Too Easily Pleased

“Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!'' cried Elizabeth. ``That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh.''

“I have faults enough…My temper would perhaps be called resentful. -- My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.''

``That is a failing indeed!'' – cried Elizabeth. ``Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. -- I really cannot laugh at it; you are safe from me.''

~ Pride and Prejudice

“I cannot laugh at it.” In this context, it’s clear that not laughing at something can be a virtue. It makes sense. Sometimes, we ought to refrain from laughter, not because we have defective, puritanical (in the popular sense of the word) senses of humor, but because we better serve the cause of merriment by refusing to allow humor to be cheapened and demeaned by inappropriate material.

How freeing. Who hasn’t experienced the awkwardness of not being sure whether or laughter is the appropriate response to a joke, comment, or conversation that is, admittedly, funny, but not necessarily edifying? No one wants to be the dour, cheerless, legalist, but we know that there are times when laughter is not the right way to respond. The idea that sometimes we better uphold humor by not laughing can help us escape this dilemma.

CS Lewis writes that “we are far too easily pleased.” I think this is especially true when it comes to laughter. Like Elizabeth Bennett, we “dearly love a laugh.” We should love to laugh. It’s a gift, a joy, a way to bond and connect with others, a means of expressing creativity and delight. The challenge is to laugh with discernment. But how? I really don’t know, but I have recently had a few thoughts.

First, there is a “cheap” sort of laughter, which demeans the subject. I don’t mean teasing, or making fun, because so often, this kind of humor is based on a foundation of great respect (think Star Wars fans making parodies of the movies, or best friends who love to laugh at one another). Often, laughter exalts its subject by deeming it worthy of notice, but this “cheap” laughter is a different thing entirely.

From The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand:

"It must have been spring," said Toohey. "It usually is. There's always a dark movie theater, and two people lost to the world, their hands clasped together-but hands do perspire when held too long, don't they? Still, it's beautiful to be in love. The sweetest story ever told-and the tritest. Don't turn away like that, Catherine. We must never allow ourselves to lose our sense of humor."

Here, Ellsworth Toohey nearly succeeds in destroying his niece Catherine’s romance by laughing at it. He claims that never losing “our sense of humor” is a virtue, but clearly, this sort of humor, which reduces what is beautiful and sacred to something trite and shallow, is anything but virtuous. I think that we are too good for this – such “laughter” is hardly worthy of the name.

Francis Schaeffer, in The God Who Is There, makes an interesting point along these lines:

"[Modern art is] the expression of men who are struggling with their appalling lostness. Dare we laugh at such things? Dare we feel superior when we view their tortured expressions in their art? Christians should stop laughing and take such men seriously. Then we shall have the right to speak again to our generation."

The kind of laughter which takes an issue of tragic and profound importance and mocks it can indicate a lack of compassion. When we, through laughter, reduce some colossal expression of belief (be it philosophical or artistic) to the level of the ridiculous, we should not be surprised if we lose the respect of others. In these situations, we should consider the standard provided in Ephesians 5:4: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

However…

“This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

~ “The Weight of Glory,” CS Lewis

There is laughter that is at once solemn, noble, and glorious. It’s golden, and rich, and intelligent. It is powerful. It can catch us unawares and incapacitate us. It encompasses all the styles of humor – from slapstick to satire, and everything in between. We’ve all heard laughter described as musical. This laughter truly is.

From Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand:

“She closed her eyes. She heard him laughing; it was the gayest sound in the world. She opened her eyes hastily, but there was no hint of cruelty in his face, only pure laughter.

’My motive, Dagny? You don't think that it's the simplest one of all - the spur of the moment?’

No, she thought, no, that's not true; not if he laughed like that, not if he looked as he did. The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of the drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end result of the most profound, most solemn thinking.”

So, I propose that we become connoisseurs of laughter. Not the connoisseurs who turn up their noses at everything, but the type who tirelessly search for excellence, and who refuse to settle for anything less. In the past, we have been too easily pleased, but no longer.

--

One more thing: I see laughter and music as linked in some way, so while this final quote is about music, much of what it says applies to laughter, so I’m including it in this post. (Also because it just happens to be beautifully written, and I want to.)

From Atlas Shrugged:

“The music of [his] Fifth Concerto streamed from his keyboard, past the glass of the window, and spread through the air, over the lights of the valley. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean and left nothing buy the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance."