Karnawalizacja kultury: walka śmiechu z radością

Andrzej STOFF

Zakład Teorii Literatury, Instytut Literatury Polskiej, ul. Fosa Staromie− jska 3, 87−100 Toruń, Poland , Polska

Abstrakt

A current tendency in the research on culture is to approvingly explain the concept of carinval as denoting a phenomenon which consists in contesting the already existing and «official» forms of art and custom. Carnivalization is in turn seen as the way to accomplish this end. As a consequence of such a research perspective, however, laughter may be confused with the joy that results from human interaction with the world. This possibility becomes all the more real, since the concept of carnivalization, originally perceived by Bachtin as transposing carnival into the language of literature, may be referred to all kinds of art and to all realms of culture. It was precisely Bachtin who considered laughter as the main tool of carnivalization. Unlike other theorists, he believed that laughter is used in order to deprecate what is universally approved of, to deprive what is respected of its gravity, and to radically overturn the existing hierarchy of values; while all these functions of laughter make it possible for human beings to retain at least remnants of their individual freedom in the outside world considered as oppressive. Since carnival – being by nature parasitic and possible only in so far as it stays in contrast to other forms of culture prior to it and higher than it – uses laughter in a purely instrumental way, it expresses a different attitude towards the world than the one presumed by joy. Carnival laughter is destructive, while joy has a constructive power, being born from an affirmative attitude towards being as such. In the case of laughter a merely superficial involvement is needed, while joy is capable of reorganizing the deepest human dispositions, making the human being capable of more meaningful and fruitful actions. The duration of laughter is determined by the appearance of the actual stimuli that generate it, while joy is a spiritual state that affects human actions. Against the appearances, laughter isolates the laughing ones and sets them against others, while joy exhibits a community building force. The factors that cause laughter need constant diversification and intensification, which is why the carnivalization of culture consists largely in the pursuit for new means of expression. The danger of replacing joy with laughter results from the adoption of an attitude to the reality which is radically different from the one that used to bring most brilliant results in the past. A potentially grave menace resulting from the dissemination of pro−carnival attitudes is that joy will be suppressed in our culture, or even that the ability to experience it and the need to aspire to it will be extinguished.

 

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Słowa kluczowe:

culture, carnival, Mikhail Bakhtin, carnivalization of culture, laughter versus joy