Laughter arises only at the reversibility of opposed terms

Evidence

Another aspect as surprising as the absence of an opposing term: the remainder makes you laugh. Any discussion on this theme unleashes the same language games, the same ambiguity, and the same obscenity as do discussions of sex or death. Sex and death are the great themes recognized for unleashing ambivalence and laughter. But the remainder is the third, and perhaps the only one, the two others amounting to this as to the very figure of reversibility. For why does one laugh? One only laughs at the reversibility of things, and sex and death are eminently reversible figures. It is because the stake is always reversible between masculine and feminine, between life and death, that one laughs at sex and death. How much more, then, at the remainder, which does not even have an opposing term, which by itself traverses the whole cycle, and runs infinitely after its own slash, after its own double, like Peter Schlemihl after his shadow? — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 473

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is Baudrillard’s claim that ‘one only laughs at reversibility’ plausible? Testable against ordinary humor theory, which mostly locates laughter in incongruity or superiority.
• XREF: connects to: Laughter arises only from reversibility, not from transgression — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 473; Humor’s timing depends on silence marking the rupture of expected order — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 260; Laughter at genitals masks shame over their involuntary passivity.

Broader Connections

• Laughter arises only from reversibility, not from transgression #corroborates (0.95) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 473
• Laughter at genitals masks shame over their involuntary passivity. #exemplifies (0.78)
• Humor’s timing depends on silence marking the rupture of expected order #expands (0.75) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 260