Humor at the interlacement of politics and work in the psychoanalytic perspective

ABSTRACT.

This is a theoretical study that aims at analyzing the political implication of humor in contemporary work. For this purpose, Freud's psychoanalytical theory, the social critic reference and subjectivation are used to analyze the work in the contemporaneity. It is assumed that humor at organizations has as its main functionality to reveal the excesses and dogmas maintained by work, allowing the reinterpretation of them, and suggests changes in a work context that permeate the critic to the constituted power, inviting the collective to the creation of a new workspace. From the present study, it is noticed that humor inaugurates a new social speech, and its origin lies in the helplessness. It keeps the social function, but pursues the policy, without which it can not rise. Therefore, humor denounces hypocrisies and idealizations common to a group and dispossesses something previously established by either the subject or an institution or way of government. Describing the neoliberal political scenery, where the phallicist or managerial speech of work is placed, allowing recognizing in the humor social elements contributions to the contemporary labor work.

Keywords:
Humor; psychoanalysis; work

RESUMO.

Este é um estudo teórico que tem por objetivo analisar a implicação política do humor no trabalho contemporâneo. Para tal, utiliza-se do referencial teórico psicanalítico freudiano, da crítica social e da subjetivação para analisar o trabalho na contemporaneidade. Parte-se da hipótese de que o humor nas organizações tem como principal funcionalidade revelar excessos e dogmas mantidos pelo trabalho, permitindo uma releitura desses, e sugere modificações no contexto de trabalho que perpassam a crítica ao poder constituído, convidando o coletivo à criação de um novo espaço de trabalho. Percebe-se que o humor inaugura um novo discurso social, tendo sua origem no desamparo. Guarda uma função social, mas persegue a política, sem a qual não se eleva. Portanto, porta a denúncia de hipocrisias e idealizações comuns a um grupo, e desterritorializa algo previamente estabelecido por um sujeito, uma instituição ou forma de governo. Descrever o atual cenário político neoliberal, onde se assenta o discurso falicista ou gerencialista do trabalho, e permite reconhecer nos elementos sociais do humor contribuições ao mundo laboral contemporâneo.

Palavras-chave:
Humor; psicanálise; trabalho

RESUMEN.

Este es un estudio teórico que tiene como objetivo analizar la implicación política del humor en el trabajo contemporáneo. Para ello, se utiliza del referencial teórico psicoanalítico freudiano, de la crítica social y de la subjetivación para analizar el trabajo en la contemporaneidad. Se parte de la hipótesis de que el humor en las organizaciones tiene como principal funcionalidad revelar excesos y dogmas mantenidos por el trabajo, y permite una relectura de los mismos, como también sugiere modificaciones en el contexto de trabajo que pasan por la crítica al poder constituido, y así invita el colectivo a la creación de un nuevo espacio de trabajo. A partir del presente estudio, se percibe que el humor inaugura un nuevo discurso social, y tiene su origen en el desamparo. Guarda una función social, pero persigue la política, sin la cual no se eleva. Por lo tanto, el humor denuncia hipocresías e idealizaciones comunes a un grupo, y deja sin territorio algo previamente establecido por un sujeto, una institución o forma de gobierno. Describir el actual escenario político neoliberal, donde se asienta el discurso falicista o gerencialista del trabajo, permite reconocer en los elementos sociales del humor contribuciones al mundo laboral contemporáneo.

Palabras clave:
Humor; psicoanálisis; trabajo

Introduction

Freud readily addresses on humor in two of his writings: the work Os Chistes e sua relação com o inconsciente(1996a) and the journal article Humor (1996b). In the latter, it is characterized as a rare, precious and rebellious gift. By analyzing the two works, Mezan (2005) considers that the question of pleasure, central idea in the first work argument, was overly framed in an economic model. In the second writing, in the light of the narcissism theory, from the drive investment and the sublimation perspective, Freud was able to add a new dynamic to the theory of humor. This latest study distances itself from the quantitative model when describing the humorous features composed by the transgressive character, the formation of social ties, the invincibility of self and the pleasure support. It also inaugurates a new way of thinking on sociability, different from that which typifies the groups and the mass, where the thought prohibition and the erotic poverty prevail.

This paper presents the evolution of the concept of humor in psychoanalytic studies, focused on the Freudian approach, and aims to understand its social and political implications in contemporary work. It is based on the hypothesis that the use of humor in organizations would have, as the primary functionality, to reveal excesses and dogmas kept by the work, allowing a reinterpretation of these. This is a theoretical study and is part of the master thesis titled Função social e política do humor no trabalho (Gama, 2018).

