The founding humour of Europe

"Is Europe still Europe? That is to say, a society in which the individual knows how to laugh? Put another way, can we still find the European citizen in the era inaugurated by Rabelais and Cervantes?" wonders the Spanish historian Fernando García de Cortázar, who argues that Europe loses a part of its values when it forgets the role played by derision and humour in its construction. "Europe grows smaller, repudiates its own opinions and abandons itself when it forgets that it is a product of the reason and spirit of philosophy and that it was created through outbursts of laughter. ... It bears reminding that freedom begins with a smile, not of pleasure, but of wisdom. And it is not a coincidence that dictatorships stifle the outbursts of laughter of poets and thinkers."

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