Dumb as This Post?Mithras wonders where all the
funny conservative blogs are.
Is there a genetic link between humor and political outlook? Is there just some birth defect that prevents right-wingers from being funny? In my apology yesterday, I sarcastically asserted there was such a connection, but now I think I may have been right at that. Perhaps people who are born with a natural disposition to see the humor in life, and to be able to laugh at themselves, may develop a sense of empathy and compassion that leads them to liberalism.This is of course, nonsense. There are plenty of funny conservative bloggers, and there are plenty of funny liberal bloggers. It's just that folks who find the conservative blogs funny are unlikely to laugh at those humorous liberal bloggers, and vice-versa. Just as people who are likely to find the endless twists and turns of Plamegate fascinating are also mostly the ones who hollered "Whitewater? Boooorrrrinnnng!"
Frank at
IMAO points out:
KEY HUMOR ASPECT NUMBER ONE: Humor involves shared, unsaid beliefs between who tells joke and who hears it.Exactly. A relative recently played a song for me that he thought was terrific. It was about a group of drivers on Route 80 in New Jersey who got caught up in road rage, and all kept driving on the highway even though they'd passed their exit. And while I'm not a big fan of idiots on the highway expressing their road rage, it went on to mock them as bank presidents and secretaries and hairdressers. There was a sneering, self-congratulatory air to the piece that was completely off-putting.
And yet, when I was a liberal I probably would have enjoyed it and thought it was quite amusing. And this wasn't a particularly political song; for all I know the hairdresser and the bank president were Democrats.
That seems to me to be the essence of liberal humor: sneering at the lowbrows who clutter up your highway. Check out some of the blogs Mithras highlights as funny, and surf over to them. Here, for example, are a few examples of
James Wolcott's humor:
Now in normal times this wouldn’t have raised one of my big eyebrows. But these aren’t normal times. These are Bush Times. When Ann Coulter is on the cover of Time and Darwin is supposed to take a powder for God the Esquisite Swiss Watchmaker Who Sent His only Begotten Son to Supply Mel Gibson with a Box Office Smash.If any further evidence was needed of how slickly and slitheringly adept the neocons have become at prostituting themselves to power, get a peep at one of its most prominent members nimbly working his forked tongue.Indeed, this is why so many liberals think the word f*cktard is an excellent insult; because it implies the recipient is retarded and thus certainly sneerworthy.
