Review Of The Morality Of Laughter By F. H. Buckley

Buckley (law, George Mason Univ.) advances a descriptive and normative thesis about laughter. Descriptively, people always signal superiority when laughing, so there must always be a butt to laughter. This is, however, only a necessary condition: people also need sociability, playfulness, and surprise. (But is it even a necessary condition? Playfulness, absurdity, and surprise often seem sufficient.) Normatively, Buckley argues, laughter actually does signal the superiority of the laugher over the butt. Since Buckley recognizes that this is clearly false, he settles for a softer thesis: namely, that most laughter is more often than not correct, that it offers individuals valuable lessons on how to live. And the way to live is one much favored by political, moral, and aesthetic conservatives. For among the risible one finds almost all nonrepresentative art (e.g., cubism, abstract expressionism), liberal and progressive political programs (e.g., socialist programs of the New Deal) looking for social causes of crime, and virtually all literary and aesthetic theory. Buckley develops a broadly Aristotelian outlook. Conservatives and nonconservatives will thus find much to laugh at in this book, albeit for different reasons. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; upper-level undergraduates through faculty