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The best joke-tellers are those who have the patience to wait for conversation to come around to the point where the jokes in their repertoire have application. — Joseph Epstein, Familiar Territory
Who is Scooby Doo?
One way or the other, their arrogance shines through. Using humor has a certain artistry. When your graces could be likened to a gorilla, there’s not much room for good humor.
There have always been things that are wrong to laugh at, but only recently have we been given things that are ‘correct’ to laugh at. We all agree that some things are ‘no laughing matter’ – that is part of separating the sacred and profane, the solemn and the light – in a culture.
What we are looking at here, though, is the deliberate grabbing of the cultural reins by nouveau scolds who have very specific agendas regarding what is to be sacred/profane, solemn/light.
Orwell’s two-minute hate is not far different from this odd exercise in contemptuous jocularity – it’s forced and overwrought, and a strongly crafted invitation to conform.
All Obama snacks now.
The best jokes make the subject of the joke laugh as well. They need to contain some element of truth, and remain a little light-hearted. Going for maximum partisan savagery reduces the humor even for the target audience – it sounds too much like the jokes the other side uses.
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That is a simply wonderful (and funny!) quote.
I understand what you mean, but I have a little different take, which you might not even disagree with. We live in a humor filled era because one aspect of humor is the tearing down of ideals. Humor can be endearing or vicious. Vicious humor undercuts a serious issue, undercuts values, undercuts ideals. Everything is a joke because humor is a means to undercut your opposition. Within the like-minded group, satirizing the other group is a means of bonding within the group while it tears down “them.” We do it to the left as they do it to us. But it certainly feels like they are the masters at it. Nonetheless it is an age of tearing down values and ideals. I think it’s an epoch of vicious humor.
By the way, this goes back to at least Aristophanes, the ancient Greek comedic dramatist back in the 4th century BC.
Ahem:
https://babylonbee.com/
I never saw that before. I guess that’s a conservative joke site?
Satire site, like The Onion.
Snopes has tried fact-checking them several times. The Babylon Bee-Snopes War led to Snopes having a new rating: Satire.
Yeah, they’re great. The YouTube comedy game is pretty much run by political amigos.