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III

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

NEAR the end of the preceding chapter as I was writing down Heine’s
comparison of the Catholic priest to an employee of a large business
house, and the Protestant divine to an independent retail dealer, I felt
an inhibition which nearly prevented me from using this comparison. I
said to myself that among my readers probably there would be some who
hold in veneration not only religion, but also its administration and per-
sonnel. These readers might take offense at the comparison and get into
such an emotional state about it that it would take away all interest from
the question whether the comparison seemed witty in itself or was witty
only through its garnishings. In other examples, e.g., the one mentioned
above concerning the agreeable moonlight shed by a certain philosophy,
there would be no worry that for some readers it might be a disturbing
influence in our investigation. Even the most religious person would re-
main in the right mood to form a judgment about our problem.

It is easy to guess the character of the witticism by the kind of reaction
that wit exerts on the hearer. Sometimes wit is wit for its own sake and
serves no other particular purpose; then, again, it places itself at the serv-
ice of such a tendency; i.e., it becomes tendentious. Only that form of
wit which has such a tendency runs the risk of ruffling people who do not
wish to hear it.

Theo Vischer called wit without a tendency “abstract” wit; I prefer to
call it “harmless” wit.

As we have already classified wit according to the material touched by
its technique into word-
and thought-wit, it is incumbent upon us to in-
vestigate the relation of this classification to the one just put forward.
Word-
and thought-wit on the one hand, and abstract-
and tendency-wit
on the other hand, bear no relation of dependence to each other; they are
two entirely independent classifications of witty productions. Perhaps
some one may have gotten the impression that harmless witticisms are
preponderately word-witticisms, whereas the complicated techniques of

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THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

thought-witticisms are mostly made to serve strong tendencies. There
are harmless witticisms that operate through play on words and sound
similarity, and just as harmless ones which make use of all means of
thought-wit. Nor is it less easy to prove that tendency-wit as far as tech-
nique is concerned may be merely the wit of words. Thus, for example,
witticisms that “play” with proper names often show an insulting and
offending tendency, and yet they, too, belong to word-wit. Again, the
most harmless of all jests are word-witticisms. Examples of this nature
are the popular “shake-up” rhymes (Schüttelreime) in which the tech-
nique is represented through the manifold application of the same mate-
rial with a very peculiar modification:

“Having been forsaken by Dame Luck, he degenerated into a Lame
Duck.”

Let us hope that no one will deny that the pleasure experienced in this
kind of otherwise unpretentious rhyming is of the same nature as the one
by which we recognize wit.

Good examples of abstract or harmless thought-witticisms abound in
Lichtenberg’s comparisons with which we have already become ac-
quainted. I add a few more. “They sent a small octavo to the University
of Göttingen; and received back in body and soul a quarto” (a fourth-
form boy).

“In order to erect this building well, one must above all things lay a
good foundation, and I know of no firmer than by laying immediately
over every pro-layer a contra-layer.”

“One man begets the thought, the second acts as its godfather, the third
begets children by it, the fourth visits it on its death-bed, and the fifth
buries it” (comparison with unification).

“Not only did he not believe in ghosts, but not once was he ever afraid
of them.” The witticism in this case lies exclusively in the absurd repre-
sentation which puts what is usually considered less important in the
comparative and what is considered more important in the positive de-
gree. Divested of its dress it says: it is much easier to use our reason and
make light of the fear of ghosts than to defend ourselves against this fear
when the occasion presents itself. But this rendering is no longer witty; it
is merely a correct and still too little respected psychological fact suggest-
ing what Lessing expresses in his well-known words:

“Not all are free who mock their chains.”

HARMLESS AND TENDENCY WIT

I shall take the opportunity presented here of clearing up what may still
lead to a possible misunderstanding. “Harmless” or “abstract” wit should
in no way convey the same meaning as “shallow” or “poor” wit. It is

690

meant only to designate the opposite of the “tendency” wit to be de
scribed later. As shown in the aforementioned examples, a harmless jest,
i.e., a witticism without a tendency, can also be very rich in content and
express something worth while. The quality of a witticism, however, is
independent of the wit and represents the quality of the thought which is
here expressed wittily by means of a special contrivance. To be sure, just
as watch-
makers are wont to enclose very good works in valuable cases, so
it may likewise happen with wit that the best wit-
contrivances are used
to invest the richest thoughts.

Now, if we pay strict attention to the distinction between thought-
content and the witty wording of thought-
wit, we arrive at an insight
which may clear up much uncertainty in our judgment of wit. For it turns
out—astonishing as it may seem—that our enjoyment of a witticism is
supplied by the combined impression of content and wit-
activity, and
that one of the factors is likely to deceive us about the extent of the other.
It is only the reduction of the witticism that lays bare to us our mistaken
judgment.

The same thing applies to word-
wit. When we hear that “experience
consists simply of experiencing what one wishes he had not experienced,”
we are puzzled, and believe that we have learnt a new truth; it takes some
time before we recognize in this disguise the platitude, “adversity is the
school of wisdom.” The excellent witticism which seeks to define “experi-
ence” by the almost exclusive use of the word “experience” deceives us
so completely that we overestimate the content of the sentence. The
same thing happens in many similar cases and also in Lichtenberg’s unifi-
cation-
witticism about January, which expresses nothing but what we
already know, namely, that New Year’s wishes are as seldom realized as
other wishes.

We find the contrary true of other witticisms, in which obviously what
is striking and correct in the thought captivates us, so that we call the
saying an excellent witticism, whereas it is only the thought that is bril-
liant while the wit-
function is often weak. It is especially true of Lichten-
berg’s wit that the path of the thought is often of more value than its
witty expression, though we unjustly extend the value of the former to
the latter. Thus the remark about the “torch of truth” is hardly a witty
comparison, but it is so striking that we are inclined to lay stress on the
sentence as exceptionally witty.

Lichtenberg’s witticisms are above all remarkable for their thought-
content and their certainty of hitting the mark. Goethe has rightly re-
marked about this author that his witty and jocose thoughts positively
conceal problems. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that they
touch upon the solutions of problems. When, for example, he presents as
a witty thought:

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THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

“He always read Agamemnon instead of the German word angenommen
(accepted), so thoroughly had he read Homer” (technically this is ab-
surdity plus sound similarity of words). Thus he discovered nothing less
than the secret of mistakes in reading.¹ The following joke, whose tech-
nique seemed to us quite unsatisfactory, is of a similar nature.
“He was surprised that there were two holes cut in the pelts of cats just
where the eyes were located.” The stupidity here exhibited is only seem-
ingly so; in reality this ingenuous remark conceals the great problem of
teleology in the structure of animals; it is not at all so self-evident that
the eyelid cleft opens just where the cornea is exposed, until the science
of evolution explains to us this coincidence.

Let us bear in mind that a witty sentence gave us a general impression
in which we were unable to distinguish the amount of thought-content
from the amount of wit-work; perhaps even a more significant parallel
to it will be found later.

PLEASURE RESULTS FROM THE TECHNIQUE

For our theoretical explanation of the nature of wit, harmless wit must be
of greater value to us than tendency-wit and shallow wit more than pro-
found wit. Harmless and shallow plays on words present to us the problem
of wit in its purest form, because of the good sense therein and because it
has no tendency nor underlying philosophy to confuse the judgment.
With such material our understanding can make further progress.

At the end of a dinner to which I had been invited, a pastry called
Roulard was served; it was a culinary accomplishment which presupposed
a good deal of skill on the part of the cook. “Is it home-made?” asked one
of the guests. “Oh, yes,” replied the host, “it is a Home-Roulard” (Home
Rule).

This time we shall not investigate the technique of this witticism, but
shall center our attention upon another, and most important factor. As
I remember, this improvised joke delighted all the guests and made us
laugh. In this case, as in countless others, the feeling of pleasure of the
hearer cannot have originated from the tendency or the thought-content
of the wit; so we are forced to connect the feeling of pleasure with the
technique of wit. The technical means of wit which we have described,
such as condensation, displacement, indirect expression, etc., have there-
fore the faculty to produce a feeling of pleasure in the hearer, although
we cannot as yet see how they acquired that faculty. By such easy stages
we get the second axiom for the explanation of wit; the first one states
that the character of wit depends upon the mode of expression. Let us re-
member also that the second axiom has really taught us nothing new.
It merely isolates a fact that was already contained in a discovery which
¹Cf. my Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

692

we made before. For we recall that whenever it was possible to reduce the
wit by substituting for its verbal expression another set of words, at the
same time carefully retaining the sense, it not only eliminated the witty
character but also the laughableness that constitutes the pleasure of wit.

At present we cannot go further without first coming to an understand-
ing with our philosophical authorities.

The philosophers who consider wit as a part of the comic and deal with
the latter itself in the field of æsthetics, characterize the æsthetic feeling
through the following condition: that we are not thereby interested in
or about the objects, that we do not need these objects to satisfy our great
wants in life, but that we are satisfied with the mere contemplation of the
same, and with the pleasure of the idea itself. “This pleasure, this mode of
conception is purely æsthetical, it depends entirely on itself, its end is
only itself and it fulfills no other end in life” (K. Fischer, p. 68).

We scarcely venture a contradiction to K. Fischer’s words—perhaps
we merely translate his thoughts into our own mode of expression—when
we insist that the witty activity is, after all, not to be designated as aimless
or purposeless, since it has for its aim the evocation of pleasure in the
hearer. I doubt whether we are able to undertake anything which has
no object in view. When we do not use our psychic apparatus for the ful-
fillment of one of our indispensable gratifications, we let it work for
pleasure, and we seek to derive pleasure from its own activity. I suspect
that this is really the condition which underlies all æsthetic thinking, but
I know too little about æsthetics to be willing to support this theory.
About wit, however, I can assert, on the strength of the two impressions
gained before, that it is an activity whose purpose is to derive pleasure—
be it intellectual or otherwise—from the psychic processes. To be sure,
there are other activities which accomplish the same thing. They may be
differentiated from each by the sphere of psychic activity from which they
wish to derive pleasure, or perhaps by the methods which they use in
accomplishing this. At present we cannot decide this, but we firmly main-
tain that at last we have established a connection between the technique
of wit which is partly controlled by the tendency to economize, and the
production of pleasure.

But before we proceed to solve the riddle of how the technical means of
wit-
work can produce pleasure in the hearer, we wish to mention that,
for the sake of simplicity and more lucidity, we have altogether put aside
all tendency witticisms. Still we must attempt to explain what the ten-
dencies of wit are and in what manner wit makes use of these tendencies.

Hostile And Obscene Wit

We are taught above all by an observation not to put aside tendency-
wit when we are investigating the origin of the pleasure in wit. The pleas-

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THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

urable effect of harmless wit is usually of a moderate nature; all that it
can be expected to produce in the hearer is a distinct feeling of satisfaction
and a slight ripple of laughter; and as we have shown by fitting examples
at least a part of this effect is due to the thought-content. The sudden
irresistible outburst of laughter evoked by tendency-
wit rarely follows
wit without a tendency. As the technique may be identical in both, it is
fair to assume that by virtue of its purpose tendency-
wit has at its
disposal sources of pleasure to which harmless wit has no access.

It is now easy to survey wit-
tendencies. Wherever wit is not a means to
its end, i.e., harmless, it puts itself in the service of but two tendencies
which may themselves be united under one viewpoint; it is either hostile
wit serving as an aggression, satire, or defense, or it is obscene wit serving
as a sexual exhibition. Again, it is to be observed that the technical form
of wit–be it a word- or thought-witticism–bears no relation to these two
tendencies.

It is a much more complicated matter to show in what way wit serves
these tendencies. In this investigation I wish to present first not the
hostile but the exhibition wit. The latter has indeed very seldom been
deemed worthy of an investigation, as if an aversion had transferred itself
here from the material to the subject. However, we shall not allow our-
selves to be misled thereby, for we shall soon touch upon a detail in wit
which promises to throw light on more than one obscure point.

