'Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs;
he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Greek philosopher Democritus, known as the “laughing philosopher” had a tendency to laugh at the stupidity of his fellow citizens. He felt it was better to laugh at the world than become depressed by it.
But laughter predates the Greeks. One of the best scenes in the movie ‘Quest for Fire’, is man’s discovery of laughter. When a primitive tribesman is hit on the head by a small falling stone, a woman from an advanced tribe starts to laugh. The less advanced tribesmen haven't heard such a noise before, but when one of the tribesmen deliberately drops a small stone on his friend’s head, everybody laughs. The woman taught the tribesmen how to laugh.
So if humor is universal, why doesn’t everybody have an equal sense of humor? Or is humor like beauty? Is it in the eyes of the beholder?
This is what author Dannagal Goldthwaite Young argues in her book ‘Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States’. She explains why progressives watch late night comedy shows like Steven Colbert and John Stewart and why conservatives prefer Fox News’ prime-time political talk shows such as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.
According to Young, an individual’s affinity for a particular genre of humor is determined by a set of psychological traits. She defines these traits as:
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