The theoretical study was conducted through a methodical and systematic search of the themes ‘humor’ and ‘psychoanalysis’, besides the study of the two Freudian works dealing with the subject (1905 and 1927). The period of 17 years was defined for this research. This expanded time intervalis explained because it is a theoretical study plus the fact that it is a thematics with reduced production. Regarding the theme ‘work’, specialized authors in the aspects of critical rationality and of work subjectivation were researched.

This analysis allows us to consider how and when, in a work environment, comes the social sharing movement, common to humor, to reveal idealizing formations, which are sometimes sustained beyond measure, in authoritarian contexts and contrary to social ties. Explaining this dynamic enables a policy via at work dispossessing stigmatizing dogmas that prevent future projects. This dynamic, formation of social ties and political transformation at work, presents itself as a power for living labor, and thus the subject emancipation.

The humor

Freud (1996a) describes the different types of humor between witz (here translated by jokes), the humor, and other species of comic (mime, caricature, parody, cross-dressing and unmasking). The irony, though very confused with the joke, is considered a subspecies of the comic. The comic behaves differently from jokes, for being satisfied with two people: the first, which finds the comic, and the second, in whom it appears. The object relationship is established. A third person, to whom is told the comical thing, intensifies the process but adds nothing to it. Mime, caricature, parody, cross-dressing and unmasking directed themselves against people and objects that claim to authority and respect, which are, in some sense, perceived as sublime. The source of comic pleasure is the comparison of two expenditures, both assigned to the pre-conscious, something learned, without further additions.

In the joke, the third person is indispensable for the completion of the pleasure production process. However, unlike the comic, the second person may be absent. Freud (1996a) draws the following parallel: a joke makes itself; the comic appears himself above all in the people; only due to a transfer it turns out in the things, in the situations, et so on. Regarding the joke, the pleasure sources reside on the subject itself and not on outsiders.

The discussion on humor is taken up by Freud (1996b) twenty-two years after his first writing. Now, this mental formation is seen as the triumph of narcissism in the statement of Egoin vulnerability, by refusing traumatic provocations from the outside world and demonstrating that they are merely occasions for pleasure. Thus, humor is not only the triumph of Ego but also the pleasure principle on the cruelty of the actual circumstances, which allows thinking in its two main features: the self invincibility by the real world - narcissism - and the sustaining of the principle pleasure, keeping the individual's refusal to suffering, without exceeding the limit of mental health.

The functioning of the humor becomes designed from an economic model to a dynamic one. This change occurs when Freud realizes that, in the humorous process, obtaining pleasure by laughter is through the identification process, not limited only to the affection economy, which allows seeing the humor essence beyond a liberating element of psychic energy, recognizing what is grand for it: the triumph over the narcissism.

Several discussions surround the psychic formations that make up the kinds of comedy. The distinction between jokes and humor is quite controversial among psychoanalysts who have dedicated themselves to the study of these psychic formations. There is a tendency in calling them witticisms and not separating them, due not only to the psychic location of both in the unconscious, but also by the realization of the sublimating process. From the authors who prefer to treat the two comic types separately, Kehl (2005) is positioned objectively in favor of this separation. Others, such as Slavutzky (2014), unify and even expand them, considering the irony, handled by Freud as a subspecies of the comic (1996a), as witticism.

Although several authors restate Freud's ideas about the types of humor and their distinctions, the recognition of the witticism as a sublimating process and not as a defense mechanism is quite debated and expanded, as it can be seen in studies by Kupermann (2003), Ungier (2001), Vasconcelos (2001), Kehl (2005), Mezan (2005), Pereda (2005), Ribeiro (2008), Barbieri (2009), Goldenberg e Jablonski (2011), Slavutzky (2014) and Francisco (2015).

Another major issue that permeates the authors cited, in particular, Kupermann (2003), Slavutzky (2014) and Ungier (2001), it is the role of the super-ego in the humorous formation. The humor either lies in the recent statement of the super-ego as benevolent psychic instance and witty remark driving, a term coined by Lacan (1999), or it is supported by sublimating process turning around the repressed feeling. Ungier (2001) appears as a consistent advocate of the latter proposal. Some authors, including Lacan, argue the participation of the super-ego in the sublimating process, claiming to be the ideal self the participant instance of this process. Such controversy is capable of understanding since the two instances are hardly discernible in Freud's work.