We all know what is meant by a “smutty” joke. It is the intentional
bringing into prominence of sexual facts or relations through speech.
However, this definition is no sounder than other definitions. A lecture on
the anatomy of the sexual organs or on the physiology of reproduction
need not, in spite of this definition, have anything in common with ob-
scenity. It must be added that the smutty joke is directed toward a cer-
tain person who excites one sexually, and who becomes cognizant of the
speaker’s excitement by listening to the smutty joke, and thereby in turn
becomes sexually excited. Instead of becoming sexually excited the lis-
tener may react with shame and embarrassment, which merely signifies a
reaction against the excitement and indirectly an admission of the same.
The smutty joke was originally directed against the woman and may be
comparable to an attempt at seduction. If a man tells or listens to obscene
jokes in male society, the original situation, which cannot be realized on
account of social inhibitions, is thereby also represented. Whoever laughs
at a smutty joke does the same as the spectator who laughs at a sexual
aggression.

The sexual element which is at the basis of the obscene joke comprises
more than that which is peculiar to both sexes, and goes beyond that which
is common to both sexes, it is connected with all these things that cause
shame, and includes the whole domain of the excrementitious. However,

594

this was the sexual domain of childhood, where the imagination fancied a
cloaca, so to speak, within which the sexual elements were either badly
or not at all differentiated from the excrementitious.¹ In the whole men-
tal domain of the psychology of the neuroses, the sexual still includes the
excrementitious, and it is understood in the old, infantile sense.

The smutty joke is like a denudation of a person of the opposite sex
toward whom the joke is directed. Through the utterance of obscene
words the person attacked is forced to picture the parts of the body in
question, or the sexual act, and is shown that the aggressor himself pic-
tures the same thing. There is no doubt that the original motive of the
smutty joke was the pleasure of seeing the sexual displayed.

It will only help to clarify the subject if here we go back to the funda-
mentals. One of the primitive components of our libido is the desire to
see the sexual exposed. Perhaps this libido is in itself already a substitu-
tion for the desire to touch which is assumed to be the primary pleasure.
As it often happens, the desire to see has here also replaced the desire to
touch.² The libido for looking and touching is found in every person in
two forms, active and passive, or masculine and feminine; and in ac-
cordance with the preponderance of sex characteristics it develops pre-
ponderately in one or the other direction. In young children one can read-
ily observe the desire to exhibit themselves nude. If the germ of this
desire does not experience the usual fate of stratification and repression,
it develops into a mania for exhibitionism, a familiar perversion among
grown-up men. In women the passive desire to exhibit is almost regularly
covered by the masked reaction of sexual modesty; despite this, how-
ever, remnants of this desire may always be seen in women’s dress. How
flexible and variable convention and circumstances make that remaining
portion of exhibitionism still allowed to women needs hardly be men-
tioned.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SMUTTY JOKE INTO OBSCENE WIT

In the case of men a great part of this striving to exhibit remains as a part
of his libido and serves to initiate the sexual act. If this striving asserts
itself on first meeting the woman, it must make use of speech for two mo-
tives. First, in order to make itself known to the woman; and secondly,
because the awakening of the imagination through speech puts the woman
herself in a corresponding excitement and awakens in her the desire to
passive exhibitionism. This speech of courtship is not yet smutty, but
may pass over into the same. Wherever the yieldingness of the woman
manifests itself quickly, smutty speech is short-lived, for it gives way to
the sexual act. It is different if the rapid yielding of the woman cannot be

¹Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex.

²Moll’s Kontrektationstrieb (Untersuchungen über die Libido sexualis, 1898).

695

counted upon, but instead there appears the defense reaction. In that
case the sexually exciting speech changes into obscene wit as its own end;
as the sexual aggression is inhibited in its progress towards the act, it
lingers at the evocation of the excitement and derives pleasure from the
indications of the same in the woman. In this process the aggression
changes its character in the same way as any libidinal impulse con-
fronted by a hindrance; it becomes distinctly hostile and cruel, and uti-
lizes the sadistical components of the sexual instinct against the hindrance.

Thus, the unyieldingness of the woman is, therefore, the next condi-
tion for the development of smutty wit; to be sure, this resistance must
be of the kind to indicate merely a deferment and make it appear that
further efforts will not be in vain. The ideal case of such resistance on the
part of the woman usually results from the simultaneous presence of
another man, a third person, whose presence almost excludes the imme-
diate yielding of the woman. This third person soon becomes of the
greatest importance for the development of the smutty wit, but above
all the presence of the woman is almost indispensable. Among rural people
or in the ordinary hostelry one can observe that not till the waitress or
the hostess approaches the guests does the obscene wit come out; in a
higher order of society just the opposite happens, here the presence of a
woman puts an end to smutty talk. The men reserve this kind of conver-
sation, which originally presupposed the presence of bashful women, until
they are alone, “by themselves.” Thus gradually the spectator, now turned
the listener, takes the place of the woman as the object of the smutty
joke, and through such a change the smutty joke already resembles the
character of wit.

Henceforth, our attention may be centered upon two factors, first upon
the rôle that the third person—the listener—plays, and secondly, upon
the intrinsic conditions of the smutty joke itself.

Tendency-wit usually requires three persons. Besides the one who
makes the wit there is a second person, who is taken as the object of the
hostile or sexual aggression, and a third person in whom the purpose of
the wit to produce pleasure is fulfilled. We shall later on inquire into the
deeper motive of this relationship, for the present we shall adhere to the
fact which states that it is not the maker of the wit who laughs about it
and enjoys its pleasurable effect, but the idle listener. The same relation-
ship exists among the three persons connected with the smutty joke. The
process may be described as follows: As soon as the libidinal impulse of
the first person, to gratify himself through the woman, is blocked, he
immediately develops a hostile attitude towards this second person and
takes the originally intruding third person as his confederate. Through
the obscene speech of the first person the woman is exposed before the

696

third person, who now as a listener is bribed by the easy gratification of
his own libido.

