Laughter

"I divide the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy."  media type="youtube" key="jKGPhT3FAFo" height="360" width="480"  media type="youtube" key="yiaG2pJWQ-I" height="360" width="480" media type="youtube" key="m9-Q4UonkYU" height="360" width="480"  media type="youtube" key="9IcRya26DnI" height="360" width="480"
 * Joy - "What that real cause is we do not know."
 * "Besides, the phenomenon is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell."
 * Fun - "Fun is closely related to Joy..."
 * "It can sometimes be used, of course, to divert humans from something else which the Enemy would like them to be feeling or doing: but in itself it has wholly undesirable tendencies; it promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils."
 * Joke Proper - "...it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame."
 * "Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humorous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can be passed off as funny."
 * Indecent Humor - "There are some to whom 'no passion is as serious as lust...'"
 * Make less serious - "The first sort joke about sex because it gives rise to many incongruities:"
 * "the second cultivate incongruities because they afford a pretext for talking about sex."
 * Flippancy - "But flippancy is the best of all."
 * "Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it."
 * "It is a thousand miles away from joy: it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it."