Why has comedy become one of our most abiding ethical preoccupations as well as a dominant mode of political critique? It is suggested that comedy appeals to contemporary persons because it provides an apt social-aesthetic form through which to face up to living with others at a time when it is hard to bear others or otherness. The article outlines an ethics of modern individuality by developing a theory of comedy as more about building social bonds and finding out what could be shared knowledge and experience than the toppling of dominant modes of thought or repudiating our mutuality with others. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s ‘The Law of the Individual’, the article develops a Simmelian reading of Freud’s Jokes to argue that comedy is one solution to resolving our mutual un-alikeness by way of forging knotted paths toward recognising how we could be alike.

为什么喜剧已成为我们最恪守的道德准则之一，同时又成为政治批判的主要模式？有人认为，喜剧之所以吸引当代人，是因为它提供了一种恰当的社会审美形式，在难以忍受他人或其他人的情况下，可以通过这种形式面对他人。本文通过发展喜剧理论来概述现代个性伦理，而这更多的是关于建立社会纽带并找出可以共享的知识和经验，而不是推翻主导的思维方式或否认我们与他人的相互关系。该文章借鉴了乔治·西梅尔（Georg Simmel）的“个人法则”，对弗洛伊德的笑话进行了西梅尔式的解读。 认为喜剧是解决我们彼此不相似之处的一种解决方案，它通过打结了通向认识我们之间相似之处的途径。