It is curious that common people so thoroughly enjoy such smutty
talk, and that it is a never-lacking activity of cheerful humor. It is also
worthy of notice that in this complicated process which shows so many
characteristics of tendency-
wit, no formal demands, such as characterize
wit, are made upon “smutty wit.” To express the unveiled nudity affords
pleasure to the first, and makes the third person laugh.
Not until we come to the refined and cultured social stratum does the
formal determination of wit arise. The obscenity becomes witty and is
tolerated only if it is witty. The technical means of which it mostly
makes use is allusion, i.e., substitution through a trifle, something which
is only remotely related, which the listener reconstructs in his imagina-
tion as a full fledged and direct obscenity. The greater the disproportion
between what is directly offered in the obscenity and what is necessarily
aroused by it in the mind of the listener, the finer is the witticism and the
higher it may venture in good society. Besides the coarse and delicate
allusions, the witty obscenity also utilizes all other means of word-
and
thought-
wit, as can be easily demonstrated by examples.

THE FUNCTION OF WIT IN THE SERVICE OF THE TENDENCY

It now becomes comprehensible what wit accomplishes through this
service of its tendency. It makes possible the gratification of a craving
(lewd or hostile) despite a hindrance which stands in the way; it eludes
the hindrance and so derives pleasure from a source that has been inac-
cessible on account of the hindrance. The hindrance in the way is really
nothing more than the higher degree of culture and education which cor-
respondingly increases the inability of the woman to tolerate stark sex
matters. The woman thought of as present in the final situation, is still
considered present, or her influence acts as a deterrent to the men even
in her absence. One often notices how cultured men are influenced by the
company of girls of a lower station in life to change witty obscenities to
broad smut.

The power which makes it difficult or impossible for the woman, and in
a lesser degree for the man, to enjoy unveiled obscenities we call “repres-
sion,” and we recognize in it the same psychic process which keeps from
consciousness in severe nervous attacks, whole complexes of emotions
with their resultant affects, and which has shown itself to be the principal
factor in the causation of the so-
called psychoneuroses. We acknowledge
to culture and higher civilization an important influence in the develop-
ment of repressions, and assume that under these conditions there has
come about a change in our psychic organization which may also have
been brought along as an inherited disposition. In consequence of it,

697

what was once accepted as pleasureful is now counted unacceptable and is
rejected by means of all the psychic forces. Owing to the repression
brought about by civilization many primary pleasures are now disap-
proved by the censorship and lost. But the human psyche finds renuncia-
tion very difficult; hence we discover that tendency-wit furnishes us with
a means to make the renunciation retrogressive and thus to regain what
has been lost. When we laugh over a delicately obscene witticism, we
laugh at the identical thing which causes laughter in the ill-bred man
when he hears a coarse, obscene joke; in both cases the pleasure comes
from the same source. The coarse, obscene joke, however, could not incite
us to laughter, because it would cause us shame or would seem to us
disgusting; we can laugh only when wit comes to our aid.
What we had presumed in the beginning seems to have been confirmed,
namely, that tendency-wit has access to other sources of pleasure than
harmless wit, in which all the pleasure is somehow dependent upon the
technique. We can also reiterate that owing to our feelings we are in no
position to distinguish in tendency-wit what part of the pleasure originates
from the technique and what part from the tendency. Strictly speaking,
we do not know what we are laughing about. In all obscene jokes we
succumb to striking mistakes of judgment about the “goodness” of the
joke as far as it depends upon formal conditions; the technique of these
jokes is often very poor while their laughing effect is enormous.

INVECTIVES MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH WIT

We next wish to determine whether the rôle of wit in the service of the
hostile tendency is the same.

Right from the start we meet with similar conditions. Since our in-
dividual childhood and the childhood of human civilization, our hostile
impulses towards our fellow-beings have been subjected to the same re- strictions and the same progressive repressions as our sexual strivings.
We have not yet progressed so far as to love our enemies, or to extend to
them our left cheek after we are smitten on the right. Furthermore, all
moral codes about the subjection of active hatred bear even today the
clearest indications that they were originally meant for a small com-
munity of clansmen. As we all may consider ourselves members of some
nation, we permit ourselves for the most part to forget these restrictions in
matters touching a foreign people. But within our own circles we have
nevertheless made progress in the mastery of hostile emotions. Lichten-
berg drastically puts it when he says: “Where nowadays one says, ‘I beg
your pardon,’ formerly one had recourse to a cuff on the ear.” Violent
hostility, no longer tolerated by law, has been replaced by verbal invec-
tives, and the better understanding of the concatenation of human emo-
tions robs us, through its consequential “Tout comprendre, c’est tout par-
 

698

donner,” more and more of the capacity to become angry at our fellow
man who is in our way. Having been endowed with a strong hostile dispo-
sition in our childhood, higher personal civilization teaches us later that
it is undignified to use abusive language; even where combat is still per-
mitted, the number of things which may be used as means of combat has
been markedly restricted. Society, as the third and dispassionate party in
the combat, to whose interest it is to safeguard personal safety, prevents
us from expressing our hostile feelings in action; and hence, as in sexual
aggression, there has developed a new technique of invectives, the aim of
which is to enlist this third person against our enemy. By belittling and
humbling our enemy, by scorning and ridiculing him, we directly obtain
the pleasure of his defeat by the laughter of the third person, the inactive
spectator.

We are now prepared for the rôle that wit plays in hostile aggression.
Wit permits us to make our enemy ridiculous through that which we could
not utter loudly or consciously on account of existing hindrances; in other
words, wit affords us the means of surmounting restrictions and of open-
ing up otherwise inaccessible pleasure sources. Moreover, the listener will
be induced by the gain in pleasure to take our part, even if he is not alto-
gether convinced—just as we on other occasions, when fascinated by
harmless witticism, were wont to overestimate the substance of the sen-
tence wittily expressed. “To prejudice the laughter in one’s own favor”
is a completely pertinent saying in the German language.

