🎙️ The Joke’s on Us: The Paradox of Anger and Laughter - The Deeper Thinking Podcast

The Joke’s on Us: The Paradox of Anger and Laughter

The Deeper Thinking Podcast

For anyone drawn to the strange, necessary intersection of fury, absurdity, and the laughter that binds them.

We laugh to relieve tension, to mock power, to endure the absurdity of existence. But what if humor doesn’t release anger at all—what if it preserves it? In this episode, we explore comedy’s deepest paradox: whether laughter is a release or a form of repression. From the Aristotelian golden mean to Nietzsche’s will to power, from Freud’s repression theory to modern stand-up, we ask: does humor liberate us, or render the unbearable merely tolerable?

If comedy is a mirror, is it revealing truth—or helping us laugh it away?

Reflections

• Comedy can be catharsis—or camouflage.
• Laughter doesn’t always dissolve tension. Sometimes, it sharpens it.
• Anger may fuel jokes—but rarely gets to leave the stage.
• We laugh at what we cannot change. And then… we don’t.
• Satire mocks power. But sometimes, it makes it palatable.
• Humor may soothe us just enough to stop us from acting.

Why Listen?

• Explore how Henri Bergson defines comedy as a mechanism of social rigidity
• Reflect on Freud and the unconscious drives behind jokes
• Question whether stand-up comedy critiques society—or neutralizes dissent
• Consider how laughter might be both rebellion and resignation

Listen On:

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

Support This Work

If this episode made you pause, laugh, or question—consider supporting the project here: Buy Me a Coffee.

Bibliography

• Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
• Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
• Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation
• Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science
• Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or
• Carlin, George. Life Is Worth Losing
• Burr, Bill. Let It Go

Bibliography Relevance

• Bergson: Frames laughter as corrective rigidity, not rebellion.
• Freud: Exposes humor as a psychological release of repressed drives.
• Nietzsche: Connects laughter to the will to overcome, not to soothe.
• Koestler: Links comedy and creativity as tension-breaking moments of insight.
• Kierkegaard: Sees humor as existential contradiction lived out.

Laughter isn’t always healing. Sometimes, it’s the scar itself.

#PhilosophyOfHumor #AngerAndLaughter #Freud #Bergson #Nietzsche #StandUpAsPhilosophy #ComedyAndControl #TheDeeperThinkingPodcast #PsychologyOfJokes #SatireAsResistance