ABSTRACT
Much has been said in anthropology and sociology about social integration and religion. Indeed, it could be argued without too much difficulty that whenever the nature of social bonds is discussed, religious imagery will be used to illustrate the nature of such bonds. "Jokes serve as a resistance against authority and as an escape from its pressure". People owe Freud much for his elaboration of this hypothesis, but it is too limited for a social theory of comedy. But there is another mode in comedy. This is irony which neither accepts nor rejects, but doubts. Irony helps to endure what they cannot, or will not, change. Man, La Rochefoucauld tells, cannot love others because he loves only himself. Hierarchal address in comedy begins by exposing authority, as when La Rochefoucauld tells that virtues are but vices in disguise. But it must end in some kind of authority. Vices may be disguised, but their disguises can be seen through after all.
