/lit/ - Literature

>>19346488
I reckon there are three categories of laughter (this is a rough sketch, I haven't properly begun to categorise laughter yet).
> I. That which arises from perception of the absurd or unexpected
> II. That which arises from perception of the pathetic
> III. That which arises not from perception of anything in particular but from an overflowing of emotion
Types I. and II. have been pretty much covered already by me but I haven't covered III. so much, forgive me.
Type III. is insidious in that it is a kind of laughter which is done uncontrollably out of deep emotion; it is hysterical.
Rational man does not experience, or otherwise, does not encourage within himself, fits like this. Self control is always the aim.
You contend that being overtaken by such emotions is a good thing but why? why is measured delight not enough? why does one need to laugh?
Laughter is not only a symptom of lapses of reason, but of madness as well. There is a sickness about laughter that isn't taken seriously enough.
Laughter is also grotesque in general and obnoxious. I think I don't need to take the drug to condemn it and it's use.

>>19346194
You stupid fucking faggot, read what I'm typing:
I know what you want me to say but I don't think the analogy is one to one because I can obviously observe humour so I want you to tell me how exactly how my agelastic nature invalidates my opinions on laughter. I certainly don't think they make my analysis wrong because, as I've said, I can observe conversations in which humour is employed and notice how the meaning of language is perverted, etc. but maybe I am missing something, idk. I want you to tell me exactly what that is.

>>19345748
What am I missing about humour exactly that makes my opinion invalid? I really want to know...

>>19345489
Yes friend, I did read it; I apologise, I meant to post my response to it but I forgot to and closed the website.
Essentially what I said was that I am against cruel and unusual punishment so I'm inclined to be against the use of tickle torture by the state, although I might revise this view depending on the effectiveness of this method in reducing humour in a subject (though, perhaps, even then it may only be proper in extreme cases).
This testimony doesn't cover how effective the tickling was in reducing his humour, but I suspect it wasn't very.

>>19345243
I have observed the effects of comedy and offer this proscription after much contemplation.
Whether I have laughed in my life or not is immaterial to the accurateness of what I have observed, to the truthfulness of my analysis, or to the effectiveness of my recommendations.
Furthermore, life can be just as fulfilling, and likely MORESO, without humour, and by you're argument (which is really just an ad hominem fallacy) I, of all people, should know, so trust me please.

>>19345163
Are you fucking stupid? I have written extensively on the evil effects of humour, here in this very thread; on the societal expectations that come with humour; on the degeneracy of laughter; on the inherently negative nature of laughter and humour; but you just want to call me autistic right? You have been indoctrinated. Try to actually read what I wrote or else sod off.

>>19341602
Fuck you, I did well in that thread.

>>19345083
I'm not a clown; I hate clowns.

>>19345024
>Shakespeare is always good, but he is a legend because of his dramas
and also his poetry obviously.

