Abstract:
The insightful force of Heller’s black comedy.
The Austrian philosopher and universal enigma Ludwig Wittgenstein once commented that a book of philosophy could be written that consisted entirely of jokes. It is one of his many intriguing and puzzling remarks. Whatever sense I can give it comes from the following observation. What philosophers (those pesky progenitors of all the non-utilitarian humanities) do situates them on the margins of mainstream ways of thinking. Since Socrates, philosophy has involved not simply taking for granted how ‘they’ think and do things but calling these ways of thinking and doing things into question. Yet what goes on in jokes, and in humorous remarks, events and anecdotes generally, is also a curious play at the limits of accepted conventions. When we hear a joke, we patiently await the so-called ‘punch-line’, interpreting the words of the joketeller according to standard interpretive rules. Then, when we ‘get it’, what we get is the gap between what these norms led us to expect and what we actually came to hear. It is this gap that provides the occasion for laughter. Accordingly (and as we all know), it is the nature of jokes that they can also always go bad, offending other people present and/or their values. Like Socrates, the joke-teller runs a risk-probably not of being put to death but of being snubbed by polite company.
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