One may recall the Cincinnatus witticism given above. It is of an in-
sulting nature, as if the author wished to shout loudly: “But the minister
of agriculture is himself an ox!” But he, as a man of culture, could not
put his opinion in this form. He therefore appealed to wit which assured
his opinion a reception at the hands of the listeners which, in spite of its
amount of truth, never would have been received if in an unwitty form.
Brill cites an excellent example of a similar kind: Wendell Phillips, ac-
cording to a recent biography by Dr. Lorenzo Sears, was on one occasion
lecturing in Ohio, and while on a railroad journey going to keep one of his
appointments met in the car a number of clergymen returning from some
sort of convention. One of the ministers, feeling called upon to approach
Mr. Phillips, asked him, “Are you Mr. Phillips?” “I am, sir.” “Are you
trying to free the niggers?” “Yes, sir; I am an abolitionist.” “Well, why
do you preach your doctrines up here? Why don’t you go over into Ken-
tucky?” “Excuse me, are you a preacher?” “I am, sir.” “Are you trying
to save souls from hell?” “Yes, sir, that’s my business.” “Well, why don’t
you go there?” The assailant hurried into the smoker amid a roar of un-
sanctified laughter. This anecdote nicely illustrates the tendency-wit in
the service of hostile aggression. The minister’s behavior was offensive
and irritating, yet Wendell Phillips as a man of culture could not defend

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THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

himself in the same manner as a common, ill-
bred person would have done, and as his inner feelings must have prompted him to do. The only alter-
native under the circumstances would have been to take the affront ir-
silence, had not wit showed him the way, and enabled him by the tech-
nical means of unification to turn the tables on his assailant. He not only
belittled him and turned him into ridicule, but by his clever retort, “Well,
why don’t you go there?” fascinated the other clergymen, and thus
brought them to his side.

Although the hindrance to the aggression which the wit helped to elude
was in these cases of an inner nature—the æsthetic resistance against in-
sulting—it may at other times be of a purely outer nature. So it was in
the case when Augustus asked the stranger who had a striking resem-
blance to himself: “Was your mother ever in my home?” and he received
the ready reply, “No, but my father was.” The stranger would certainly
have felled the imprudent inquirer who dared to make an ignominious
allusion to the memory of his mother; but this imprudent person was
Augustus, who may not be felled and not even insulted unless one wishes
to pay for this revenge with his life. The only thing left was to swallow
the insult in silence; but luckily wit pointed out the way of requiting the
insult without personally imperiling one’s self. It was accomplished sim-
ply by treating the allusion with the technical means of unification and
employing it against the aggressor. The impression of wit is here so thor-
oughly determined by the tendency that in view of the witty rejoinder we
are inclined to forget that the aggressor’s question is itself made witty by
allusion.

REBELLION AGAINST AUTHORITY THROUGH WIT

The prevention of abuse or insulting retorts through outer circumstances
is so often the case, that tendency-wit is used with special preference as a
weapon of attack or criticism of superiors who claim to be in authority.
Wit then serves as a resistance against such authority and as an escape
from its pressure. In this factor, too, lies the charm of caricature, at
which we laugh even if it is badly done simply because we consider re-
sistance to authority a great merit.

If we keep in mind that tendency-wit is so well adapted as a weapon of
attack upon what is great, dignified, and mighty, that which is shielded
by internal hindrances or external circumstance against direct disparage-
ment, we are forced to a special conception of certain groups of witticisms
which seem to occupy themselves with inferior and powerless persons. I
am referring to the marriage-agent stories—with a few of which we have
become familiar in the investigation of the manifold techniques of
thought-wit. In some of these examples, “But she is deaf, too!” and “Who
in the world would ever lend these people anything!” the agent was de-

700

rided as a careless and thoughtless person who becomes comical because
the truth escapes his lips automatically, as it were. But does on the one
hand, what we have learned about the nature of tendency-
wit, and on the
other hand the amount of satisfaction in these stories, harmonize with
the misery of the persons at whom the joke seems to be pointed? Are these
worthy opponents of the wit? Or, is it not more plausible to suppose that
the wit puts the agent in the foreground only in order to strike at some
thing more important; does it, as the saying goes, strike the saddle pack,
when it is meant for the mule? This conception can really not be rejected.

The above-
mentioned interpretation of the marriage-
agent stories ad
mits of a continuation. It is true that I need not enter into them, that I
can content myself with seeing the farcical in these stories, and can dis-
pute their witty character. However, such collective determination of
wit actually exists. We have now become cognizant of it and shall later on
have to investigate it. It means that only that is a witticism which I wish
to consider as such. What may be wit to me, may be only an amusing
story to another. But if a witticism admits of doubt, that can be due only
to the fact that it possesses an obverse side, or another side which in our
examples happens to be a façade of the comic, upon which one may be
satisfied to bestow a single glance while another may attempt to peep be-
hind. We also suspect that this façade is intended to dazzle the prying
glance which is to say, that such stories have something to conceal.

At all events, if our marriage-
agent stories are witticisms at all, they
are all the better witticisms because, thanks to their façade, they are in a
position to conceal not only what they have to say but also that they have
something—forbidden—to say. But the continuation of the interpreta-
tion, which reveals this hidden part and shows that these stories which
have a comical façade, are tendency-
witticisms, would be as follows:
Every one who allows the truth to escape his lips in an unguarded mo-
ment is really pleased to have rid himself of this thought. This is a cor-
rect and far-
reaching psychological insight. Without the inner assent no
one would allow himself to be overpowered by the automatism which
here brings the truth to light.¹⁾ The marriage agent is thus transformed
from a ludicrous personage into an object deserving of pity and sympathy.
How blest must be the man, able at last to unburden himself of the weight
of dissimulation, if he immediately seizes the first opportunity to shout
out the last fragment of truth! As soon as he sees that his case is lost, that
the prospective bride does not suit the young man, he gladly betrays the
secret that the girl has still another blemish which the young man had
overlooked, or he makes use of the chance to present a conclusive argu-
ment in detail in order to express his contempt for the people who employ

¹⁾It is the same mechanism that controls “slips of the tongue” and other phenomena
of self-
betrayal. Cf. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

701

him: “Who in the world would ever lend these people anything!” The
ludicrousness of the whole thing now reverts upon the parents—hardly
mentioned in the story—who consider such deceptions justified to clutch
a man for their daughter; it also reflects upon the wretched state of the
girls who get married through such contrivances, and upon the want of
dignity of the marriage contracted after such preliminaries. The agent is
the right person to express such criticisms; for he is best acquainted with
these abuses; but he may not raise his voice, because he is a poor man
whose livelihood depends altogether on turning these abuses to his ad-
vantage. But the same conflict is found in the national spirit which has
given rise to these and similar stories; for he is aware that the holiness of
wedlock suffers severely by reference to some of the methods of marriage
making.

