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Dagnostaw Demski
that angle, was perceived as full of potential moves and new variables and not as the
old secure world of group affiliation. In place of permanent social divisions, ways
for advancement emerged. What is more, some new models of advancement devel¬
oped—in the modernity, when individual self-improvement, character shaping, and
skills required, admittedly, a certain price to be paid but also appeared promising.”
We have to differentiate between a model and practice.
Playing or Making Fun
‘The sense of humor comes down to its author making a certain choice from among
the elements that appear in his or her field of vision. It also combines various ele¬
ments freely. The resemblances of ideas and words can be played with (true and
false wit), where the true elements involve ideas and the result resembles a poetic
metaphor. In the case of ethnic or nonethnic Others, it would constitute a way of
noticing the resemblances among disparate elements. As I mentioned earlier, true
wit can be translated into foreign languages, because it is based on broader ideas
that are universally comprehended apart from their immediate cultural context.
True wit can be another vehicle for objectifying Others when things are seen as
types and categories with which to synthetize a picture.
The purpose of humorous play is to show or pinpoint issues, which would oth¬
erwise be invisible or forgotten, that do not harmonize with the image of social,
economical, or political reality or the status quo. Humor points them out via unique
combinations of more or less disparate elements. Such a combination provides an
unexpected element, added into such a place (out of place) that it evokes peals of
laughter. The researchers of humor call such a “clash” of incompatible worlds or im¬
ages that leads to laughter the incongruence effect. In satire, it can be laughter at an
inferior one (arrogance or the wisdom of the lowly). In all cases, stereotypes may be
helpful in combining disparate elements, yet within and beyond stereotypes, humor
mostly requires slips into and out of seriousness.
During the period when city elites were bound by the model of modernity, in a
field in which the image had become unified (in Mitchell’s understanding), select¬
ing and matching disparate elements, the figures of ridicule underwent a change.
Then the target of the attack shifted, to include, among others, those who did not
belong to the modernizing people and who, for various reasons, rejected the moder¬
nity approach and those who were implementing modernization outside of proper
accordance with its rules. It concerns also ethnic Others.
In such a playful juxtaposition of characters and motifs, the audience realizes
the oftentimes hidden contradictions, and as a result begins to treat them as an ac¬
tual misunderstanding, absurdity, or offense. The common Polish representations of
7 Many chose that path, although we can learn how difficult that path was at the time when we
analyze the materials discussing the activities of the Polish provincial intelligentsia at the end of the
nineteenth century (Szwarc 1983).