Someone here says, "Laughing will not fix it." The two things such a response misses, disastrously, is that, 1) this kind of laughing is not intended to "fix" it, and 2) this kind of laughing will outlive it, hence conquer it. Which, in retrospect, will look something very like "fixing" it, actually....though in reality something far deeper. Much as, for instance, the Resurrection "fixed" the Crucifixion.
You know mockery has effect when the NYT's, Facebook and Snopes try to get the satirical Babylon Bee censored for 'misinformation '. Itself an example that it's no laughing matter how ascendant the left has become. The 20th century's 'great' leftists revolutions resulted in millions of murdered fellow citizens. They were all preceded by their own versions of 'cancel culture '
What cannot finally work...won't. Which is what makes it absurd, and all the more so, the more deluded souls foolishly clamber and scramble to make it work. Which is what there is to "laugh" at.
Huzzah! Obviously, laughter is not going to stop or reverse evil by itself. But evil is, in the end, stupid and foolish (if we have any faith in the good Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer), and needs to be mocked as well as opposed by more direct means. Evil - especially political evil - cannot tolerate anything as cleansing and fully human as a good honest belly-laugh, and will always be enraged to the point of apoplexy to be made the butt of jokes. To be able to laugh freely and honestly at oneself without being deliberately hurtful is one of the, perhaps the greatest, hallmark of a person secure in the presence and activity of divine justice and righteousness. An evil man can only fake such laughter, and never for very long before giving way to jealous rage.
Great article! I had up to now been laughing at the woke mainly in the dismissive sense. I will have to move over to laughing at them in the 'absurdity of evil' sense. Much more constructive! The same applies to the Covid situation where many administrations have been using it to express their power lust.
Leftists have the conceit that they are so much smarter than the rest of us. But then they believe that a man can become a woman. No that is laughable. And Caitlin, you are a prime example.
You are confusing the efficient and the material cause. The person who makes the joke is "funny" in the sense of seeing and exploiting the fun in a subject; the person who is the butt of the joke is "funny" in the sense of being the subject which is exploited. "Unfunny" people in the former sense are supremely "funny" in the latter sense. Indeed, their inability to see a joke is one of the oldest, most enduring jokes there is: it is their lack of humor that is so humorous. We laugh at their self-important solemnity exactly as we laugh (or used to) at enormous feet, pot bellies, double chins, or baldness. Groucho Marx is enormously funny, but so is Margaret Dumont, though not in the same way.
For once I actually agree with you wholeheartedly! There are many forms of laughter and it's not always easy to discern where it comes from and how sincere it is. This article by Klavan is definitely a misfire; I'm not even sure what he's trying to say....
Someone here says, "Laughing will not fix it." The two things such a response misses, disastrously, is that, 1) this kind of laughing is not intended to "fix" it, and 2) this kind of laughing will outlive it, hence conquer it. Which, in retrospect, will look something very like "fixing" it, actually....though in reality something far deeper. Much as, for instance, the Resurrection "fixed" the Crucifixion.
You know mockery has effect when the NYT's, Facebook and Snopes try to get the satirical Babylon Bee censored for 'misinformation '. Itself an example that it's no laughing matter how ascendant the left has become. The 20th century's 'great' leftists revolutions resulted in millions of murdered fellow citizens. They were all preceded by their own versions of 'cancel culture '
What cannot finally work...won't. Which is what makes it absurd, and all the more so, the more deluded souls foolishly clamber and scramble to make it work. Which is what there is to "laugh" at.
Funny or not, mockery is a bludgeon.
I use it often, to great effect.
We've been laughing at them for years. It hasn't worked. Things have gotten worse. At this stage, buullets, not jokes are necessary.
Huzzah! Obviously, laughter is not going to stop or reverse evil by itself. But evil is, in the end, stupid and foolish (if we have any faith in the good Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer), and needs to be mocked as well as opposed by more direct means. Evil - especially political evil - cannot tolerate anything as cleansing and fully human as a good honest belly-laugh, and will always be enraged to the point of apoplexy to be made the butt of jokes. To be able to laugh freely and honestly at oneself without being deliberately hurtful is one of the, perhaps the greatest, hallmark of a person secure in the presence and activity of divine justice and righteousness. An evil man can only fake such laughter, and never for very long before giving way to jealous rage.
Great article! I had up to now been laughing at the woke mainly in the dismissive sense. I will have to move over to laughing at them in the 'absurdity of evil' sense. Much more constructive! The same applies to the Covid situation where many administrations have been using it to express their power lust.
Leftists have the conceit that they are so much smarter than the rest of us. But then they believe that a man can become a woman. No that is laughable. And Caitlin, you are a prime example.
We’re F’d. And laughing will not fix it.
You are confusing the efficient and the material cause. The person who makes the joke is "funny" in the sense of seeing and exploiting the fun in a subject; the person who is the butt of the joke is "funny" in the sense of being the subject which is exploited. "Unfunny" people in the former sense are supremely "funny" in the latter sense. Indeed, their inability to see a joke is one of the oldest, most enduring jokes there is: it is their lack of humor that is so humorous. We laugh at their self-important solemnity exactly as we laugh (or used to) at enormous feet, pot bellies, double chins, or baldness. Groucho Marx is enormously funny, but so is Margaret Dumont, though not in the same way.
For once I actually agree with you wholeheartedly! There are many forms of laughter and it's not always easy to discern where it comes from and how sincere it is. This article by Klavan is definitely a misfire; I'm not even sure what he's trying to say....