Ridicule

“ Don't juggle with ridicule or sarcasm, for people look beneath the veneer nowadays. They remember and repeat the axiom, "There's many a true word spoken in jest." There are so many beautiful things to say, so many kind expressions to utter, so many helpful hints to give, that we should be ashamed to say or do things even jokingly that may hurt another.
When you ridicule a thing or a person, you may ridicule the tender heart of one you should cheer and help.
Ridicule is the negative approach to a subject anyway; the only good it can accomplish is by reflex action or rebound force. ”

“ Satire is a witty and severe Attack of mischievous Habits or Vices;
Ridicule is a free Attack of any Motly Composition, wherein a real or affected Excellence and Defect both jointly appear, glaring together, and mocking each other, in the same Subject.
Hence the Aim of Raillery, is to please you, by some little Embarrassment of a Person; Of Satire, to scourge Vice, and to deliver it up to your just Detestation; And of Ridicule, to set an Object in a mean ludicrous Light, so as to expose it to your Derision and Contempt. ”

“ These arrows, winged by fancy, sharpened by wit, poisoned by truth, always reached the centre.
It is claimed by many that anything, the best and holiest, can be ridiculed. As a matter of fact, he who attempts to ridicule the truth, ridicules himself. He becomes the food of his own laughter. ”

“ The usual Artillery of Ridicule is Wit; whereby the Affinity or Coincidence of any Object with others, which are absurd and contemptible, is unexpectedly exhibited;--There is also another, very forcible, Manner in which Ridicule may act; And that is by employing Humour alone; Thus the Foible or Queerness of any Person will be most fully ridicul'd, by naturally dressing yourself, or any other Person in that Foible, and exerting its full Strength and Vigour.
The Politeness of a Subject is the Freedom of that Subject from all Indelicacy, Aukardness, and Roughness. ”

“ And from this combustible temper, this serious anger for no very serious things, things looked on by most as foreign to the important points of life, as consequentially flows that inheritance of ridicule, which devolves on them, from generation to generation. ”

“ The little creature dimly perceives that you are making fun of him, writhes, blushes, grows uneasy, bursts into tears,—upon my word it is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule upon that innocent young victim. ”

“ It is no easy matter to define the point at which the anxiety to become modest may be distinguished from the dread of becoming ridiculous. But surely, at the outset, this dread and this anxiety are one and the same thing. A complete investigation into the illusions of vanity, and into the ridicule that clings to them, would cast a strange light upon the whole theory of laughter. ”

“ It is true that individuals were more discussed than events, and that characters, not facts, formed the staple of the talk; but how amusing was it, what stores of anecdote were opened, what strange histories and curious illustrations of life unfolded! Pretension was ridiculed, vulgarity exposed, stupidity laughed at, awkwardness criticized, and want of tact condemned, with most unsparing ridicule ”

“ The masses will laugh when the comedian on the stage hits his friend with a club; that sort of fun-making satisfies adults who have children's brains, and people of similar brain-construction will also laugh at jokes which ride on ridicule. But you who read these lines are worthy of better things; that's why you are reading this book. If, in my audience, there are those who have the ridicule habit, I want to arouse you to a better sense of humor than is possible through the employment of ridicule and sarcasm. ”

“ In fine, Books of Satire, Wit, Humour, Ridicule, Drollery, and Irony, are the most read and applauded of all Books, in all Ages, Languages, and Countries. And as those which are exquisite in their kinds, are the standing Entertainment of the Ingenious and Learned; so others, of a lower kind, are to be found among the lower Readers, who sleep under all Works which do not make them merry.
In a word, the Opinions and Practices of Men in all Matters, and especially in Matters of Religion, are generally so absurd and ridiculous that it is impossible for them not to be the Subjects of Ridicule. ”

“ In our maturer years we laugh at the eager hopes and intense fears of youthful love; but ridicule cannot disarm the mischievous power, and intellect frequently struggles in chains which it cannot burst. ”

“ Now to smile at it, and turn it into ridicule," he adds, "I think most eligible, as it hurts ourselves least, and gives vice and folly the greatest offence. Laughing at the misconduct of the world, will, in a great measure, ease us of any more disagreeable passion about it. ”

“ But in proportion as comic genius succeeds in taking off the mask from ignorance and conceit, as it teaches us to
‘See ourselves as others see us,’— in proportion as we are brought out on the stage together, and our prejudices clash one against the other, our sharp angular points wear off; we are no longer rigid in absurdity, passionate in folly, and we prevent the ridicule directed at our habitual foibles, by laughing at them ourselves. ”

“ They presented an extraordinary exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore. ”

“ And by means of motley paper headgear, fit only for a carnival, we disguised ourselves in the most absurd fashions, and yet did not make ourselves seriously ridiculous; for ridicule is in the vision, not in what is seen. ”

“ But you don't reflect, dear, that that is a trap set for you by the infamous galley-slaves of society's galleys, to enjoy your embarrassment. When persons say ill of me before you, there is but one thing to do,—turn those who calumniate me into ridicule by outdoing what they say. ”

“ What is it that makes us laugh, and why we seem to have in this somewhat trivial point a special feature distinguishing us from all the lower animals? They may have the faculty of reason; they seem entirely devoid of the faculty of ridicule. Nay, even in the scale of civilisation, it is remarkable that the savage and the ignorant laugh less and understand less of this great fund of enjoyment than civilised people. ”

“ BOOK III. ARGUMENT. Pleasure in observing the tempers and manners of men, even where vicious or absurd. The origin of Vice, from false representations of the fancy, producing false opinions concerning good and evil. Inquiry into ridicule. The general sources of ridicule in the minds and characters of men, enumerated. Final cause of the sense of ridicule. The resemblance of certain aspects of inanimate things to the sensations and properties of the mind. The operations of the mind in the production of the works of Imagination, described. The secondary pleasure from Imitation. ”