We recall also the observation made during the investigation of wit-
technique, namely, that absurdity in wit frequently stands for derision
and criticism in the thought behind the witticism, wherein the wit-work
follows the dream-work. This state of affairs, we find, is here once more
confirmed. That the derision and criticism are not aimed at the agent, who
appears in the former examples only as the whipping boy of the joke, is
shown by another series in which the agent, on the contrary, is pictured as
a superior person whose dialectics are a match for any difficulty. They are
stories whose façades are logical instead of comical—they are sophistic
thought-witticisms. In one of them the agent knows how to circumvent
the limping of the bride by stating that in her case it is at least “a finished
job”; another woman with straight limbs would be in constant danger of
falling and breaking a leg, which would be followed by sickness, pains,
and doctor’s fees—all of which can be avoided by marrying the one al-
ready limping. Again in another example the agent is clever enough to
refute by good arguments each of the whole series of the suitor’s objec-
tions against the bride; only to the last, the hunchback, which cannot be
glossed over, he rejoins, “Do you expect her to have no blemishes at all?”
as if the other objections had not left behind an important remnant. It is
not difficult to pick out the weak points of the arguments in both examples,
a thing which we have done during the investigation of the technique.
But now something else interests us. If the agent’s speech is endowed
with such a strong resemblance of logic, which on more careful examina-
tion proves to be merely a semblance, then the truth must be lurking
in the fact that the witticism adjudges the agent to be right. The thought
does not dare to admit that he is right in all seriousness, and replaces
it by the semblance which the wit brings forth; but here, as it often
happens, the jest betrays the seriousness of it. We shall not err if we
assume that all stories with logical façades really mean what they assert
even if these assertions are deliberately falsely motivated. Only this use

702

WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

of sophism for the veiled presentation of the truth, endows it with the
character of wit, which is mainly dependent upon the tendency. What
these two stories wish to indicate is that the suitor really makes himself
ridiculous when he collects together so sedulously the individual charms
of the bride which are transient after all, and when he forgets at the same
time that he must be prepared to take as his wife a human being with
inevitable faults; whereas, the only virtue which might make tolerable
marriage with the more or less imperfect personality of the woman—
mutual attachment and willingness for affectionate adaptation—is not
once mentioned in the whole affair.

Ridicule of the suitor as seen in these examples in which the agent quite
correctly assumes the rôle of superiority, is much more clearly depicted
in other examples. The more pointed the stories, the less wit-technique
they contain; they are, as it were, merely borderline cases of wit with
whose technique they have only the façade-formation in common. How
ever, in view of the same tendency and the concealment of the same behind
the façade, they obtain the full effect of wit. The poverty of technical
means makes it clear also that many witticisms of that kind cannot dis-
pense with the comic element of jargon which acts similarly to wit-tech-
nique, without great sacrifices.

The following is such a story, which with all the force of tendency-wit
obviates all traces of that technique. The agent asks: “What are you
looking for in your bride?” The reply is: “She must be pretty, she must
be rich, and she must be cultured.” “Very well,” was the agent’s rejoinder.
“But what you want will make three matches.” Here the reproach is no
longer embodied in wit, but is made directly to the man.

In all the preceding examples the veiled aggression was still directed
against persons; in the marriage-agent jokes it is directed against all the
parties involved in the betrothal—the bridegroom, bride, and her parents.
The object of attack by wit may equally well be institutions, persons, in
so far as they may act as agents of these, moral or religious precepts, or
even philosophies of life which enjoy so much respect that they can be
challenged in no other way than under the guise of a witticism, and one
that is veiled by a façade at that. No matter how few the themes upon
which tendency-wit may play, its forms and investments are manifold.
I believe that we shall do well to designate this species of tendency-wit
by a special name. To decide what name will be appropriate is possible
only after analyzing a few examples of this kind.

THE WITTY CYNICISM

I recall the two little stories about the impecunious gourmet who was
caught eating “salmon with mayonnaise,” and about the tippling tutor;
these witty stories, which we have learned to regard as sophistical dis-
 

703

placement-
wit, I shall continue to analyze. We have learned since then
that when the semblance of logic is attached to the façade of a story, the
actual thought is as follows: The man is right; but on account of the
opposing contradiction, I did not dare to admit the fact except for one
point in which his error is easily demonstrable. The “point” chosen is the
correct compromise between his right and his wrong; this is really no
decision, but bespeaks the conflict within ourselves. Both stories are sim-
ply epicurean. They say, Yes, the man is right; nothing is greater than
pleasure, and it is fairly immaterial in what manner one procures it. This
sounds frightfully immoral, and perhaps it is, but fundamentally it is
nothing more than the “Carpe diem” of the poet who refers to the uncer-
tainty of life and the bareness of virtuous renunciation. If we are repelled
by the idea that the man in the joke about “salmon with mayonnaise” is
in the right, then it is merely due to the fact that it illustrates the sound
sense of the man in indulging himself—an indulgence which seems to us
wholly unnecessary. In reality each one of us has experienced hours and
times during which he has admitted the justice of this philosophy of life
and has reproached our system of morality for knowing only how to
make claims upon us without reimbursing us. Since we no longer lend
credence to the idea of a hereafter in which all former renunciations are
supposed to be rewarded by gratification—(there are very few pious per-
sons if one makes renunciation the password of faith)—“Carpe diem”
becomes the first admonition. I am quite ready to postpone the gratifica-
tion, but how do I know whether I shall still be alive tomorrow?

