Friday

15 December 2017

— stiff today from my long walk in Copenhagen yesterday.

Good Morning All,

As I intimated yesterday an old friend wrote to give me hell for cracking jokes about the present and awful plight of America with President Trump at the wheel of the Ship of State. Here’s what he said on the topic:

I am writing to suggest that until such time when you are actively working to change the current political crisis that you refrain from joking about it.  

Why?

Lame humor says that the current political realities are acceptable, and sort of fit into the spectrum of normality.

It is like trying to joke about the Nazis in Germany-- it would not have been an effective action.  Weak attempts at humor say: "buck up everyone, we can live through this."  Unless you engage the battle in a fiercely engaged fashion, you have not paid the ticket of admission to the fight over the future of our souls and nation.  

The other part of the problem with your weak attempts at humor is that folks like Colbert, Kimmel and others are really fucking funny in mocking Trump on a nightly basis.  But even they have to stop being funny now and then to talk seriously about the horror we are all facing at this moment.

I know you will try to brush off this criticism like you were shooing away a mosquito-- no problem, go ahead.  

But as a moderately good friend, I need to let you know that you and your smug pontifications sound like a smelly old fart, and you do it on a daily basis.  

Either put on your kilt and join the fray or shut the fuck up.  You are part of the problem.

Yesterday, I drove halfway to Copenhagen, parked the car at our old commuter station in Høje Taastrup, then took the train in the rest of the way to do some Christmas shopping. I had a lot of time to consider what my friend had said. Mind you, he gives me a work-out on a regular basis for being far too conservative, having lousy tastes in poetry, and writing doggerel myself, but I have long respected him as a person and always consider his opinions seriously. So, a few thoughts from yesterday:

1. I was not sure to which of my lame jokes he was referring. His response came after Wednesday’s Day Book, the one which included my delight that the people of Alabama elected to the Senate the liberal Doug Jones over Roy Moore, the child molester and bigot. I did include two bits from The Onion, both of which ridiculed Moore, but I honestly do not recall trying to make any jokes—lame or otherwise—myself.

2. In any political discussion, I usually do my best not to indulge in argumentum ad hominem, which uses deflection to attack the character of a person holding an opinion rather than to attack the opinion itself. As we all know, the sitting president uses that sort of argument as his stock in trade. As such, I was disappointed to be told I was a lame humorist, given to smug and daily pontifications, and bound to arrogantly dismiss points as if swatting a mosquito. (Mind you, it may well be I am a lame humorist, and I will confess I’ve been guilty of making God only knows how many pontifications, smug or otherwise, but my hope would be that those observations would come in a different conversation, a friend-to-friend conversation, as opposed to a political discussion.

3. On the issue of whether wit and humor themselves ought to be part of the dialogue to save us from Trump and the disaster he has let loose on the U.S., my friend makes some sense. Particularly with: "Lame humor says that the current political realities are acceptable, and sort of fit into the spectrum of normality.” I am in absolute and complete agreement with that point. If we say, “Oh, that’s just Donald being Donald,” we play right into Donald's hands.

4. But there is a difference between with and humor. Both are funny, but humor has to it an underlying sense of forgiveness and understanding for the frail and flawed human condition. Old Down East Joke: Eban: Bert, who’s your wife voting for in the next election? Bert: Why, the same fella as me, of course. Eban: A-yup, who’s that? Bert: I dunno, she ain’t told me yet. That joke about the frail male ego is basically forgiving. Humor is laughing with.

Wit, however, is aggressive; it attacks us humans for our frail and flawed condition. It mocks and ridicules. It uses satire, sarcasm, and irony. When Gloria Steinmen says a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, she is mocking the traditional belief that a woman is not really a woman without a man. Wit laughs at.

5. So, I will certainly agree with my friend that trying to see the awfulness of Donald Trump through the forgiving eyes of humor will not help make him go away. But I deeply believe that wit is essential "to the fight over the future of our souls and nation.” Colbert skewers Trump during virtually every monologue. Alec Baldwin excoriates Trump on SNL. I do not think either of them encourages their audiences to lethargy. I believe their brilliance helps to keep our spirits up to continue the battle. And they certainly help keep Trump on the defensive.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Given the present social climate in America, William Shakespeare’s poem in today’s Day Book may not be received in the way he intended it. And how did he intend it? Good question! Is it a witty attack on male duplicity or a humorous presentation that attempts to forgive male deceitfulness? 

P.P.S. One Johs snap and one Holly snap: