Philosophy Wire: Laugh at… yourself?

Laughter exposes something essentially human. But Bergson’s very interest in laughter and the comic might well arise from the fact that the phenomenon of laughter indicates a social situation – denoted as the comic – in which human beings are both the source and the object of laughter. The comic situation gives laughter, as a sociological fact, a dual valence: humans laugh, but they only ever laugh at themselves. [1] Watch closely. There is nothing to laugh at. There are no others. There is nothing here now. Not your senses. Not the others. Not even yourself. Nothing. Just you. Alone. Wandering in the forest of pure existence. Stepping into a river. The water is tickling you…

What can you do but cry?
So, you decide to laugh…

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