Thanks Tim, another expression that adds weight to your point is, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry”. I guess it’s not an easy thing to describe how humor moderates emotions, at least not in a concise technical manner, but just the volume of idiomatic expressions that exist justify your position.
As far as giving examples of well known conservative comedians; After a quick search of Google I have a sense of how frustrating it must be for believers to be asked to prove the existence of their God, and they have the resource of revealed knowledge to fall back on. There seem to be few, and even the conservatives seem to be aware of this. There is a school of “good ol boy”, humor, and those guys are pretty conservative. I find a number of them pretty funny. Certainly that group doesn’t seem to have the renown of more liberal types, but they do exist and not all their humor is based on insult and discomfort. Thanks, (I guess), for calling me out on my B.S.. I hadn’t really checked into my statement.
Humor is subversive. It’s often seen that way politically, and so one of the first things to go in an autocratic regime is true humor. For that reason I don’t think humor goes very well with conservatism, generally speaking.
Humor is subversive. It’s often seen that way politically, and so one of the first things to go in an autocratic regime is true humor. For that reason I don’t think humor goes very well with conservatism, generally speaking.
IMO, the more open a society is, the greater variety and levels of abstract thought which stimulate the imaginative Arts , including presenting a human or natural drama in preposterous situations in which we all have found ourselves at one time or another. It allows us to laugh at ourselves and be free from responsibility or guilt.
As far as giving examples of well known conservative comedians; After a quick search of Google I have a sense of how frustrating it must be for believers to be asked to prove the existence of their God, and they have the resource of revealed knowledge to fall back on. There seem to be few, and even the conservatives seem to be aware of this. There is a school of “good ol boy”, humor, and those guys are pretty conservative. I find a number of them pretty funny. Certainly that group doesn’t seem to have the renown of more liberal types, but they do exist and not all their humor is based on insult and discomfort. Thanks, (I guess), for calling me out on my B.S.. I hadn’t really checked into my statement.
Well, there’s Ben Stein, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, Norm MacDonald, Nick Di Paolo; those are some that I could dig up.
Outside of Stein, I don’t know if these guys would identify as conservative, but they don’t consider themselves to be liberal.
Humor is subversive. It’s often seen that way politically, and so one of the first things to go in an autocratic regime is true humor. For that reason I don’t think humor goes very well with conservatism, generally speaking.
Some humor is subversive, and conservatism does not equal Autocracy.
No disrespect Mid, but you’re kind of proving my point for me. It’s easy to come up with many self defined liberal comedians, and there is just no equivalent number of self defined conservatives. Why is that so? I don’t trust my own opinion to be very well informed, but there does seem to be a fairly obvious anomaly here.
Of course conservatives have a sense of humor. Why wouldn’t they? It’s just that their humor is, well, conservative, or, IOW, it hasn’t evolved much over the past hundred years. Bill O’Reilly would have been probably hilarious in 1925.
Has anybody ever watched “humor” on an Arab TV, for example? Funny. Funny, if it were 1670. Their humor is as funny as were the puppet shows in Middle-aged Europe. Peoples evolve at different pace and conservatives are simply a bit slower than the democrats. That’s why they are conservatives.
No disrespect Mid, but you’re kind of proving my point for me. It’s easy to come up with many self defined liberal comedians, and there is just no equivalent number of self defined conservatives. Why is that so? I don’t trust my own opinion to be very well informed, but there does seem to be a fairly obvious anomaly here.
Possibly the reason is fear that it may harm their careers, if they constantly bring it up.
Also, IMO at least, people who strongly self identify as liberals are really starved for attention.
Of course conservatives have a sense of humor. Why wouldn’t they? It’s just that their humor is, well, conservative, or, IOW, it hasn’t evolved much over the past hundred years. Bill O’Reilly would have been probably hilarious in 1925.
Has anybody ever watched “humor” on an Arab TV, for example? Funny. Funny, if it were 1670. Their humor is as funny as were the puppet shows in Middle-aged Europe. Peoples evolve at different pace and conservatives are simply a bit slower than the democrats. That’s why they are conservatives.
I’m not familiar with Arab humor, but there are some Arab - American comics who are the same as many non Arab - American comics.
Many times people’s statements are subtly fallacious in terms of critical thinking. One of the easiest ways to demonstrate their errors is by humor, often by reduction to the absurd. Another value of humor is to gently (sometimes not so gently) deflate pomposity.
