Comments on: The Methodological Application of My Theory of Humor https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/24081 Announcing appearances, publications, and analysis of questions historical, philosophical, and political by author, philosopher, and historian Richard Carrier. Sat, 24 Jun 2023 13:15:58 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/24081#comment-36219 Sat, 24 Jun 2023 13:15:58 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=24081#comment-36219 In reply to MyThoughtsOnReligion.

I wouldn’t say it’s that clear cut. There’s no less Sorites Paradox in this demarcation than in most others. It’s not black and white, there can be fuzzy or grey areas, because there can be jokes that are unclear or come close to wrong outcomes in construct and thus are fuzzy as to where they fall on either metric, their humanity or axiomatic type (this was Chappelle’s concern with his faerie skit).

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By: MyThoughtsOnReligion https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/24081#comment-36217 Fri, 23 Jun 2023 22:48:37 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=24081#comment-36217 WoW, very well explained! Either it’s funny or not! Simple as that. To explain a joke won’t make it funny but dumb it down. Many people are too thicked skinnes to observe humor from a different view. My humor is raw and not for the timid but I consider it funny with the right people. Only ones that don’t take life too seriously! Too each there own and we all have that! Well done Mr Carrier!!!

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By: Fred B-C https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/24081#comment-36216 Fri, 23 Jun 2023 21:50:26 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=24081#comment-36216 To me, a huge part of the humor of the Brady skit is Chappelle effectively having gotten very much exactly what he was asking for, and not liking it. He hangs out with Wayne Brady and, no matter the ribbing he may have given him in other contexts as a public figure, it’s clear that Dave (the character in the skit and probably the real man) was not actually that excited to run around with guns and hookers and PCP. That’s what the opening before the skit proper, Chappelle coming out to talk to the host Wayne, is about: the avatar of blackness in the form of Chappelle saw what the “black” Brady would be like and it was horrifying and shitty. Chappelle and Brady were repudiating the entire idea that blackness should be one particular way because, outside of fantasy and exaggeration, any one such way would actually suck. The real Brady was just fine as he was.

Moreover, there’s also humor in the idea that the Chappelle Show Brady, actually a dangerous psychopath, could so easily adapt to a profit-seeking system and take over Dave’s show. I think there’s a layer of the joke there that Chappelle is pointing out that thinking that some kind of underlying stereotypical blackness would somehow be transgressive or against systemic injustices is obviously false: a dangerous psychopathic gangster could potentially quite easily adapt to society.

In total, we’re supposed to eventually want the actual man Brady back because he was fun and genuine and a little corny.

(Also, Brady could himself let out some anger at having been pigeonholed by rhetorically giving Dave what he wanted).

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By: stevenjohnson https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/24081#comment-36214 Thu, 22 Jun 2023 17:22:19 +0000 https://www.richardcarrier.info/?p=24081#comment-36214 The game show Family Feud has members of different families competing to guess what the survey of an audience said in answer to a question or complete a phrase. What things ruin a picnic? Or, I love (blank) perhaps. The host generally would say, when checking the answers, “The survey said…” I’ve seen answers like this called “factoids.” Presumably this is not really a word, but it still seems meaningful, to me at least.

This seems to be relevant to your distinction between Humor of the True and the False, where everyone knows which one is true (even if said hyperbolically) and which is false (even if said deadpan.) I’m not sure what everyone knows isn’t more a factoid than an identifiable thing. The actual discussion for me has the added difficulty I’ve never seen Chappelle or even heard of Tosh.

I always thought of comedy as conflict. The pun is a conflict of meanings, hence it is part of comedy. (I’m not altogether whether puns would be Humor of the True or the False, or possibly the highest form of humor, as it is both?) Aggression is one kind of conflict, hence the overlap of aggression and humor. The laugh is a defense against the conflict I suppose. The conflict between one’s own opinion of oneself and the reality is the heart of cringe comedy I guess, but then maybe that’s a resemblance to puns, both True and False?

In the theater, it is commonplace to say drama is conflict, but I disagree completely. The comedy is a conflict where there is a happy ending, the theatrical equivalent of the laugh. (Farces are comedies where the conflict has no consequences, tragicomedies or problem comedies take the consequences of conflict seriously and the great comedies are the ones where the audience truly believes in the resolution of the conflict.)

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