We’re killing ourselves not laughing

Press, 19 July 1976, Page 8

We’re killing ourselves not laughing

NZPA-Reuter Cardiff, Taking themselves extremely seriously. psychologists at the world's first conference of humour and laughter came to the conclusion in Cardiff that taking yourself too seriously is bad for you. “I might have told them that myself, love, if they had asked me,” chuckled a woman cleaner as she brushed learned papers into the waste-paper baskets in the main conference hall of the University of Wales applied psychology department. The four-day conference ended on Saturday after about 150 psychologists had heard papers with such tides as •Phylogenetic and ontogenetic considerations for a theory on the origins of humour" and •‘Verbal jokes as detransformed utterances.” The psychologists were from Britain, the United States. Canada, Turkey, Australia. Norway, Sweden, France. Israel, and Ireland. Despite the technical jargon. some clear questions were raised, including: Are young people becoming too serious? Are more and more people becoming sick be-

cause they cannot laugh at themselves? Why do the same jokes seem to exist in different cultures? Professor Harold Greenwald, aged 65. the distinguished professor of psychology in human behaviour at San Diego, California, drew general agreement when he maintained, “Far too many of us are sick simply because we take ourselves too seriously.” He said: “We are drugging people out of their minds, when all we need is psychiatrists with a good sense [of humour. “If people would only realise the absurdity of the world, and what tiny mites we are in the universe, they would never be mentally ill. . . there is no better tension release than laughter."

Dr Jeffrey Goldstein, of Philadelphia, reported that he had found exactly the same joke current in universities in Louvrain. Belgium, in Philadelphia, and in Hong Kong. Dr John Traugott, professor of English at Berkeley, California, raised the possibility of a lack of humour among modem Western youth. He said: ‘The trouble with some young people in America is that they gave up, jokes and joking. They re-j

I fused to indulge in word|play because it was held to be somehow insincere.” A Toronto educationist, Mr John Atkins, said, “Our towns need a new public building called a laughter chamber which people could visit to catch up on the latest ethnic jokes, and eat each others ethnic dishes, for better understanding all round.” The bulk of the conference was devoted to a serious study of humour, with aid from computers drawings comparing mirthful facial expressions, and genetic tabulations supporting hypotheses that the tendency to laugh at particular things is inherited. But there were some titters — although respectful ones — from the conference room. A Cardiff consultant psychologist, Mr William Hodgkins, told some bawdy jokes to back-up his theory that vulgarity, along with four-letter words, was a necessary human facto.r He made the distinction: “Vulgarity is creative, obscenity destructive.” He said vulgarity was essential to society because it gives us all a feeling of togetherness. “Vulgarities are sustenance. safety, and sanity,” lhe said.