"But why do they go so insanely hysterical with laughter at Zeke?"
"Why? There's a question all right, Bill. It's contrast in humorous situations, such as this one, that sometimes makes it horrible. In this case it's the fact that people are laughing at what we know is something deadly serious, which only makes it more grotesque. Add to this the vast cultural differences, the unbridgeable gap, the psychological isolation, and you have that thin line between farce and tragedy—"
"There's never been anything like this though," Johnson moaned. "It's all out of line. Here we have the first visitor from another planet. An important, dignified individual, and the world regards him as a buffoon! Something's got to be done!"
"I agree. But what?"
Philip looked at the ceiling, then back at Johnson. "Humor. What are its basic elements? Surprise. Aberrancy. Ah, we have that element. Oddity, singularity, peculiarity, nonconformity in what is supposed to be a well-ordered world. Also irrationalism, we have that too. A form of aberrancy. Zeke acts in a manner people regard as foolish, mistaken, ill-advised ... oddity of character behavior. People like this kind of humor; it allows him to feel superior. Here we find the element of sadism in humor, you see. Humor can be horrible in retrospect, or looking at it from a distance. Kinds of humor change. They used to write jokes about burning witches alive. Cripples and insane people used to be funny."
"All right," Johnson said. "But there's something more here."
"Yes. Yes, there is. I think I have it, some of it anyway. There's a connection between terror and humor. Build up a suspense, an anticipation of terror, then present something harmless, and you get a tremendous relief through laughter. People have been conditioned to fear the alien, particularly the alien from outer space, and particularly the bogey-man Martian who has been popularized in fiction for a long time. Maybe the whole world's reacting to Zeke as a kind of anticlimax. A long build-up to expect some fearsome monster, maybe with super weapons capable of wiping out the Earth in one fell swoop of deadly rays, and then they get Zeke!
"And add to that the other free-floating anxieties people suffer in a too-complex society, sourceless fears they don't even realize exist. They project all that into the surprise twist too. And we get a world practically prostrated with laughter because they expect a monster and get the most, to them at least, exaggerated kind of loping, rubberoid, harmless clown."
"But a clinical diagnosis doesn't help Zeke any."