Lacan (1999), when dealing with humor and joke, bases them in the linguistics field in the social space through language via. Lacanian precepts locate the comic, the joke and the humor in the psychic representations known as Imaginary, Symbolic and Real, consecutively, and they contribute for psychoanalytic studies (Vasconcelos, 2001; Ribeiro, 2008; Barbieri, 2009; Francisco, 2015) evidence the construction of humorous speech by the use of metaphor and metonymy. These figures of speech are used as technical resources of witticism and they are clarified in the signifying chain.

Understanding the humor in the social field through language via and its consequent possibility of discourse construction reveal its potential in creating a new meaning to something that until then, they were presented as a code. Thus, the translation by language ensures the great function of witticisms, which is to face the absolute truths kept in the social space. To better understand this dynamic, the description of the metapsychology of humor follows above.

Humor metapsychology or the superego role in this psychic formation

The term ‘metapsychology’, coined by Freud in his studies on the relationship among the psychic apparatus, leads to the knowledge that considers the dynamic, topical and economic dimensions revealed in these relationships. By studying the humor metapsychology, its elements (formation of social ties, the transgressor character and the sublimation) are highlighted, possibly for contributing to the understanding of its role in the social field.

To Kupermann (2017), Freud advances decisive steps when he reveals that the humorist, when laughs at himself, is both the distressed child and the superior adult related to the same child. Recognizing himself up to a ‘certain point’ is an identificatory mode, which allows the mourning preparation of an object that was essential before. The humorist, when recognizes himself orphan from this father, differs himself from narcissistic identification that, through the perpetuation of an idealized object shadow, promotes the melancholy (and also masochistic) paintings characterized by the subject impoverishment.

The subjective position of the humorist is opposed to that of the narcissistic ego triumph that, identified absolutely with the idealized father, reflects the phallicist arrogance with which he wants to be invested. Contrary to this figure of the hero, by the belief in his intangibility, the orphan figure, here close to the humorist, would take him by the orphan situation to his own condition of possibility. As Kupermann, Mezan (2005) points out that over this light of the orphanage recognition without phallicists claims that we should understand the benign superego expected in Freud (1996b), which embodies the benevolent role of childhood father.

The humorist adopts this paternal attitude in two stages: while smiling at the other when he recognizes trivial situations that are overvalued by him, given to this subject similar treatment to that from an adult to a child, and when he laughs at himself, moving away from possible suffering, treating himself as a child. The humorist’s attitude consists of removing energy from the Ego and investing in the superego, an instance that performs the role of father. This dynamic allows the superego to pronounce kind words to self, translated as follows: “Look! Here is the world, which seems so dangerous! It is nothing but a game for children-just worth making a jest about!” (Freud, 1996b, p. 194). Humor, therefore, raises us, reversing the real world, through the regression, to the pleasure principle.

This regression refers humor to the place of rebellion, as it opposes itself “[…]... to a de-eroticized reality, to the resignation of psychic inertia, to the split between the principles of pleasure and reality, to the melancholy of libidinal disinvestment, to the masochist resignation, to the implacable real” (Ribeiro, 2008, p. 108). Nevertheless, this movement of opposition caused by the transfer of the oppressing libidinal charge from self to the superego also becomes a possible alternative to masochism, which tends to eroticize suffering, putting it at the forefront in the form of endless complaints and lamentations.

Salles (2011) confirms the idea of ​​the sadistic and severe superego as the heir of the narcissistic perfection ideal of the Oedipus complex, being the benign superego resulting from the castration symbolization. The performance of the benign superego is only possible when the subject recognizes himself symbolically castrated and admits the lack, leading the superego to forgive the failures of the Ego. The narcissistic triumph of the Ego is to keep the self-love even in the face of castration, unlike the heroic triumph, which believes that nothing can touch it. The humorist does not deny the painful reality. He resembles more the fatherless than the hero, and this is the condition that gives clarity and dignity to the humor.

The benevolent superego addresses the Ego of consoling and loving way, allowing the not prohibitive and vital joy. For Ribeiro (2008), in this case, the superego uses the imperative: ‘Joy!’, adopting a tone that differs from its use in the enjoyment prohibition by parents in childhood, when the individual does not feel authorized to supplant the authority figures.