“Di doman’ non c’e certezza.”¹

I am quite willing to give up all the paths to gratification interdicted
by society, but am I sure that society will reward me for this renunciation
by opening for me—even after a certain delay—one of the permitted
paths? One can plainly tell what these witticisms whisper, namely, that
the wishes and desires of man have a right to make themselves percepti-
ble next to our pretentious and inconsiderate morality. And in our times it
has been said in emphatic and striking terms that this morality is merely
the selfish precept of the few rich and mighty who can gratify their de-
sires at any time without deferment. As long as the art of healing has not
succeeded in safeguarding our lives, and as long as the social organiza-
tions do not do more towards making conditions more agreeable, just so
long cannot the voice within us which is striving against the demands of
morality, be stifled. Every honest person finally makes this admission—
at least to himself. The decision in this conflict is possible only through
the roundabout way of a new understanding. One must be able to knit
one’s life so closely to that of others, and to form such an intimate iden-
tification

¹ “There is nothing certain about tomorrow,” Lorenzo de’ Medici.

704

WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

tification with others, that the shortening of one’s own term of life be-
comes surmountable; one should not unlawfully fulfill the demands of
one’s own needs, but should leave them unfulfilled, because only the
continuance of so many unfulfilled demands can develop the power to
recast the social order. But not all personal needs allow themselves to be
displaced in such a manner and transferred to others, nor is there a uni-
versal and definite solution of the conflict.

We now know how to designate the witticisms just discussed; they are
cynical witticisms, and what they conceal are cynicisms.

Among the institutions which cynical wit is wont to attack there is
none more important and more completely protected by moral precepts,
and yet more inviting of attack, than the institution of marriage. Most
of the cynical jokes are directed against it. For no demand is more per-
sonal than that made upon sexual freedom, and nowhere has civilization
attempted to exert a more stringent suppression than in the realm of
sexuality. For our purposes a single example suffices: the “Entries in the
Album of Prince Carnival” mentioned above.

“A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may also take a cab.”

We have already elucidated the complicated technique of this example;
it is a puzzling and seemingly impossible comparison which, however, as
we now see, is not in itself witty. It shows besides an allusion (cab = pub-
lic conveyance), and as the strongest technical means it also shows an
omission which serves to make it still more unintelligible. The comparison
may be worked out in the following manner. A man marries in order to
guard himself against the temptations of sensuality, but it then turns out
that after all marriage does not afford sufficient gratification for one of
stronger needs, just as one takes along an umbrella for protection against
rain only to get wet in spite of it. In both cases one must search for better
protection; in one case one must take a public cab, in the other, women
procurable for money. Now the wit has almost entirely been replaced by
cynicism. That marriage is not the organization which can satisfy a man’s
sexuality, one does not dare say loudly and frankly unless indeed he be
a Christian v. Ehrenfels,¹⁾ or a Judge Lindsey, who is forced to it by the
love of truth and the zeal of reform. The strength of this witticism lies in
the fact that it has expressed the thought even though it had to be done
through all sorts of roundabout ways.

CYNICAL WITTICISMS AND SELF-CRITICISM

A particularly favorable case for tendency-wit results if the intended
criticism of the inner resistance is directed against one’s own person, or,
more carefully expressed, against a person in whom one takes interest,
that is, a composite personality such as one’s own people. This determina-
 

¹⁾See his essays in the Politisch-anthropologische Revue, II, 1903.

705

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

tion of self-criticism may make clear why it is that a number of the most
excellent jokes of which we have shown here many specimens should have
sprung into existence from the soil of Jewish national life. They are
stories which were invented by Jews themselves and which are directed
against Jewish peculiarities. The Jewish jokes made up by non-Jews are
nearly all brutal buffooneries in which the wit is spared by the fact that
the Jew appears as a comic figure to a stranger. The Jewish jokes which
originate with Jews admit this, but they know their real shortcomings as
well as their merits, and the interest of the person himself in the thing
to be criticised produces the subjective determination of the wit-work
which would otherwise be difficult to bring about. Incidentally I do not
know whether one often finds a people that makes merry so unreservedly
over its own shortcomings.

As an illustration I can point to the story cited above in which the Jew
in the train immediately abandons all sense of decency of deportment as
soon as he recognizes the new arrival in his coupé as his co-religionist. We
have come to know this joke as an illustration by means of a detail-rep
resentation through a trifle; it is supposed to represent the democratic
mode of thought of the Jew who recognizes no difference between master
and servant, but unfortunately this also disturbs discipline and co-opera
tion. Another especially interesting series of jokes presents the relation
ship between the poor and the rich Jews: their heroes are the “shnorrer,”¹
and the charitable Jewish philanthropists. The shnorrer, who was a regu
lar Sunday-dinner guest at a certain house, appeared one day accompanied
by a young stranger, who prepared to seat himself at the table. “Who is
that?” demanded the host. “He became my son-in-law last week,” was the
reply, “and I have agreed to supply his board for the first year.” The tend
ency of these stories is always the same, and is most distinctly shown in the
following story. The shnorrer supplicates the Jewish philanthropic baron
for money to take the “cure” at Ostend, as the physician has ordered him
to take sea-baths for his ailment. The baron remarks that Ostend is an
especially expensive resort, and that a less fashionable place would do
just as well. But the shnorrer rejects that proposition by saying, “Herr
Baron, nothing is too expensive for my health.” That is an excellent dis
placement-witticism which we could have taken as a model of its kind. The
baron is evidently anxious to save his money, but the shnorrer replies as
if the baron’s money were his own, which he may then consider secondary
to his health. One is forced to laugh at the insolence of the demand, but
these jokes are exceptionally unequipped with a façade to becloud the un
derstanding. The truth is that the shnorrer who mentally treats the rich
man’s money as his own, really possesses almost the right to this mistake,
according to the sacred codes of the Jews. Naturally the resistance which

¹An habitual beggar.

