Concept
Mockery
Overview
Mockery or mocking is the act of insulting or making light of a person or other thing, sometimes merely by taunting, but often by making a caricature, purporting to engage in imitation in a way that highlights unflattering characteristics. Mockery can be done in a lighthearted and gentle way, but can also be cruel and hateful, such that it "conjures images of corrosion, deliberate degradation, even subversion; thus, 'to laugh at in contempt, to make sport of' (OED)". Mockery appears to be unique to humans, and serves a number of psychological functions, such as reducing the perceived imbalance of power between authority figures and common people. Examples of mockery can be found in literature and the arts.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Mockery is discussed.
CHAP. LIII.--101. The question is also commonly raised, whether baptism is to be held valid which is received from one who had not himself received it, if, from some promptings of curiosity, he had chanced to learn how it ought to be conferred; and whether it makes no difference in what spirit the recipient receives it, whether in mockery or in sincerity: if in mockery, whether the difference arises when the mockery…
of Hippo Augustine, Writings in Connection with the Donatist Controversy
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
For, though fire be called painful to the touch, whereby is signified the power of producing in us the idea of pain, yet it is denominated also light and hot; as if light and heat were really something in the fire, more than a power to excite these ideas in us; and therefore are called qualities in or of the fire. But these being nothing, in truth, but powers to excite such ideas in us, I must in that sense be…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
states what it is; author linked in the graph
So also we are told, that when Cicero, being consul, undertook the defense of Murena against Cato's prosecution, by way of bantering Cato, he made a long series of jokes upon the absurd paradoxes, as they are called, of the Stoic sect; so that a loud laughter passing from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a quiet smile, said to those that sat next him, "My friends, what an amusing consul we have." And, indeed…
Plutarch, Plutarch
states what it is; opens on it; names the idea
Alas! the silence deepens, and once again my heart swells within me: it is startled by a fresh truth—it, too, is dumb; it likewise sneers when the mouth calls out something to this beauty; it also enjoys the sweet malice of its silence. I come to hate speaking; yea, even thinking. Behind every word I utter do I not hear the laughter of error, imagination, and insanity? Must I not laugh at my pity and mock my own…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day
names the idea
But when we think we perceive colours in objects, although we are in reality ignorant of what we then denominate colour, and are unable to conceive any resemblance between the colour we suppose to be in objects, and that of which we are conscious in sensation, yet because we do not observe this, or because there are in objects several properties, as size, figure, number, etc., which, as we clearly know, exist, or…
René Descartes, Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
states what it is; author linked in the graph
Philosophers who discussed Mockery
Related ideas
- John Locke
- Informal fallacy
- Absurdity
- Competition
- Social relation
- Common sense
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Merriam-Webster
- René Descartes
- Satire
- Sin
- Old French
- Baruch Spinoza
- Oxford University Press
- Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
- SUNY Press
Place in the tradition
Part of Heraclitus.