However, the role of the superego as a benevolent instance in the formation of humor is questioned. To Ungier (2001), it is not its benevolent positioning that allows the subject to avoid a position or masochistic complaint. This avoidance is achieved when a new drive path promotes the symbolic record over a harrowing experience. This circuit is through the creation of a disturbing phrase that gifts the subject with an aesthetic pleasure similar to a poem creation. In other words, this creation allows the subject to fight with the laughter the mortification rising in what he would be precipitated, depending on the superego inclemency.

Therefore, to Ungier (2001), humor is not intended to account for the persistence of the drive: it admits the real, and from it creates something unexpected, which causes pleasure for not only the affection economy but also by the aesthetic experience caused by the upheaval speech. It opposes itself, and not just it reinterprets, to the superego order, ‘Joy!’, and in the place of anguish, it puts the witticism.

Humor perceived as a sublimating process distances itself from the defensive processes, aiming at transforming the affection in the face of anguish. To Castro (2014), humor, either by art or by the analytical work, enables the understanding of the functioning of a tyrant superego and its overcoming by the castration via. In any case, thinking on the narcissistic triumph, essential element of humor, in both cases, by sublimating process or by the participation of the superego, says about the psychic admission by the subject of an imminent catastrophe and not of its refusal.

The unveiling of humorous metapsychology explains, through a power relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, the narcissism triumph on the self invulnerability obtained by the recognition of the lack. The subject, recognizing the lack, can accommodate it in a new speech, which refers to the desire, and can still move on phallicist speech, so present in the socio-political context of labor relations. Recognizing humor political and social elements (being the social characterized by the identificatory ties, by the transgressor character and by the sublimation) may help to think of the labor world.

Humor political and social elements

It becomes challenging to separate dealings of social function and witticism policy. Initially, it is essential to emphasize that the social function is marked by sharing a message between the subject who propagates the witty remark and the third who receives it, allowing the opening of social spaces that subvert the established. The political function is already based when the other is affected by the one who conveys the witticism message, affection revealed by laughter. Therefore, the role of the third shows up as the common link between the political and social elements from the witticism.

The first function that Freud attributes to the third person would be the witness of the witticism success, as he was a game and nonsense evaluator promoted by the first person. Kupermann (2003) states that the witticism transgresses, by the language, the principles of the reason and the social codes that impose the repression of specific sexual and aggressive drives. Here, the other takes a permission function related to those transgressions, not just as a witness. The pleasurable affections provided by witticism then need to be shared: the transgression created by humorist needs to circulate with at least someone else who composes with him a group identity.

To enlarge the witticism sharing idea, it is highlighted here as it wins the message character and it is sanctioned by the other in Lacanian theory. The witticism, for Lacan, gains the status of a message just for presenting something new and differs from the code, a difference sanctioned by another. Therefore, to the witticism occurs, it is necessary that the third person recognizes a message in the code, and that this is reinstated as a witty remark, causing a code message alignment. The witticism points out towards something out of the signifier, “[…] designates, and always beside, what is only seen when looking at elsewhere” (Lacan, 1999, p. 29).

It is necessary to understand better the calling code and the message in Lacan (1999). The subject speech has two plans: one, the current speech from the code, which is familiar to the reality, where it produces minimal sense. Since the sense is already given by ideals commonly accepted, there is a talk of the commonplace. The other plan is the message, where, due to the result of the conjunction between speech and signifying chain, the sense becomes known. This latter is the space humor uses, through its language features, to announce something new from what is common.

Fernandes (2008), by discussing how Lacan thought on the witticisms in his seminar five, agrees with the expansion of the role of the other as advocated by Kupermann and emphasizes the importance that Lacan reserves to the other. It is essential not only for the formation of witticism, but to be there as well as a subject. Therefore, to have a witty remark, the Other must realize about a sense beyond, which can mark the desire formulation.

It is worth insisting on the social role of the witticism, the social sharing of an affection generated by transgression and called emergently for its transmission. The affective experience of witticism lies not only in the suspension of repression, a more individualized experience, and it also not only refers to a psychic contagion of the masses. The new readings on humor positively allow the collective and policy affection promoted by it, considering it an affection inherent in the promotion of the social ties. This affection is enthusiastic for allowing sociability without destroying the driving and desiring uniqueness.

