude in the August
1992 issue. |
A sense of humor often is associated with intelligence. In the early 1980s, a group of psychologists led by Harvey Mindess, one of the pioneer of humor research in this country, conducted a series of experiments designed to capture the link. Their results were interesting but not conclusive. More recently, John Morreall,a prominent philosopher of humor, has talked about the sense of humor as being directly related to creativity and only indirectly to intelligence.
Whichever it is, our society clearly views a sense of humor as being something valuable and good to have. I never omit to indicate in a letter of recommendation that the candidate has a sense of humor. (As a matter of fact, I have a terrific sense of humor myself: Everybody thinks so, except for my wife and daughter.) And politicians or public speakers in this country are in big trouble if they fail to start their speeches with a joke or to put one in every few minutes. But this attitude toward humor is not universal. In many cultures, reputedly Arab and Japanese, for example, such behavior is considered wildly inappropriate for public discourse.
Westerners definitely believe that it is smarter to laugh than to cry, but all of us have had the misfortune of encountering people who lack a sense of humor. However, we should feel privileged not to have met a British subject by the name of Capt. Anthony M. Ludovici (Ret.), who was probably the most virulent misoghelus (laughter hater) or aghelastos (refrainer from laugher) of all times. Ludovici claimed, in the happily long-forgotten book The Secret of Laughter (1932), that there was something sinister about humor. Laughter, he declared, was a way of shying away from serious problems. Laughter reputedly induced the British to
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