Refers to the contradictory state that constitutes the essence of comedy and reflects the historical inevitability of comedy. Comedy is an aesthetic form in which human beings bid farewell to past history with victorious laughter in the process of historical practice. It reflects the historical inevitable law that new things and new forces finally overcome and destroy old things and old forces. In comedy, various contradictions (new and old, truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, sublime and funny) form absurd opposites, which constitute a hilarious disharmony conflict. Comic conflict is a kind of relaxed and happy conflict, not as heroic, passionate and solemn as tragic conflict. Comedy enables "mankind to bid farewell to the past happily".
In the history of western aesthetics, many aestheticians have studied the specific contradictions and conflicts in comedy. From different philosophical viewpoints, they have made different explanations on the nature and structural characteristics of comedy conflicts. Kant, a German classical aesthete, thinks that comedy conflict is the free teasing of reason on the object, and the sense of comedy comes from the psychological state of "a nervous expectation suddenly disappears". Hegel studies comedy from the development of absolute spirit, and thinks that comedy conflicts are rooted in the development of absolute spirit, and perceptual forms overwhelm ideas, which are manifested in the emptiness of ideas. In modern times, Bergson believes that the composition of comedy conflict lies in the contradiction between the mechanical nature of things and the flow and change of life.
Marx and Engels studied comedy conflicts from the perspective of social and historical practice. It is pointed out that comedy conflict is rooted in social conflict, the result of the contradiction between old and new social forces, and the ridicule and denial of old things after new things win. Marx said: "history keeps advancing, and it takes many stages to send the old way of life to the grave." The final stage of the world historical form is comedy. "Marx's exposition provides us with a scientific explanation of comedy conflict and the theoretical basis of historical materialism.
The social and historical practice of mankind has won, history is advancing, and the remnants of the old times have been abandoned. When the old things and old forces contradict with the new things and new forces and are abandoned by history, they become the objects of ridicule and negation. Because as a remnant of the old things, it has exposed its inherent weakness and ugliness in practice, and it has no power to compete with the new era, so it is bound to be eliminated by historical development. At this time, it became the object of people's aesthetic ridicule. For tragedy, beauty belongs to the ideal realm of the future, and its realization still needs a difficult practical process and a huge historical cost; For comedy, beauty is already a reality of victory or imminent victory. So comedy shows the historical stage of solving old things on the basis of affirming good things.