>>19342040
I have never sincerely laughed in my life. When I do laugh it is to avoid making people uncomfortable (the cult of comedy makes it so that responding with silence is not a socially viable option. If you don't laugh, the joker wonders if something is wrong with them or with you).
I softly say "ha-ha" to convince them that I have found the joke funny but, unfortunately, detecting a joke is incredibly taxing on the mind so sometimes I forget to laugh or otherwise, on occasion, miscalculate and laugh inappropriately. As of late though, I have become quite adept at judging when it is appropriate to laugh and when it is not. This skill is so important I think that I may publish a tract "On Detecting Humour and Simulating Laughter for The Agelast", idk yet.
>>19341227
>>19341289
I have probably read more literature (e.g. Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan, etc.) than philosophy actually.
I hate comedies because of how confusing and pointless the plots tend to be, without even the advantage of good prose most of the time. Shakespeare is always good, but he is a legend because of his dramas―and this should be obvious to any literate person―not his comedies.
Stories are just that though, and taking them more seriously than philosophy is foolish. The wisemen of antiquity thought deeply, and they came to have contempt for laughter. They saw it, rightly, as grotesque and irrational. Plato, Epictetus, Cicero, et al. opposed laughter in part or in whole. These were men who cared deeply about living life, they sought eudaimonia. I think I will try to emulate them and not Don Quixote.
>>19343869
>autistic sociopath incapable of feeling joy.
Stop spamming buzzwords, it makes you look stupid. I am capable of feeling joy―when I've earned it. People have forgotten this, life's greatest principal, and we are so much the worse for it. I seek to remind them of it.
The Puritans were the only ones brave enough to try to before me to my knowledge, and they did it for a while―unfortunately it didn't last. Still laughter has been recognised as a vice for centuries.
>risus abundat in ore stultorum
>>19343917
Laughter is the path to confusion, vexation, loss of self-control, malice, absurdity, arrogance, and ignorance. Avoid laughter at all cost!
>>19344008
Going on a walk is fun (an overrated emotion btw); laughing is evil.
>>19344495
There is nothing "absurd" in the world, because the world is consistent. Confusion arises by our lack of comprehension. With laughter, when one cannot comprehended something, hysteria ensues. Why? What is the purpose? Humour also perverts language to an unusable degree. Speech ought to seek clarity and sincerity; humour is obscure and insincere, and worse, absurd.
> it will not change a person's perception of what they find absurd in this world, it would only hide from the fact of humor.
Repression is the first step on the road to developing the virtue of humourlessness.

>>19338676
It's about ending laughter, yes.

>>19337578
I've seen at least one other anon express my views, and eloquently so I might add. Here is the exchange between that anon and myself.

> Anon: Laughter is unconscious communication and sympathy. It is important to be conscious of things, a man will also tell you all about himself if you communicate earnestly and without laughter. It is important, to me, to think of the price of laughter.

> Me: Supremely insightful; I, however, do not take laughter to be sympathetic.
> [quoting Hobbes] Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.
> Derision cannot be sympathy.

> I mean sympathy in the way of things responding in like. Not an emotional intelligence thing. That is a good quote, and I believe that to play a role. Often humor, if not arising from some weird/absurd situation or schadenfreude, is a veiled expression of an inner disturbance causing a dissonance in a person, and it being met with laughter is a reaction to the unexpected absurdity, to resolve this dissonance. It usually appeals to a similar disturbance causing distress in the laughing party. There is laughter out of mockery, laughter out of cruelty, laughter out of pain, laughter out of shock, laughter out of madness, laughter out of sadness, laughter out of power, laughter out of pride, laughter out of beauty, laughter out of awe. It is all born of the unexpected, confusing, hard to process, or overwhelming, whether in ourselves or external circumstance. It’s function is to resolve dissonance, it is a consonance. Laughing is an unconscious response to many things, therefore, if your desire is exclusively to “know”, as in be “conscious” and analyze yourself+others, and only that, laughter is probably a detriment. I think it is a bit frivolous, and shameful. To laugh or not to laugh is up to you, I believe there is a psychological upper hand given to you if you withhold the laughter people beg for, but give them the other things they desire in interaction. Everything unfolding or emerging is like a piece of music, whatever that they may mean to you, I don’t want to type anymore.

> Ahh, I see. Again, you have been very insightful, hitting upon some points that I have missed and expressing ideas that I have had difficultly formulating, admirably well.
> I truly appreciate both of your posts and think, I shall save both to draw upon, if I may.
> Thank you anon.

Source: >>/lit/thread/S19316177

There are other people too who mentioned being interested, like the OP in that thread, but the anon that I quoted was the most memorable I think.

>>19337687
What do you mean why? We just recognise that humour is evil. Do you mean how do we know?
Humour by it's very nature is insincere, which makes language ambiguous; it is either a celebration of absurdity or hysterical schadenfreude. It is illogical and perverse. What do you not get?

