Redeeming Laughter, 2nd Edition

3 Laughing Monks: A Very Brief Sinitic Interlude

All the authors discussed in the preceding chapter are taken from the history of Western philosophy. It would be a grave mistake to gather from this that reflection about the comic is an exclusively Western preoccupation. The phenomenon of the comic as such is universal. Not only do all human beings laugh (and presumably have been laughing ever since homo sapiens mutated away from his simian relatives), but no human culture has been studied that does not have a concept of the comic. In other words, not only laughter but comic laughter is universal. In all likelihood this cannot be said with regard to systematic reflection about the comic, be it by philosophers or other theorists. It is all the ...