A Marquis at the court of Louis XV had unexpectedly returned from a
journey and, on entering his wife's boudoir, found her in the arms
of a bishop. After a moment's hesitation, the Marquis walked calmly
to the window, leaned out and began going through the motions of
blessing the people in the street.
'What are you doing?' cried the anguished wife.
'Monseigneur is performing my functions,' replied the nobleman,
'so I am performing his.'*
* I have used this particular story in The Act of Creation
and am using it again because of its neat pattern. Most anecdotes
need lengthy explanations to make their logical structure clear.
Laughter may be called the HAHA reaction.* Let us briefly
discuss first the logical, then the emotional, aspect of it.
* I am grateful to Dr. Brennig James for having suggested this term
as a twin to the AHA reaction.
The HAHA Reaction
The Marquis' behaviour is both unexpected and perfectly logical --
but of a logic not usually applied to this type of situation. It is
the logic of the division of labour, where the rule of the game is the
quid pro quo, the give-and-take. But we expected, of course, that his
reactions would be governed by a quite different canon, that of sexual
morality. It is the interaction between these two mutually exclusive
associative contexts which produces the comic effect. It compels us
to perceive the situation at the same time in two self-cousistent but
habitually incompatible frames of reference; it makes us function on
two wave-lengths simultaneously. While this unusual condition lasts,
the event is not, as is normally the case, perceived in a single frame
of reference, but
bisociated
with two.
But this unusual condition does not last for long. The act of discovery
leads to a lasting synthesis, a
fusion
of the two previously
unrelated frames of reference; in the comic bisociation we have a
collision
between incompatible frames which for a brief moment
cross each other's path. However, the difference is not absolute. Whether
the frames are compatible or not, whether they will collide or merge,
depends on subjective factors -- for after all, the colliding or merging
takes place in the minds of the audience. In Kepler's mind the motions of
the moon and the motions of the tides fused -- they became branches of the
same causative hierarchy. But Galileo treated Kepler's theory literally as
a joke -- he called it an 'occult fancy'. The history of science abounds
with examples of discoveries greeted with howls of laughter because they
seemed to be a marriage of incompatibles -- until the marriage bore fruit
and the alleged incompatibility of the partners turned out to derive
from prejudice. The humorist, on the other hand, deliberately chooses
discordant codes of behaviour, or universes of discourse, to expose
their hidden incongruities in the resulting clash. Comic discovery is
paradox stated -- scientific discovery is paradox resolved.
Looked at from his own point of view, the Marquis' gesture was a truly
original inspiration. If he had followed the conventional rules of the
game, he would have had to beat up or kill the Bishop. But at the court of
Louis XV assassinating a Monseigneur would have been considered, if not
exactly a crime, still in very bad taste; it could not be done. To solve
the problem, that is, to save his face and at the same time humiliate
his opponent -- a second frame of reference, governed by different
rules of the game, had to be brought into the situation and combined,
bisociated, with the first. All original comic invention is a creative
act, a malicious discovery.
Laughter and Emotion
The emphasis is on malicious, and this brings us from the
logic
of
humour to the
emotional factor
in the HAHA reaction. When the expert
story-teller tells an anecdote, he creates a certain tension which mounts
as the narrative progresses. But it never reaches its expected climax. The
punch-line acts like a guillotine which cuts across the logical development
of the situation; it debunks our dramatic expectations, the tension becomes
redundant and is exploded in laughter. To put it differently, laughter
disposes of emotional tension which has become pointless, is denied by
reason, and has to be somehow worked off along physiological channels
of least resistance.
If you look at the brutal merriment of the people in a tavern scene
by Hogarth or Rawlinson, you realise at once that they are working off
their surplus of adrenalin by contractions of the face muscles, slapping
of thighs and explosive exhalations of breath from the half-closed
glottis. The emotions worked off in laughter are aggression, sexual
gloating, conscious or unconscious sadism -- all operating through
the sympathico-adrenal system. However, when you look at a clever
New Yorker
cartoon, Homeric laughter yields to an amused and
rarefied smile; the ample flow of adrenalin has been distilled into
a grain of Attic salt. Take, for instance, that classic definition:
'What is a sadist? A person who is kind to a masochist . . .' The word
'witticism' is derived from 'wit' in its original sense of ingenuity;
the two domains are continuous, without a sharp dividing line. As we move
from the coarse towards the subtler forms of humour, the joke shades
into epigram and riddle, the comic simile into the hidden analogy; and
the emotions involved show a similar transition. The emotive voltage
discharged in coarse laughter is aggression robbed of its purpose; the
tension discharged in the AHA reaction is derived from an intellectual
challenge. It snaps at the moment when the penny drops -- when we have
solved the riddle hidden in the
New Yorker
cartoon, in a brain-teaser
or in a scientific problem.
