This essay sheds light on one of the most subtle forms of freedom restriction: ridicule, the ability of human beings to coerce through laughter that mocks, traversing a long journey through the history of philosophy from Antiquity to the present day.
The mocking laugh that permeates the relationships among subjects who together constitute any human community is primarily political. In the political game, in the dialectic that leads to decision-making and the domination of some people over others, the ridiculous stands as one of the most effective allies in the exercise of power, indicating through a loud and prolonged laughter the other, the enemy in the ontological sense.
It becomes a surgical tool in the hands of those who seek to neutralize the different, the eccentric, those who do not want or do not know how to move to the rhythms of the dominant homogenizing discourse. To the extent that it is subject to a law that regulates the order and function of state powers and their relationships with individuals, the person who receives the assault of ridicule is exposed to scorn, discredited by the tool of mockery and belittlement.
By publicly ridiculing, we achieve a triple objective: we indicate, we devalue, and we harm. Anyone who suffers the attack of this deafening laughter remains stigmatized as other, as pure otherness, as someone who can not only be fought but also hated.
National Essay Award from the Complutense University of Madrid (Premio UCM de Ensayo 2014)
