Superiority Theory
The superiority theory of humor traces back to Plato and Aristotle, and Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. The general idea is that a person laughs about misfortunes of others (so called schadenfreude), because these misfortunes assert the person's superiority on the background of shortcomings of others.
For Aristotle, we laugh at inferior or ugly individuals, because we feel a joy at feeling superior to them. Socrates was reported by Plato as saying that the ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance.
Read more about this topic: Theories Of Humor
Famous quotes containing the words superiority and/or theory:
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“It makes no sense to say what the objects of a theory are,
beyond saying how to interpret or reinterpret that theory in another.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)