>>19336727
No but perhaps I should write articles there.
>>19336726
Your mind has been so deranged by laughter that you cannot help but reduce yourself to blithering idiocy.
> bbbboooerp;pps;pv s;pf ksf msg loms lomf m sf n hahahah HAHA AHAHAHAHAH AH AHA AH HAHAH AHA AH
What does any of it mean? Will people look back on this day and see what you have done as good? or will they be confused and perhaps even ashamed?

>>19336672
Is this the best response your laughter-addled brain could come up with? Idiot.

>>19335309
Read my articles.
To tell you the truth, I feel very lonely and tired having to write all these long posts myself but I hear my calling and I know it's something I must do for the greater good.

>>19336509
???
Please tell me what this phrase means. I think I have seen it used as an invective before but I don't think I quite understand it yet.
Is it a sexual metaphor?

>>19335362
We seek a world without laughter, without comedy, humourless and content. (The Agelastian vision)
We seek to revive the anti-laughter tradition of philosophers such as Plato, Epictetus. Descartes, and Hobbes and to add to it, to better address the effects of comedy in our time.
We recognise that laughter warps reality and strains society.
We recognise that jocularity warps communication and undermines sincerity.
We recognise that humour is pervasive in society and held, almost, as sacred (the cult of comedy).
We recognise that laughter is not necessary for a good and happy life but is ultimately antithetical to those ends.
We recognise that the grotesqueness of laughter
etc. etc.
I have written about my positions and thoughts on Agelastianism before but I have not published anything until now.
I wish I could collect all me writings in one place but I only have access to other (live) thread and an archived one which isn't even very good (because it was my first).
Still, I think it should be obvious to you now just what we stand for now.
I hope we've piqued your interest because there shall be more to come.

>>19335176
I'm not arrogant enough to think that I'm the only one in this movement and I have met a few brothers here already so it's appropriate I think.
If this does not apply to you, however, maybe don't reply? or at the very least engage thoughtfully with the movement and try to learn; or just have something, anything, meaningful to say! Christ...

My short essay, A PERSONAL DECLARATION AGAINST THE SIN OF LAUGHTER; or, ON MY AWAKENING TO THE AGELASTIAN VISION, has just been published in our very own magazine, &amp.
I write now to say that our movement is dawning. I feel Fortuna's growing warmth―she is sweet to me now. I truly believe that our philosophical movement shall reach beyond even /lit/ and cross over into the mainstream of the global consciousness.
Once it reaches into the mainstream we will see a battle of epic proportions; this battle, the conflict between the Agelastian vision and the Philogelastian cult of comedy's, shall carry with it resounding and most dire consequences.
WHAT WE DO NOW IS EXTREMELY CRUCIAL. We are at the most nascent stage of our philosophical movement―let not the turtle die before it crawls to sea.
> Majestic lion, with paw and jaw, slay the hysterical hyena!
So far, all the reviews I have gotten have been overwhelmingly positive; this is uplifting, yet, some laugh at me―this isn't new to me however.
I do not blame them really, it is only natural for those indoctrinated into the cult of comedy to laugh at infidels; being mistaken for a satirist or a comedian, however, is horrifying.
Not only is it insulting, it is highly preposterous, only the cult of comedy could take its most ardent critic for it's most enthusiastic practitioner.
They can laugh for now, I say, but a time will come...
> Glorious King, with sword in hand, vanquish the irreverent fool!
The Agelastian Kingdom is upon us brothers. I don't want to make any prophecies but I can just feel it―if I could only describe it.
THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION: Write! Write! Write!
We must articulate our point, my fellow Agelastians. The people must know that we are deathly serious and seek a most sublime goal for all societies.
We ought to make video essays, TikToks, songs, etc. too, so that we may reach the youth. They have to deny comedy first before anyone else. (we can focus on this when we're a more mature movement however).