706

WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS
is responsible for this joke is directed against the sacred law which even
the pious find very oppressive.

Another story relates how on the steps of a rich man’s house a shnorrer
met one of his own kind. The latter counseled him to depart, saying, “Do
not go up today, the Baron is out of sorts and refuses to give any one
more than a dollar.” “I will go up anyway,” replied the first. “Why in the
world should I make him a present of a dollar? Is he making me any
presents?”

This witticism makes use of the technique of absurdity by permitting
the shnorrer to declare that the baron gives him nothing at the same
moment in which he is preparing to beg him for the donation. But the
absurdity is only apparent, for it is almost true that the rich man gives
him nothing, since he is obligated by the mandate to give alms, and
strictly speaking must be thankful that the shnorrer gives him an oppor-
tunity to be charitable. The ordinary, bourgeois conception of alms is at
cross-purposes with the religious one; it openly revolts against the religious
conception in the story about the baron who, having been deeply touched
by the shnorrer’s tale of woe, rang for his servants and said: “Throw him
out of the house; he is breaking my heart.” This obvious exposition of
the tendency again creates a case of border-line wit. From the no longer
witty complaint: “It is really no advantage to be a rich man among Jews.
The wretched foreigners do not grant one the pleasure of one’s own
fortune,” these last stories deviate only by the illustration of a single
situation.

Other stories as the following, which, technically again present border-
lines of wit, have their origin in a deeply pessimistic cynicism. A patient
whose hearing was defective consulted a physician who made the correct
diagnosis, namely, that the patient probably drank too much whiskey
and consequently was becoming deaf. He advised him to desist from
drinking and the patient promised to follow his advice. Some time there-
after the doctor met him on the street and inquired in a loud voice about
his condition. “Thank you, Doctor,” was the reply, “there is no necessity
for speaking so loudly, I have given up drinking whiskey and consequently
I hear perfectly.” Some time afterwards they met again. The doctor again
inquired into his condition in the usual voice, but noticed that he did not
make himself audible. “It seems to me that you are deaf again because
you have returned to drinking whiskey,” shouted the doctor in the pa-
tient’s ear. “Perhaps you are right,” answered the latter, “I have taken to
drinking again, and I shall tell you why. As long as I did not drink I could
hear, but all that I heard was not as good as the whiskey.” Technically
this joke is nothing more than an illustration. The jargon and the ability
of the raconteur must aid in the production of laughter. But behind it
there lies the sad question, “Is not the man right in his choice?”

707

It is the manifold hopeless misery of the Jews to which these pessimis-
tical stories allude, which prompted me to add them to tendency-wit.

CRITICAL AND BLASPHEMOUS WITTICISMS

Other jokes, cynical in a similar sense, and not only stories about Jews,
attack religious dogmas and the belief in God Himself. The story about
the “telepathic look of the rabbi,” whose technique consisted in faulty
thinking which made phantasy equal to reality (the conception of dis-
placement is also tenable), is such a cynical or critical witticism directed
against miracle-workers and also, surely, against belief in miracles. Heine
is reported to have made a directly blasphemous joke as he lay dying.
When the kindly priest commanded him to God’s mercy and inspired him
with the hope that God would forgive him his sins, he replied: “Bien sûr
qu’il me pardonnera; c’est son métier.” That is a derogatory comparison;
technically its value lies only in the allusion, for a métier—business or
vocation—is plied either by a craftsman or a physician, and what is more
he has only a single métier. The strength of the wit, however, lies in its
tendency. The joke is intended to mean nothing else, but: “Certainly he
will forgive me; that is what he is here for, and for no other purpose have
I engaged him” (just as one retains one’s doctor or one’s lawyer). Thus,
the helpless dying man is still conscious of the fact that he has created God
for himself and has clothed Him with power in order to make use of Him
as occasion arises. The so-called creature makes himself known as the
Creator only a short time before his extinction.

SKEPTICAL WIT

To the three kinds of tendency-wit discussed so far—exhibitionistic or
obscene wit, aggressive or hostile wit, and cynical wit (critical, blas-
phemous)—I desire to add a fourth and the most uncommon of all, whose
character can be elucidated by a good example.

Two Jews met in a train at a Galician railway station. “Where are you
traveling?” asked one. “To Cracow,” was the reply. “Now see here, what
a liar you are!” said the first one, bristling. “When you say that you are
traveling to Cracow, you really wish me to believe that you are traveling
to Lemberg. Well, but I am sure that you are really traveling to Cracow,
so why lie about it?”

This precious story, which creates an impression of exaggerated sub-
tlety, evidently operates by means of the technique of absurdity. The
second Jew has put himself in the way of being called a liar because he
has said that he is traveling to Cracow, which is his real goal! However,
this strong technical means—absurdity—is paired here with another
technique—representation through the opposite, for, according to the
uncontradicted assertion of the first, the second one is lying when he

708

speaks the truth, and speaks the truth by means of a lie. However, the
more earnest content of this joke is the question of the conditions of
truth; again the joke points to a problem and makes use of the uncer-
tainty of one of our commonest notions. Does it constitute truth if one
describes things as they are and does not concern himself with the way
the hearers will interpret what one has said? Or is this merely Jesuitical
truth, and does not the real truthfulness consist much more in having a
regard for the hearer and of furnishing him an exact picture of his own
mind? I consider jokes of this type sufficiently different from the others
to assign them a special place. What they attack is not a person nor an
institution, but the certainty of our very knowledge—one of our specula-
tive gifts. Hence, the name “skeptical” witticism will be the most expres-
sive for them.

In the course of our discussion of the tendencies of wit we have gotten
perhaps many an elucidation and certainly found numerous incentives for
further investigations. But the results of this chapter combine with those
of the preceding chapter to form a difficult problem. If it be true that the
pleasure created by wit is dependent upon the technique on one hand and
upon the tendency on the other hand, under what common point of view
can these two utterly different pleasure-sources of wit be united?