Such a reading becomes quite encouraging considering that, in Freud's work, there is neither a stricto senso theory of culture and nor an elaborate political theory. However, there are indications and sufficient reflections on the crucial issues in the social and political life, which would be the irreconcilable conflict between the subject, in his narcissistic individuality and driving uniqueness, and its necessary and constitutive social inclusion. In Freudian essays on cultural life, which can be seen is that the coexistence of individuals in a group life is only possible when this congregation of individualities conquers the ideal balance that allows the proximity but preserves the individuality. This balance will depend on the singular desire and as well as narcissism associated with the destructiveness directed to the other. Therefore, the social ties imply in this balance sought, being built in a social and a procedural policy coexistence, possible only by a constant movement and management to better match contexts.

Reinforcing the above, the political humor scope is highlighted (Birman, 2005) by the central role of the speaker in the witticism because it is through his laughter that witticism is recognized. In relation to the other is that the transgressive experience of witticism is enunciated. Transcending the repression and getting pleasure, the witticism allows creating dismounting and deconstruction strategies of what oppresses itself. As this creative production occurs in a social scene, originating from the insertion of the third, it provides circulation and sharing of desire. So, its function may find effectiveness in the social and political fields.

The subject at the world of work

Social ties created by witticisms and their assertiveness of the collective and political affection, to keep the driving and desiring uniqueness of the subject and still put in check the idealizing formations, result in interesting reflections to the world of work. The subjects in this context are called to act as entrepreneurs of themselves, and this is not done without a competitive relationship with each other. They accept to occupy this place of a manager of themselves and compete with each other, as subjectively they relate to themselves, as a capital to be constantly self-valued, a behavior embodied in the uncontrolled consumption of material and immaterial things.

The description of the subject inserted in the world of work is needed to see the possibility of a glimpse of the subject of desire, the one who still has a chance to seek to consolidate social ties. Submitted to new formats of work, the subject not only internally converts the values ​​of the system, such as experience an ‘ultrasubjectivation’ (Dardot & Laval, 2016), where he seeks to go beyond himself, despite the demands of the modern world. This formulator reality of a new subjectivity modifies relations of the subject with himself and with the other, being the very subject the leverage for these changes. Faced with these new settings of human subjectivity, creating a collective from a project, which undermines the excesses of abuses, is only possible from changes in social relations of something that circulates in the desired field, and not just in the real one. Thus, living together, in working places, would have in the witticism a propellant element of social connections.

Humor social elements

Kupermann (2003) points out some humor social aspects that contribute to the understanding of their functioning in the working world such as social ties, the transgression character and the sublimation.

Social ties and the work

The structuring of social ties would bear the very stability of individuality joint, characterized by permanent dissatisfaction due to being subject to constant variations of nature and to the human desire of seeking a satisfaction that will never be complete. If these game forces, confronting life and death, allows the construction of a creative and permanent transformation, it could also sound contrary to a civilization project, since this project has as primary support that is the guarantee a solid and lasting social unity.

So, what is the hint that the formation of ties via witticisms leaves us? The creation and spread of a speech that brings the new in a dislibidinal reality for being repetitive and predictable in maintaining the consolidated. New for revealing something of the affection desire and still with the power to insert the other in this speech, reporting something that prevents not only the individuality of one but a whole collective.

Humor transgressor character and the employment context

The witticisms have transgressor character of repression when they envision new identificatory and sublimatory possibilities, creating new modes of sociability. When a witticism is transmitted, it is sought to share a social critic, to denounce hypocrisy typical to any group and to highlight idealizations. The preparation of witticisms promotes, even temporarily and in a subversive way, the release of anachronistic social impositions. This dynamic, however, asks for a painful price to some extent: the dispossession of something hitherto maintained by the group. Thus, the witticism allows the exercise of freedom, but not without an anguish experience coincident with the emergence of creative processes.

The transgression contained in witticisms is closely related to the power, as one of its targets is the structures that maintain the status quo in a repressive way. Thinking about the manifest of this witticism, it is necessary to recognize the socio-historical moment in which it is delivered, thus understanding what the witty remark deals. The witticisms are highly social as they actively challenge the power and point its mortality; therefore, they do not exist outside of social space. Silence and absolute intimacy spaces radically opposed to humorous statements “[...] which are not just speech practices as they are also effective part in ‘the social scene’” (Birman, 2010, p. 183, authors emphasis).

The works social scene consists of an anti-sublimatory scenario, where speech areas are not encouraged, social ties are destroyed, the maintenance and the reproduction of power are protected over the flexibility packaging, allows it self different aspects of oppression and neoliberalists subjectivities formatting. This scenario is an invitation to think of transgressive outputs, as proposed by the witticism.

