The purpose of humour's normalising force is, on Bergson's account, to eliminate any disturbing (non-plastic) elements from society. This is important as Bergson maintains that the more plastic (i.e. flexible) the members of a society are on an individual level, the greater that society's stability will be. Laughter is an attempt to eliminate inflexibility (Laughter, p. 199), much o f it manifested in social life.17 Bergson often refers to individual's inflexibility as eccentricities. (Laughter, p. 135 & p.
17)
The argument Bergson presents linking eccentricity and social stability is based on a particular view o f what eccentricity is. Eccentricity is seen as a lack o f striving on the part o f the individual to adapt to their circumstances, (Laughter, p. 19) including their social surroundings. (Laughter, p. 135) As the eccentric lacks adaptability they will no longer be striving to keep in flexible relations, not only with their circumstances, but also with other people. These flexible relations between people are the essential foundation for the toleration o f others in society. If there were no flexibility and hence no tolerance, then society would, in the most extreme cases, break up. Eccentricity is thus the inability to adapt and fit in with other wills without friction. (AoL, p. 113) As such eccentricity is a potential threat to social stability, and is therefore laughed at and, thereby, discouraged. As in most cases eccentricity is not
17 Michael Clark, "Humour and Incongruity," Philosophy 45 (1970): p. 21. (Henceforth H&I)
extreme enough to be o f real concern, it is dismissed by laughter without being given serious consideration. (Laughter, p. 133)
Bergson though does not only see inflexibility in terms o f single individuals and their inflexible relations to others - but also in terms o f groups who are inflexible towards others. Inflexibility in the relations between a group and the rest o f society at large suggests separatist tendencies, a fracturing o f the common consensus and a swerving from society's common centre. (Laughter, p. 19) Humour in this case can be seen as a process of normalisation preserving the pre-existing societal structures, as opposed to fostering change in them.
So humour, attempts to ensure that individuals in societies are flexible in their relations to each other, the society they are in defining such flexibility, as that society is in part creative o f the environment into which they must fit. Individuals who are inflexible lose their connection to other individuals - this forming the essence o f an individual's comical status, (Laughter, p. 134) and o f the lack o f sympathy with which they are regarded. Laughter is thus a reflection o f this exclusion, however temporary that exclusion may be.
According to Bergson, fictional comedy can identify various eccentrics as types, general categories into which individuals can be pigeonholed. This notion o f 'type' helps Bergson counter an obvious objection to his social model o f humour - the role fictional characters play in his account. This kind o f objection would question why we laugh at characters who are pretending to have eccentricities, if humour is a matter o f social control.
when the audience are fully aware that the individuals in question are merely acting. Bergson can, however, quite easily maintain that when individuals laugh at a comic actor they are treating the actor with pretend eccentricities as if he did indeed have those eccentricities which required correction. This would, however, leave open the question as to why comic plays are put on in the first place: why should someone pretend to have eccentricities? This is where the notion of type helps Bergson. If fictional comedy merely identified individuals who were rigid eccentrics then the question 'why are there any comic actors' would be entirely reasonable, but if comic actors exemplify types, this problem is dissolved. As humour, for Bergson, can be based on the identification of types, then a comic actor can be taken as a general model or type, a caricature which exaggerates, but also allows similar exemplifications of the type to be identified in everyday life and laughed at. Indeed when someone takes on a comic character they always play a double part, according to Bergson, whilst the self who laughs is conscious, the self laughed at is not. (Laughter, p. 146fh) On this basis fictional characters could still have a useful social role. This explanation fits well with Bergson's fondness for Molière and the "type", e.g. Le Misanthrope. But can Bergson's account cope with all comic actors? Exodor from the television series Mork and Mindy may figure as a potential counter example here.
Exodor possesses highly unusual invented eccentricities. It is unlikely, for example, that individuals will meet someone who, when arranging the film for a stag night, will bring a completely empty reel o f film to the party to watch instead o f the expected blue movie. It could hardly be said
that this was an exaggeration o f how individuals usually behaved, and as such there would seem little point in trying to 'iron out' this type of eccentric behaviour with laughter. This is particularly important if the fictional token is supposed to act as a model for us to generalise from. (This example also raises the more general question o f what type Exodor would exemplify.)
If specific types are to be laughed at, in order to discourage the rigidity they display, then the type which is causing laughter in each case has to be identifiable. This is particularly important if comedy is pointing to types to help us recognise and guard against them, like a disease, as Swabey claims. (Swabey, p. 11) Types are, as has been said, essential for the generalisation from any particular fictional example o f the humorous, otherwise only a particular form o f behaviour, if repeated, could be laughed at, but no extrapolation made to similar instances o f behaviour. We must however be careful. It is not a case o f looking at something comparing it to the model o f the type possessed to see if it fits the type and then laughing. Instead general ideas are initially built up from habit resemblances which are characterised in terms o f the same motor reactions being elicited by different sensations - they are felt - not represented, it is thus not as such a conscious process.18 * (MM) Generality is built up from these initial motor reactions by memory spontaneously grafting distinctions onto the spontaneously abstracted resemblances to form clear generalities, which can then be used to make
18 Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul & W. Scott Palmer (New York: Zone Books, 1988). p. 160. (Henceforth MM)
new motor mechanisms. (MM, p. 161) So a pure vital and social reflex laughter can rise to the comedy o f character.19 It is this automatic character and lack o f conscious reflection which Bergson is referring to in Laughter. (Laughter, p. 198) a forgetfulness of self.20
To summarise: Bergson sees eccentricity as a form o f rigidity in individual members o f a society. This rigidity is threatening to society because society is founded on the ability of individuals to relate flexibly to each other. In order to generalise from particular examples o f rigidity, Bergson invokes the notion o f the type in fictional comedy, these types
being what is identified and laughed at. Fictional characters embodying types, perhaps in an exaggerated form, would then act as models to allow individuals to identify and laugh at similar non-fictional individuals embodying the same type. It was latterly carefully noted how the notion o f generality was initially a product o f similarity in motor reactions which was used as a starting point for the formation of generality which is at the basis o f the type.
So far the thesis has looked at the identification o f rigid types but has not fully explored Bergson's account o f the cause o f rigidity. In the next section the thesis will do just this. The thesis will detail Bergson's identification o f the major cause o f rigidity in individuals as inattention,
19 Frédéric Worms, Introduction à Matière et Mémoire de Bergson (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1997) p. 179. (Henceforth Worms)
20 Jeanne Delhomme, Vie et Conscience de la Vie: Essais sur Bergson (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954) p. 28 (Henceforth Delhomme)
using an extended example to explore this explanation. This thesis will then look at another aspect o f Bergson's notion o f inattention, a series of dominant memories which are inflexibly applied by individuals. Given this notion o f the dominant series o f memories, another example will be used to explore inattention, as Bergson outlines it, and its relation to madness. The problems which madness might cause for Bergson's account of the fixed idea will then provide the link to the next section of the thesis which gives an initial analysis o f Bergson's position as regards the relation between madness and the comic.