Humor is an exceptionally broad topic. The following ideas set the stage for the overall Clash Theory approach.

HUMOR MECHANICS

Recognizing humor and creating humor are easily possible without a conscious awareness of the underlying mechanics. In this way, humor is like music. You may not know music theory or be able to read music, but you can still listen to it or play it. Knowing theory is not useless however. For both music and humor, awareness of the mechanics can increase appreciation and ease creation. Music theory is generally recognized as a distinct technical area even among those who do not participate in it. In contrast, humor mechanics is at present not widely recognized as its own topic.

COMPLEXITY

Even the simplest examples of humor are considerably more complex than is generally realized (see Anatomy of a Humor Event). A few dozen distinct aspects of humor events individually and together influence how different observers perceive humor and to what degree. Clash Theory explores each of these aspects as part of an integrated picture of what humor is.

A DISTINCT PART OF A LARGER WHOLE

Humor is everywhere. It is capable of infiltrating every corner of human experience. It is cognitively useful to consider humor as an ‘ingredient’, meaning something distinct from what that humor is a part of (e.g., a movie, a menu, or a song; an advertisement, a presentation, or a conversation, etc.)

PURPOSE

Attempts can be made to place humor in the service of every human purpose. Clash Theory distinguishes between the identity of humor (what humor is) and the purpose of humor (what humor is used for). Between the two it focuses pretty much exclusively on what humor is.

HUMOR DISCIPLINES

A great many technical disciplines have a professional interest in the mechanics of humor generation and perception. You might expect a global theory covering all humor to emerge from a discipline like psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, rhetoric, or entertainment. Indeed, each of these offers a unique and valuable perspective on the humor experience. Other fields like anthropology, advertising, education, literature, and artificial intelligence might rightly claim partial ownership of humor. In which field does humor best belong? The quandary is resolved in a way you might not expect. Clash Theory proposes that humor be considered its own discipline, one that relates to and overlaps with all of the others, much as they relate to and overlap with each other.

CAVEAT PARAGRAPH

Many instances of humor are not easily classified, and many fit comfortably in multiple categories. The purpose of segregating humor examples by root-level differences is to clarify thinking. It’s to create a vocabulary and a taxonomy to help us humans sort out, make sense of, and more easily contribute to the truly humongous number of examples. The purpose is not to claim that all humor examples must conform to one of these categories or that further subtleties need not be explored. The description words used are intended to reflect many related concepts with similar meanings.

Click Clash Theory to begin looking at the theory itself.