Nevertheless, the obstacles that this anti-sublimatory scenario imposes to this invitation must be addressed, mainly because a new subjectivity is born from this social context (Dardot & Laval, 2016): the neoliberalist subjectivation. Moreover, the emergence of psychic formations can be expected from the subjects immersed in this composition, either they are dreams, or lapsus, or symptoms or witticism. From these psychic formations, witticism is responsible for promoting speech and therefore is endowed with sociability. So, what kind of comedy can be produced when the new subjectivation of contemporary man is encountered? At first, one might think that the comic subspecies irony is the only thing that remains, for its power of confirming homogeneous speeches.

However, it is expected to turn our gaze towards the other side; humor teaches that: it seeks another face of tyrannical instance and surrounds it. The hope in focusing on constituent ambivalence of the subject persists, which makes him able to deliver speeches that, even rare, have enough rebelliousness to dispossess spaces judged solid before.

The sublimation work

The sublimatory circuit, which is diffuse at Freud’s work, is represented here in Cruxên (2004). In sublimation occurs the de-eroticization of the primary object to an artistic object and, at the end of this path, the public is asked to give evidence to this driving circuit. Humor front of helplessness, loss of the primary object, does not seek the paternal protection: faces it by itself. This search is very well represented by the orphanage in Kupermann (2017).

The orphan subject, as advocated in Kupermann (2017), recognizes in itself and in the other the failure of an attribute that makes him omnipresent and omniscient, and this perception of absence allows the condition to the work of creative imagination. The perception of absence leads the subject to invest in objects, which is the sublimatory work, as called by Mijolla-Mellor (2010): work that meets and maintains productive, renovated and innovative the subject. This creative movement of the subject keeps his mental health, even when faced with limiting realities. This is the perspective of sublimation: the creative movement dealing with stressful situations, contrary to the paralyzing, creator and/or identifying behavior typical to threatening contexts.

The humorous creation, as well as sublimatory work, transmits the affirmative posture of the subject before the real, the way to tell or to bless life, producing the grace effect. It is revealed by the aesthetic dimension and finally finds the political dimension in the subject positioning regarding the ideals and shared idealizations in cultural life.

However, if the sublimation route is interrupted, other paths can be traced. The libido desexualization suffers a driving defusion, leading to the presence in the self of death driving, which will be used for the movement necessarily aggressive, of the constitution of new sexual investment objects. The creation of these objects is not feasible due to the idealization of the lost object, the death driving will not contribute for the dispossession movement (Kupermann, 2017) required to the sublimatory process, but it will feed the superego, increasing its sadistic and deadly fury.

The humor, through the creation via, invites the subject to think what is hidden in the socially pre-established. This is its role, insisting with the status quo, alerting the public that it can occupy a different place than that socially idealized. This social dispossession, the invitation to the social ties and the transgression to what is imposed socially make the study of humor so important in the social field.

Humor and work: a possible discussion

The distance from the pathology would be the legacy of humor to work, even Freud has conceptually structured the first and little versed on the ordinary work. Safatle (2016), however, remembers that the unconscious is above all a way of working, which is not involved with the work while it is an expression of the consciousness representations. Still, this author believes that Freud was mostly responsible for the conceptual apparatus that leads to understanding how capitalism by work management is developed by a psychological suffering matrix.

There is nothing in common between the labor (labor force) and the opus. The opus was never thought as work: it is in the order of creation and derives from sublimation. This distinction highlights the fact that not all work leads to sublimation. In a retelling of such a radical distinction, it is essential to have a high number of jobs, which are characterized by confrontation with organizational constraints. These make it impossible for the use of intelligence and do not allow creativity, for discovery and for ingenuity. Thus, for such jobs, the radical division between labor and opus applies and deserves the epithet of anti-sublimatory tasks and, consequently, causes dramatic effects on mental health (Dejours, 2012).

The work as structured in contemporary times, tied to modes of production of capital increasingly flexible, loses its psychological and social value and earns an instrumental value. Contradictorily, management models offer to the subject the place of fullness, which in turn engages himself by this speech to the pursuit of success and is referred to omnipotence, ready to meet the demand that is presented and falsely beckons him with the helplessness cessation. A speech that leads to failure of the social ties, humanizes what is industrial and puts the subject away from the desire, surrendered to the fullness promise and denying helplessness (Mendes, Takaki, & Gama, 2016), tangling himself in an imperative speech without a place for desire.