>>19334331
Kierkegaard indulges in an act of extremely absurdity in laughing, since laughter is itself simply absurdity indulging in absurdity; he surrenders, whereas he should fight (which I think he does ably with his philosophy for the most part).
> it's just so convenient that everyone that laughs at you is indoctrinated
Laughter is a reaction arising from apprehension of the absurd or of the pathetic; anyone who could apprehend this immediately in the doctrine I here propound has not, as yet, manage to show me my error; you say that it is because hilarity is something one must sense to understand―and that it were as if, I take it, one was to try and describe color to the blind―but if this sense is especially for the apprehension of the absurd or pathetic, then the faculty of reason should be just as adequate a detector; so that even a humorless man could understand why there should be anything to laugh at (though he may miss out on the qualia of perceiving something as funny) but again I have not been challenged on the logic so much of my claims which leads me to suspect that there is no reason behind why my doctrine is being taken to be either absurd or pathetic, just that it is, which seems to me to be indicative of a high level of indoctrination.
> I don't even think there is an objectively correct viewpoint here
I think, without any malice intended to you, that your laughter betrays you; but at any rate, if you are indeed telling the truth, I should be very sorry for you indeed.
>>19334369
Yes that was me. I'm annoyed at the grammatical mistakes I made there in my haste and I think it would have been more effective had there not been any. I'm glad that you saw something in it but I shall have to rewrite it.
Anyway, again you find what I say funny and I must say, if you are being sincere, it saddens me very deeply and I find myself, again, frustrated. I am not a comedian and I have never *intentionally* made anyone laugh; I admit, with shame, that, out of curiosity, I have attempted to joke before but my attempts, to memory, have not been very successful.
That laughter is grotesque is my point; that you have reacted with laughter, perhaps, is because of how apparently unlikely this observation is to you―despite it's clear truth now that you have thought on it―but it only seems unlikely because it is against your conception of laughter as good and natural, whereas laughter serves no unique purpose and is too much of a vice to be a net boon; again, this is indicative of a warped sense of reality, which is why the mentally disturbed are often seen cackling about, seemingly, nothing. Laughter can only make reality seem absurd.

>>19323990
To the editor: Just opened it up and it appears that you attributed my Agelastian Awakening article to "Anonymous"―and called it an Anonymous Diatribe―despite my name-fagging use of a pseudonym; I also just assumed that you would turn the parenthetical clauses marked "footnote:" into footnotes but it appears I was mistake.
I apologise, I should have asked especially for that to be done. I appreciate that you were having a bit of trouble getting this edition into print and really, it was a wonderful job, thank you. I'm just glad to see the movement spreading.
>>19329373
> Liked the anti-laughter article.
Glad to hear it, spread the word.
> Was autistic
There's that word again
> and unique.
Well I strive to be.
> Can the author link his original post where people called him retarded?
This anon >>19333451 appears to have found it; for a while I couldn't find it either but now I have it so I'm very thankful for that.
>>19324494
Thank you.
>>19331966
> Ironically, it made me laugh.
I cannot stress enough how depressing this is to hear.
>Either way, mine was an interesting reaction to such eassy.
there is nothing interesting about your reaction―regardless of how antithetical it is to my aim―as the indoctrinated one's natural inclination is to be hostile to criticism or to perceive it as mere absurdity, and perceived absurdity becomes laughter. Put simply: the lover of laughter cannot conceive that someone can be against laughter, so they laugh.
Even so, I wasn't ready to hear that, to tell you the truth, and I am quite horrified at the idea. I will work harder to be taken seriously.

>>19328011
>What's with this trend of normal fags on the internet calling people with curious, logical, skeptical and open minded personality traits 'autistic'?
I don't know but very recently they called not just me autistic but Jesus Christ too; makes you think, no? Let's add Socrates to that list. One can only imagine who else is autistic according to these robots; shall we see Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein added to this list? Oh how absurd! ignore the proscriptions written up by these fools.

>>19318964
Nothing that's considered funny makes sense when you think about it but American humour, in particular, is characteristically arrogant, excessive, obnoxious, and unseemly.