“ Comedy naturally wears itself out—destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at. ”

“ Whether the result of ignorance, or dullness, or bad temper, of national or religious prejudices, or of mere personal pique, they have boldly challenged the ridicule of the world, and its amused contempt has pilloried them for all time. ”

“ But while this characteristic clue to absurdity helps on the ridicule, it also softens and harmonises its excesses; and the ludicrous is here blended with a certain beauty and decorum, from this very truth of habit and sentiment, or from the principle of similitude in dissimilitude. The devotion to nonsense, and enthusiasm about trifles, is highly affecting as a moral lesson: it is one of the striking weaknesses and greatest happinesses of our nature. ”

“ It is even asserted that you are beginning to indulge in ridicule, bursting out laughing in people’s faces; this might do you infinite harm and very properly, and even raise doubts as to the goodness of your heart; in order to amuse five or six young ladies or gentlemen, you might lose all else. ”

“ And, as the pleasures which raillery, ridicule, and satire, afford to the by-standers, are very considerable, so the person who is the object of them, and who begins to be in pain upon the first slight marks of contempt, has this pain much enhanced by the contrast, the exquisiteness of his uneasiness and confusion rising in proportion to the degree of mirth, and insolent laughter, in the by-standers: whence it comes to pass, that extremely few persons have courage to stand the force of ridicule ”

“ It's partly they don't understand yet—they will before we've done!' She wagged her head in a sort of comical menace, and the crowd screamed with laughter—'partly, they don't understand yet what's at stake——'
'Lord!' said an old fellow, with a rich chuckle. 'She's a educatin' of us!'
'—and partly that the bravest man is afraid of ridicule. Oh, yes, we've heard a great deal all our lives about the timidity and the sensitiveness of women. And it's true—we are sensitive. But I tell you, ridicule crumples a man up. It steels a woman. We've come to know the value of ridicule. ”

“ All laugh except King.
⁠Q. Marry, but he must have a nice time of it between them! Oh, sir, this passeth the bounds of ridicule, and to think that these lines were to have drawn our tears!
⁠Oph. Truly mine eyes run with tears, but they are begotten of laughter!
⁠Ham. Gently, gently. Spare your ridicule, lest you have none left for the later scenes. The tragedy is full of such windy fooling. You shall hear more anon. There are five acts of this! ”

“ And hence the well-known doctrine of this author, that ridicule is the test of truth; for truth and virtue being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as that inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. ”

“ Again, why does the correspondent in the Atlas take me up short for saying that ‘we laugh at a person who is rolled in the gutter?’ He observes on this, ‘if it is an accident, the laughter is silly, and not a case in point; if inflicted as a punishment for some petty injustice, we do not laugh, but rub our hands.’ So that we are to laugh in neither case. Is the ridicule merited where the cobbler, in the ‘Election Dinner,’ has smutted the face of his next neighbour? ”

“ The first raises an emotion of laughter that is altogether pleasant: the emotion of laughter raised by the other, is qualified with that of contempt; and the mixed emotion, partly pleasant partly painful, is termed the emotion of ridicule. I avenge myself of the pain a ridiculous object gives me by a laugh of derision. A risible object, on the other hand, gives me no pain: it is altogether pleasant by a certain sort of titillation, which is expressed externally by mirthful laughter. ”

“ The question stated in accurate terms is, Whether the sense of ridicule be the proper test for distinguishing ridiculous objects from those that are not so? To answer this question with precision, I must premise, that ridicule is not a subject of reasoning, but of sense or taste [20] . This being taken for granted, I proceed thus. No person doubts that our sense of beauty is the true test of what{56} is beautiful, and our sense of grandeur, of what is great or sublime. Is it more doubtful whether our sense of ridicule be the true test of what is ridiculous? ”

“ But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain,—which taste cannot tolerate,—which ridicule will seize. ”

“ Force one to laugh, and then take laughing ill?
II. Secondly, If it be a Fault in those reverend Divines, mention’d in the foregoing Article, to use Irony, Drollery, Ridicule, and Satire, in any Case; or if the Fault lies in an exorbitant Use thereof, or in any particular Species of Drollery; as, for example, such Drollery as is to be found in the polemical Writings and Sermons of Dr. South; it is fit some Remedy should be employ’d for the Cure of this Evil. ”

“ The curbing of a king’s tyrannies may have required a rebellion {269} of his barons, or a riot of his people: yet a good deal of checking of tyrannic propensities has been carried out by the unalarming expedient of ridicule. Even in a free and enlightened country we may observe in officials a tendency now and again to inflate their dignity unduly; so that one infers that the restraining force of the laughter of inferiors still counts. ”

“ Only the reckless use of it breeds in minds of the feebler sort mere pleasure in ridicule, that weakens them as helpers in the real work of the world, and in that way tends to retard the forward movement. But on the whole, ridicule adds more vigour to the strong than it takes from the weak, and has its use even when levelled against what is good and true. ”

“ They know they ought to be other than they are, but are glad to avail themselves of any thing that looks like argument, to overcome their consciences withal. And ridicule is a kind of argument—such as it is ”

“ But then, do we admit into our state the comic writers who are so fond of making mankind ridiculous, if they attempt in a good-natured manner to turn the laugh against our citizens? or do we draw the distinction of jest and earnest, and allow a man to make use of ridicule in jest and without anger about any thing or person ”

“ If the Talent of Ridicule were employed to laugh Men out of Vice and Folly, it might be of some Use to the World; ”