The imperative circuit of possible enjoyment in environments that evoke fullness/omnipotence becomes favorable the violence as it contains in its bases the helplessness rejection as advocated by Mendes et al. (2016). The consequences on this scenario where the social ties are ruined, of progressive insensitivity to the suffering of the very subject and the others, is the loneliness that leads to workplaces the defenses using, unfair practices with colleagues based in behaviors like every man for himself and/or covers his eyes, and the activism that, in an exacerbated way, becomes in articulated practices to pathological violence. Thus, pathological violence is a consequence of the forms of social domination at work and the restoration of the defenses, which need to be more useful to deal with the effects of power relations.

Humor is a rare, precious and rebel gift, not only for being one of the unconscious formation that elevates the ego to the superego tyranny, as initially postulated Freud stressing the narcissistic triumph, by the conquest of laughter. Humor is recognized by the invincibility of the ego in the real world as a consequence of the opening of a sublimatory circuit, which turns helplessness in art and thus sustains the pleasure principle.

This art object, introduced in the symbolic world, inaugurates a new speech, having in its origin the helplessness and the affection surrounding it. When speaking of helplessness, it indicates the human condition, not just a specific identity; the invitation to the Other begins to be addressed. Discourse because artistically presents itself as a wrapped language by nonsense and in the meeting with the Other, it is unpacked by laughter and finally interpreted as a speech.

Humor keeps this social function, but pursues the policy, without which does not rise. Therefore, it carries the social denunciation of the hypocrisy typical to a group and idealizations. It dispossesses something previously established by a subject, an institution or a form of government. It directly challenges the power: the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor is the cause of anguish and guard facets that humor disregards (masochism and identification are some of them). Facing the anguish, the humor triumphs, and this happens because the humorist recognizes the lack, recognizes and accepts it. Therefore, he can build the missing discourse, of which the witticism highly takes part, lack speech, which refers to his desire.

By understanding the humor metapsychology, it is possible to move more broadly on a form of phallicist speech, expressed in the social context of labor relations. Knowing the neoliberal political scenery, that either relies on the phallicist speech or on the managerial speech of the contemporary working world, allows us to recognize in the social elements of humor - identificatory bonds, transgression character and sublimation - contributions to the world of work.

The questioner suffering, which symbolized by the pain is the holder´s desire and expelled from the working environments by management strategies, is the discussion to be guided, and that Mendes and Ghizoni (2016) support in addressing the issue and reiterating the importance of the confrontation of the real by the desire, the only way of the subject to support and to accept the emptiness condition.

There is no translation in the language for the pain that represents the suffering as a questioning force of will. New speeches need to be developed and others have already occurred by the psychic formations such as the witticism.

Humor lends its vigor to the contemporary work scenery by introducing new sociability, created by new thoughts, which allows creating new social ties that sustain the erotic and the singularities. It calls into question, due to its transgressor character, consolidated situations, creating dismount and discontinuity strategies from what oppresses, dispossessing the consolidated in marked environments by repetition. Finally, this path requires creativity under the auspicious eye of the other. The emptiness recognizer humorous posture, without the empire of the complaint enjoyment, is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributions to the contemporary scene.

Final considerations

By this study, it is realized that humor and its dispossessing act, link promoter between the social and political function, in the contemporaneity is of vital importance in the policy field, helping to denounce the forms of appropriation increasingly subtle, and in development in society, either by the institutions and their homogeneous exercise in favor of an economic model or by the very form of treatment that the subject dispenses to himself and to the other, as auto valued objects. This social massification leads the subjects to a total inability to recognize what is the common good and what is usurped for him, undermining more and more possibilities of social ties, which opens a disabling cycle of policy outputs.

The neoliberal subjectivation, covering all social spheres, seems to blind and to deafen the subject for laughter that denounces the affection, and possibly for other revealing alternatives of what is singular. However, the common psychic ambivalence of human nature can point outputs. They are located in the insistence on reporting what, by several ways, is repressed. If laughter is not easily conquered nowadays, due to the brutality with which authentic manifestations are cohabited or tampered, it must be an alert to what the neoliberal subjectivation intends to silence, that is, the interdicts

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 Dec 2020
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  20 June 2019
• Accepted
  09 Oct 2020