Let me repeat, the two domains of humour and discovery form a
continuum. As we travel across it, from left to centre, so to speak,
the emotional climate gradually changes from the malice of the jester to
the detached objectivity of the sage. And if we now continue the journey
in the same direction, we find equally gradual transitions into the
third domain of creativity, that of the artist. The artist, too, hints
rather than states, and poses riddles; and so we get a symmetrically
reversed transition towards the other end of the spectrum, from highly
intellectualised art forms towards the more sensual and emotive, ending
in the thought-free beatitude of the mystic.
The AH Reaction
But how does one define the emotional climate of art? How does one
classify the emotions which give rise to the experience of beauty? If you
leaf through textbooks of experimental psychology, you won't find much of
it. When Behaviourists use the word 'emotion', they nearly always refer
to hunger, sex, rage and fear, and the related effects of the release of
adrenalin. They have no explanations to offer for the curious reaction
one experiences when listening to Mozart, or looking at the ocean,
or reading for the first time John Donne's
Holy Sonnets
. Nor will
you find in the textbooks a description of the physiological processes
accompanying the reaction: moistening of the eyes, catching one's breath,
followed by a kind of rapt tranquillity, the draining of all tensions. Let
us call this the AH reaction -- and thus complete the trinity.
----------------------
HAHA! | AHA | AH . . .
----------------------
Laughter and weeping, the Greek masks of comedy and tragedy, mark the
extremes of a continuous spectrum; both are overflow reflexes, but in
every other respect are physiological opposites. Laughter is mediated by
the sympathico-adrenal branch of the autonomic nervous system, weeping
by the parasympathetic branch; the first tends to galvanise the body
into action, the second tends towards passivity and catharsis. Watch
yourself breathing when you laugh: long deep intakes of air, followed
by bursts of exhalatory puffs -- ha, ha, ha! In weeping, you do the
opposite: short, gasping inspirations -- sobs -- are followed by long,
sighing expirations -- a-a-h, aah . . .
In keeping with this, the emotions which overflow in the AH reaction are
the direct opposites of those exploded in laughter. The latter belong
to the adrenergic, aggressive-defensive type of emotions. In our theory,
these are manifestations of the self-assertive tendency. Their opposites
I shall call the self-transcending emotions, derived from the integrative
tendency. They are epitomised in what Freud called the oceanic feeling:
that expansion of awareness which one experiences on occasion in an empty
cathedral when eternity is looking through the window of time, and in
which the self seems to dissolve like a grain of salt in a lot of water.
Art and Emotion
The polarity between the integrative and self-assertive tendencies is,
as we have seen, inherent in all hierarchic order, and manifested on
every level, from embryonic development to international politics. The
integrative
tendency, which is our present concern, reflects the
'part-ness' ofa holon, its dependence on, and belonging to, a more
complex whole. It is at work all along the line, from the physical
symbiosis of organelles, through the aggregation of herd and flock,
up to the cohesive forces in insect states and primate societies.
The single individual, considered as a whole, represents the apex of the
organismic hierarchy, but at the same time he is a part, an elementary
unit in the social hierarchy. The dichotomy is reflected in his emotional
nature. His self-assertion as an autonomous, independent whole is
expressed in ambition, competitiveness, aggressive-defensive behaviour,
as the case may be. His integrative tendency reflects his dependence, as
a part, on family, tribe, society. But -- and this is an essential but
-- participation in a social group is not always sufficient to satisfy
the individual's integrative potential; and to some people it provides
no satisfaction at all. Every man is a holon, and feels the need to be
a part of something that transcends the narrow boundaries of the self;
that need is at the root of the 'self-transcending' emotions. It
may
be fullfiled by social identification -- to which we shall return in
Part Three
. But that higher entity to which the
individual craves to surrender his identity may also be God, Nature or
Art; the magic of form, the ocean of sound, or the mathematical symbols
of convergence in the infinite. This is the type of emotion which enters
into the AH reaction.
The self-transcending emotions show a wide range of variety. They may be
joyous or sad, tragic or lyrical; their common denominator, to repeat this
once more, is the feeling of
integrative participation in an experience
which transcends the boundaries of the self
.
