Laughter [ Communication ]
… kinds of laughter communicated contempt dated back to antiquity, but it was given momentum and prominence by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651). For Hobbes, laughter was triggered by ‘Sudden Glory’: it was the grimacing joy we experience on perceiving ourselves as superior to the object of our laughter – the product of a gratified selfish ego. 10 Hobbes’s account was much debated and disputed by later thinkers – not least Shaftesbury and Hutcheson – but laughter …
Humour | Impoliteness | Laughter | Manners | Politeness | Taste | Wit
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