We laugh because we are superior - Jake Davis

According to the famous poet Charles Baudelaire, "the wise man does not laugh without trembling." Out of all the quotes about laughter, this one really stood out to me. At first I was actually even taken aback by it. It made no sense to me at all. Why would a person tremble while laughing, regardless of how wise they happen to be? Then after careful dissection, it started to actually make sense. When you laugh, do you often laugh at people who are inferior to you? For example when a friend who is not the smartest person around does something stupid, you most likely crack up. It is funny just because of who it is; there that person goes again, doing something stupid. Then, if you see someone you feel is superior to you and smarter then you doing the same thing, it is probably not half as funny. You probably are sitting and thinking, now why would he do something like that? It is unexpected, and that takes away from the humor in it. When i watch one of my favorite movies of all time, The Hangover, I laugh at Phil. I feel far superior to him, and thus when he does something stupid it is funny. If he acted very smart and intelligent, it would not be even remotely funny, because a person would wonder why somebody that smart acted so stupid. That would take all of the humor out of it. Thus this brings me back to the quote by Baudelaire. When he says the wise man does not laugh without trembling, he means that when the wise man laughs, he trembles because he is wise enough to realize that he is only one step ahead of being the one who is getting laughed at, because no matter how wise you are, there will always be someone wiser.