Self-assertive emotions tend towards bodily activity; the
self-transcending emotions are essentially passive and cathartic. The
former are manifested in aggressive-defensive behaviour; the latter in
empathy, rapport and identification, admiration and wonder. The shedding
of tears is an outlet for an excess of the self-transcending emotions,
as laughter is for the self-assertive emotions. In laughter, tension
is suddenly exploded, emotion debunked; in weeping it is gradually
drained away, without breaking the continuity of mood; emotion and
thought remain united. The self-transcending emotions do not tend
towards action, but towards quiescence. Respiration and pulse rate are
slowed down; 'entrancement' is a step towards the trance-like states
induced by contemplative mystics; the emotion is of a quality that
cannot be consummated by any specific voluntary act. You cannot take
the mountain panorama home with you; you cannot merge with the infinite
by any exertion of the body; to be 'overwhelmed' by awe and wonder,
'enraptured' by a smile, 'entranced' by beauty -- each of these words
expresses passive surrender. The surplus of emotion cannot be worked
off by any purposeful muscular activity, it can only be consummated in
internal -- visceral and glandular -- processes.
The various causes which may lead to an overflow of tears -- aesthetic or
religious rapture, bereavement, joy, sympathy, self-pity -- all have this
basic element in common: a craving to transcend the island boundaries of
the individual, to enter into a symbiotic communion with a human being,
living or dead, or some higher entity, real or imaginary, of which the
self is felt to be a part.
The self-transcending emotions are the step-children of psychology,
but they are as basic, and as firmly rooted in biology as their
opposites. Freud and Piaget, among others, have emphasised the fact
that the very young child does not differentiate between ego and
environment. The nourishing breast appears to it as a more intimate
possession than the toes of its own body. It is aware of events, but not
of itself as a separate entity. It lives in a state of mental symbiosis
with the outer world, a continuation of the biological symbiosis in
the womb. The universe is focussed on the self, and the self is the
universe -- a condition which Piaget called 'protoplasmic' or 'symbiotic'
consciousness.* It may be likened to a fluid universe, traversed by the
tidal rise and fall of physiological needs, and by minor storms which
come and go without leaving solid traces. Gradually the floods recede,
and the first islands of objective reality emerge; the contours grow
firmer and sharper; the islands grow into continents, the dry territories
of reality are mapped out; but side by side with it the liquid world
coexists, surrounding it, interpenetrating it by canals and inland lakes,
the vestigial relics of the erstwhile symbiotic communion -- the origin of
that 'oceanic feeling' which the artist and the mystic strive to recapture
on a higher level of development, at a higher turn of the spiral.
* For a more recent treatment of this subject, see E.G. Schachtel's
important work Metamorphosis (1963).
It is also at the origin of the sympathetic magic practised by all
primitive and not so primitive people. When the medicine man disguises
himself as the rain-god, he produces rain. Drawing a picture of a slain
bison guarantees a successful hunt. This is the ancient unitary source
out of which the ritual dance and song, the mystery plays of the Acheans
and the calendars of the Babylonian priest-astronomers were derived. The
shadows in Plato's cave are symbols of man's loneliness; the paintings
in the Altamira caves are symbols of his magic powers.
We have travelled a long way from Altamira and Lascaux, but the artist's
inspirations and the scientist's intuitions are still fed by that same
unitary source -- though by now we should rather call it an underground
river. Wishes do not displace mountains, but in our dreams they still
do. Symbiotic consciousness is never completely defeated, merely relegated
underground to those primitive levels in the mental hierarchy where
the boundaries of the ego are still fluid and blurred -- as blurred as
the distinction between the actor and the hero whom he impersonates
-- and with whom the spectator identifies. The actor on the stage is
himself and somebody else at the same time -- he is both the dancer and
the rain-god. Dramatic illusion is the coexistence in the spectator's
mind of two universes which are logically incompatible; his awareness,
suspended between the two planes, exemplifies the bisociative process in
its most striking form. All the more striking because he produces physical
symptoms -- palpitations, sweating or tears -- in response to the perils
of a Desdemona whom he
knows
to exist merely as a shadow on the
TV screen.
The Creative Trinity
But let Othello get the hiccoughs -- and instead of co-existence
between the two planes juxtaposed in the spectator's mind, you get
collision between them. Comic impersonation produces the HAHA reaction
because the parodist arouses aggression and malice; whereas tragic
impersonation achieves the suspension of disbelief, the co-existence
of incompatible planes, because the tragedian induces the spectator to
identify. It excites the self-transcending and inhibits or neutralises
the self-assertive emotions. Even when fear and anger are aroused in the
spectator, these are vicarious emotions, derived from his identification
with the hero -- which in itself is a self-transcending act. The
vicarious emotions aroused in this manner carry a dominant element of
sympathy, which facilitates catharsis in conformity with the Aristotelian
definition: 'Through incidents arousing horror and pity to accomplish
the purgation of such emotions.' Art is a school of self-transcendence.
