Redeeming Laughter: Chapter 14 Summary and Reaction

In the last section of his book, Redeeming Laughter, "PART III. TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF THE COMIC," Peter Berger teases out the fundamental project of his entire text, which is to make an argument for the comic as a critic of society today, much as the fool or jester was a critic of ages past. If this does not sound so different from his valorization of the satirist over the mere crafter of wit, it should be noted that Berger does not see comics merely a la John Stewart, that is political gadflies, but also redeemers of the human spirit.

In Chapter 14 of his text, Berger states that although a comic might stand outside of the cultural milieu, but a comic never sees him or herself as above humanity. Rather, comics help their fellow, although sometimes less perspicuous, fellow humans gain a more balanced perspective of humanity's place in the universe. There are essentially two elements to his last chapter's proposition, regarding the nature of humor. One is that the comic's secular function lies in his or her ability to transcend the ordinary by showing the ordinary in a new light. There is also a second, religious interpretation of comedy that suggests that by showing a reversal of the commonly viewed nature of reality, reality has potentially redeeming qualities.

Thus, the ordinary world upside down has more potential to redeem, when viewed through comic eyes. Berger states that there no real proof of transcendence but the comic's vision enables human beings to enact one manifestation of a sacramental universe, a universe of enchantment in the divine manifested in the real, or the body as well as the vision of the comedian. Humor finds unity in the world through creating connections between apparent opposites, between the socially oppressed and socially dominant, and between heaven and earth, the sacred and the profane, the body and the mind.