Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture

INTRODUCTION

The question of the nature of humor is not new. Many have applied themselves to understanding it in both general and specific ways, and because of the widespread interest in the subject, humor research is not limited to any one discipline or theory, although many available humor theories conform to the concerns of particular paradigms. Given the inevitable and pervasive pluralism around humor, there is no dominant perspective on how it can best be understood. Each theory that sheds light on the phenomenon may be valuable in its own way, although clearly some theories are better than others.¹

Thomas Veach is a recent thinker who has presented a theory of humor that many have subsequently praised for its comprehensiveness and explanatory reach.² His theory appears to provide a scientific view on humor that is [End Page 201] simple, yet seemingly complete. Any useful theory of humor ought to be able to explain both why people are amused and not amused, and Veach's theory does this more convincingly than other prevailing theories. Given that humor takes many forms, varies tremendously across cultures, is at the mercy of the vicissitudes of rapidly fluctuating contemporary values and ideas, and can be divided into almost innumerable categorical distinctions, this is no mean feat.

Still, as Veach himself suggests, "While subtle aspects of the theory may be improved upon, I believe [my theory] presently forms the most useful available framework for understanding humor and the minds and feelings of laughing people."³ I hope here to provide a new perspective on this most "useful available framework" for understanding humor perception—to improve and go beyond it. I do this by first reframing Veach's original ideas in terms of René Girard's mimetic theory, and then by exploring how mimetic theory can contribute to our understanding of humor perception. As I show, some aspects of Veach's theory are not airtight, given certain philosophical and phenomenological considerations.

This article is an example of a theory that fits within what Veach names as "the concerns of a 'disciplinarily-restricted' audience,"⁴ while also aiming to supply something more universal to fit the interdisciplinary nature of mimetic theory itself. In what follows, I first summarize Veach's theory before building on it and testing it to construct a mimetic theory of humor. This theory-building makes use of the strengths of Veach's thinking while also offering correctives and modifications to it. In the process, my argument shows, first, that mimetic theory makes ample room for understanding the perception of humor, and second, that this use of mimetic theory accounts for certain facets of humor better than Veach's theory does.

In offering this theory of humor, however, my aim is not to supplant Veach's theory, which still has validity under certain interpretive conditions. Still, I want to make clearer than Veach does the significance of the fact that the perception of humor is not primarily an individual or subjective concern but has a great deal more to do with how desire, and thus perception, is intersubjectively mediated.⁵ Once the core argument has been made, and after briefly unpacking how my theory relates to Girard's thinking on comedy, I conclude with some brief thoughts on demythologization and positive reciprocity, since these are fundamental conditions of possibility for humor.

THOMAS VEACH'S THEORY OF HUMOR

Veach begins with the postulation "that there exists a certain psychological state which tends to produce laughter."⁶ The core of his theory has to do with what [End Page 202] André Jolles calls a peculiar "mental disposition."⁷ Veach's postulation directs the reader's attention to an understanding of humor as a mental event or subjective experience, rather than simply as that which produces laughter. The issue is not just a matter of a so-called objective structure, as if humor has to do with clearly definable objective conditions, but rather has to do with how any so-called objective structure may relate to subjective apperception and perception. It is...