We thus arrive at a further generalisation.
The HAHA reaction signals
the collision of bisociated contexts, the AHA reaction signals their
fusion, the AH reaction their juxtaposition.
* When you read a poem,
two frames of reference interact in your mind: one governed by meaning,
the other by rhythmic patterns of sound. Moreover, these two matrices
operate on two different levels of awareness -- the first in broad
daylight, the other much deeper down, on those archaic levels of the
mental hierarchy which reverberate to the shaman's tom-tom, and which
make us particularly receptive to, and suggestible by, messages which
arrive in a rhythmic pattern or accompanied by such a pattern.**
* This difference is reflected in the quasi-cumulative progression
of science through a series of successive mergers, compared to
the quasi-timeless character of art, its continuous restatement of
basic patterns of experience in changing idioms. But I said twice
'quasi' because the difference is a matter of degrees; because the
progress of science is not cumulative in the strict sense it is
moving in a zigzag course rather than in a straight line; and on
the other hand, the development of a given art form over a period
of time often displays a cumulative progression.
** 'In the rhyme', wrote Proust, 'the superimposition of two systems,
one intellectual, the other metric . . . is a primary element
of ordered complexity, that is to say, of beauty.'
Routine thinking involves a single matrix, artistic experience always
involves more than one. Rhythm and metre, rhyme and euphony, are not
artificial ornaments of language, but combinations of contemporary,
sophisticated frames of reference with archaic and emotionally more
powerful games of the mind. The same is true of poetic imagery: visual
thinking is an earlier form of mental activity than thinking in verbal
concepts; we dream mostly in pictures. In other words, creative activity
always implies a
temporary regression
to these archaic levels,
while a simultaneous process goes on in parallel on the highest, most
articulate and critical level: the poet is like a skin-diver with a
breathing tube.
It has been said that scientific discovery consists in seeing an analogy
where nobody has seen one before. When, in the Song of Songs, Solomon
compared the Shulamite's neck to a tower of ivory, he saw an analogy which
nobody had seen before; when Harvey compared the heart of a fish to a
mechanical pump, he did the same; and when the caricaturist draws a nose
like a cucumber, he again does just that. In fact, all combinatorial,
bisociative patterns are trivalent -- they can enter the service of
humour, discovery or art, as the case may be.
Man has always looked at Nature by superimposing a second frame on the
retinal image -- mythological, anthropomorphic, scientific frames. The
artist imposes his style by emphasising contours or surfaces, stability
or motion, curves or cubes. So, of course, does the caricaturist; only
his motives, and his criteria of relevance, are different. And so does
the scientist. A geographical map has the same relation to a landscape as
a character-sketch to a face; every diagram or model, every schematic or
symbolic representation of physical or mental processes is an unemotional
caricature -- or stylised portrait -- of reality.
In the language of the Behaviourist, we would have to say that Cézanne,
glancing at a landscape, receives a stimulus, to which he responds
by putting a dab of paint on the canvas -- and that is all there is to
it. But in fact the two activities take place on two different planes. The
stimulus comes from one environment, the distant landscape. The response
acts on a different environment, a rectangular surface of ten inches by
fifteen. The two environments obey two different sets of laws. An isolated
brush-stroke does not represent an isolated detail in the landscape. There
are no point-to-point correspondences between the two planes; each
obeys a different rule of the game. The artist's vision is bi-focal,
just as the poet's voice is bi-vocal, as he bisociates sound and meaning.
Summary
What I have been trying to suggest in this chapter is that all creative
activity -- the conscious and unconscious processes underlying the
three domains of artistic inspiration, scientific discovery and comic
inventiveness -- have a basic pattern in common: the co-agitation or
shaking together of already existing but previously separate areas of
knowledge, frames of perception or universes of discourse. But conscious
rational thinking is not always the best cocktail shaker. It is invaluable
so long as the challenge does not exceed a certain limit; when that is
the case, it can only be met by an undoing and re-forming of the mental
hierarchy, a temporary regression culminating in the bisociative act
which adds a new level to the open-ended structure. It is the highest
form of mental self-repair, of escape from the blind alleys of stagnation,
over-specialisation and maladjustment; but it is already foreshadowed by
analogous phenomena on lower levels of the evolutionary scale, discussed
in previous chapters.