The Birth Of Comedy
If one considers
that man for many hundreds of thousands of years
an animal in the highest degree accessible to fear
and that everything sudden and unexpected
bade him prepare to fight and perhaps to die
that even later on, indeed,
in social relationships all security depended
on the expected and the traditional
in opinion and action
then one cannot be surprised
if whenever something sudden and unexpected
in word and deed happens
without occasioning danger or injury
man becomes wanton,
passes over
into the opposite of fear:
the anxious, crouching creature springs up,
greatly expands
– man laughs,
this transition from momentary
anxiety to short-lived exuberance
is called
the comic.
Human All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, aphorism 169
I laugh,
how incongruous
that I
nevertheless
still live!
2 thoughts on “The Birth Of Comedy”
Perhaps I’m reading into Nietzsche’s words, but in the quotes from his writings, over and over I see the precursor to Evolutionary Psychology (EP). EP is a relatively new area of academic exploration though many scientists feel this concept is nonsense and won’t even discuss the possibility of its credibility. In a nutshell (so to speak) EP posits that we are the unconscious result of ancestral behavior, that many of the patterns that allowed our ancient fore-parents to survive in hostile surroundings (i.e. assumption, xenophobia, mythologizing, tribalism, etc.) have been brought to bear in the present day. Most, if not all of these innate behaviors, are detrimental to our present well being.
But it is apparent, at least to me, that Nietzsche was a VERY early proponent of such thinking. He seemed to view his fellow humans as totally unaware of their behavior and through his astute observations, understood where these tendencies came from. Please correct me if I’ve misread his intent.
I interpret his angle of view of human behavior in the manner that you have described. I am reminded that the late 19th century was a time when notable advances were achieved by science. In the social sciences Freud is perhaps the most notable. Nietzsche thought that an ever advancing secularization due to an overemphasis on reason would see the eruption of these atavistic habits, to the detriment of our collective well being. These are features of his philosophy that continue to compel study of his writings within the academic community. For me personally, his viewpoint merits translation into ordinary discourse, since we must prepare ourselves for whatever the future holds.