Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• “Once you can get people to laugh at something, they never take that thing as seriously ever again” – Paraphrased quote by Voltaire
• Comedy and tragedy may seem like polar opposites at first, while they are actually very similar
  – They aim to offer a different perspective
  – In tragedy, the sacrifice of a hero can evoke a socio-political change in society
  – In comedy, the socio-political situation is ridiculed to cause a shift in the public consciousness
• Theories of laughter
  • Superiority Theory
    • We laugh at things when we feel superior to some element of the joke or situation
  • The Relief Theory
    • Sees laughter as a psychological tool to help us release tension
  • The Incongruity Theory
    • Aristotle said that the easiest way to make an audience laugh is to set some expectations and then violate them
  • Henri Bergson’s Hybrid Theory
    • He synthesizes the strongest parts of the other theories and adds a social element of laughter
      • Laughter has the function to regulate our culture and community

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

Today we begin our discussion on the work of Bergson.