What’s In A Laugh

Effie has begun to laugh. Not the little involuntary giggles a baby makes but the full-throated, mature, cause-and-effect chortle a sophisticated lady of three months is expected to make. It's not always clear what the cause is, and the same cause won't always engender the same effect upon repetition, but she has clearly discovered mirth. While she regards peekaboo cooly, a high-pitched nonsense sound and some gentle tickles will sometimes produce the desired effect—a roaring, cute-as-you-like laugh.

This is good. Laughter produces endorphins and reduces stress hormones. Laughing strengthens the immune system (which she needs) and can even lead to weigh loss (which, at 12 pounds, she doesn't). Laughter is not the best medicine—even a doctor who tried developing a pain therapy around Marx Brothers movies included large doses of Vitamin C—medicine is the best medicine. But laughter is a life extender. If done properly, 15 times a day or so, laughing can extend your life up to eight years beyond the life of someone who never laughs.

And what is a person who never laughs called? An agelast is the official term but they also respond to "Bernie Bro" or "Dr. Jordan B. Peterson." There are a number of famous agelasts, some of which you can guess—Stalin, despite his sunny reputation, was apparently one—and others that don't—Jonathan Swift, one of the funniest writers in English couldn't even be amused by his own writing. Isaac Newton is said to have only laughed once, when asked why his findings were worth studying. Baruch Spinoza, the great philosopher, is believed to have been an agelast but that may just be a literal understanding of this quote: "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them." I don't understand how you can understand human action without laughing a little bit but then I don't understand substance monism so maybe Spinoza knows something I don't. It's unclear whether or not Karl Marx was an agelast (though it is acknowledged that Engels was the cut-up of the pair) but it's clear his mother was not. She once said to him "I wish you would make some capital instead of just writing about it," underpinning at least some truth in every Jewish mother joke in existence. It's hard to say if these people simply didn't have senses of humor because they all died before this video was put on YouTube which means we'll never know.

Of course, a number of people have died laughing, including King Martin of Aragon in 1410, who died while laughing at his court jester, which is awkward. If there were any justice, it seems to me the jester should become the king in that situation but I'm sure he was executed. The 5th Century BC Greek painter Zeuxis died after a fit of laughter after he was commissioned to make a painting of Aphrodite by an old woman who insisted on being the model. Staying in Ancient Greece, the stoic philosopher Chyrsippus died laughing while watching a donkey eat figs, which is a funny image, but not the kind of thing you would think a stoic would succumb to. Keep in mind, Greek stoicism has less to do with today's idea of a stiff upper lip and more to do with an extreme fealty to reason and it is reasonable that a donkey, with its bushy tail, big teeth and hooves, going to town on a juicy fig would be pretty hilarious.

Being a girl (at least biologically, for the agelasts out there), Effie statistically will laugh more than her brother, which seems hard to believe seeing as a well placed tickle around the neck will send Rocky into hysterics where Effie remains stingy with her guffaws. Women laugh more than men and there is some research to suggest there is an evolutionary reason for this. Studies of heterosexual dating patterns reveal that both sexes claim they want a partner with a sense of humor. However, when a woman says that she means she wants someone who makes her laugh and a man means he wants someone who appreciates his jokes. This behavior is borne out in chimpanzees who laugh throughout their mating process. While the disparity of the two sexes on what makes a sense of humor may make men seem vain and fragile, keep in mind that a man is constantly competing for a female's attention, attention that is hard to capture because pregnancy gives women a lot of power to be choosy with what type of genetic material they are after. The ability to land a joke shows a tendency towards creativity, intelligence and quick wittedness which tells the woman that this guy may be a good match. Humor isn't everything, of course, science calls it the "Carrot Top Limit," and I've been in public situations where I've told a bad joke in front of my wife that has had severely bad consequences for me. These consequences are borne out in chimpanzees when one rips off the arms of another and beats him with them. Still, humor has proven a reliable way for straight men to jump the line.

It's also why we indulge male class clowns and discourage female ones, giving rise to the pernicious and ludicrous claim that women aren't funny, a hypothesis that is challenged daily just by the women who live in my house. It doesn't help that studies find that women are less likely to laugh at other women. Women laugh amongst themselves, of course, proven through anecdotal evidence (to say nothing of tampon ads) but research finds that women are less likely to laugh at a female comedian, perhaps because of the biological call-and-response laid out above. Studies also find that in blind experiments, there is no comedy gap, but there does appear to be a societal decree about who is seen to be funny and who can't.

And as Effie learns to laugh, I hope she pushes against that decree because there's little better than a funny woman. Having descended from one, I'm sure she'll come to the same conclusion. If she has half the wicked sense of humor her mother has, she'll have twice as much as the rest of us. According to philosopher Henri Bergson, despite evidence that apes, dogs, dolphins and rats laugh, writes persuasively that laughter is uniquely human. In direct opposition to Spinoza, Bergson encourages us to laugh at humanity as an exercise for our imaginations. In fact, he suggests that society is underpinned by it. Laughter brings us together and it can divide us or, as Oscar Wilde put it, "Laughter is not at all a bad beginning of a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one." It is one of the only universal human currencies. Going too long without hearing it is bad for your health. For my part, I've tried to leaven these newsletters with a little bit of humor and I hope I've succeeded despite expectations. When I told people I wanted to write a funny newsletter, they laughed at me. Well, they're not laughing now.