Freud's Vision of Laughter

Sigmund Freud sees humor as a process: either the object of laughter generates its own "humorous attitude," or the spectator (subject) finds humor in the unknowing object. Laughter best arises, says Freud, "from the saving of expenditure in feeling that the hearer derives the humorous satisfaction." But how does it travel from one person to another? That's where rhetoric comes in to play: "we may suppose there is only an echo, a copy of this unknown process." (above mentioned) Freud brings in his usual philosophy to explain some of the characteristics of humor. Describing it as a "liberating element," he says that humor is, "the ego's victorious assertion of its own invulnerability."