"Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together"
About this Quote
Eastman is arguing for laughter as social infrastructure, not decorative pleasure. By placing it "after speech", he gives comedy second billing while quietly insisting it does work language can’t: it seals belonging, releases pressure, and tests the limits of what a group will tolerate. Speech builds the official record of a society - laws, vows, policies, arguments. Laughter is the informal glue: the moment a crowd syncs up, breath and body, and briefly agrees on what’s absurd, what’s safe, and who’s in the room with them.
The subtext is pragmatic, even a little political. Eastman lived through war, revolution, and ideological purges, and he knew how quickly "speech" can be commandeered by slogans. Laughter, by contrast, is harder to nationalize. It’s spontaneous, often sideways, and it can smuggle dissent in under the guise of play. A joke lets people register shared skepticism without standing at a podium. That makes humor both stabilizing and dangerous: it stitches communities together, but it also exposes when the stitches are fake.
The line’s craft is its clean hierarchy. Eastman doesn’t romanticize laughter as transcendent; he frames it as civic technology. The claim also carries a warning: when laughter disappears - when public life becomes too scared, too pious, too surveilled to risk the comic - society doesn’t just get gloomier. It gets brittle, and brittle societies shatter.
The subtext is pragmatic, even a little political. Eastman lived through war, revolution, and ideological purges, and he knew how quickly "speech" can be commandeered by slogans. Laughter, by contrast, is harder to nationalize. It’s spontaneous, often sideways, and it can smuggle dissent in under the guise of play. A joke lets people register shared skepticism without standing at a podium. That makes humor both stabilizing and dangerous: it stitches communities together, but it also exposes when the stitches are fake.
The line’s craft is its clean hierarchy. Eastman doesn’t romanticize laughter as transcendent; he frames it as civic technology. The claim also carries a warning: when laughter disappears - when public life becomes too scared, too pious, too surveilled to risk the comic - society doesn’t just get gloomier. It gets brittle, and brittle societies shatter.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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