That could be because people for whom life is startlingly tragic don't need to be startled.Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 4:09 am I hadn't previously heard of "The Good Place" so googled it. Is it a satire on the concept of an afterlife?
I've always been in two minds about the value of satire. Sometimes it seems like the only effective way to encapsulate the madnesses of the world, but I think it also runs the risk of creating an entirely cynical and negative worldview. Comedy which relies for its humour on social and political commentary is, by its nature, critical, negative and mocking. I find it difficult to imagine a form of comedy which relies for its humour on saying something positive or complementary about out culture or politics.
Ethics and comedy
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Re: Ethics and comedy
- LuckyR
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Re: Ethics and comedy
Not dissimilar to the way 100% of folks have an awareness that there are certain unwritten rules that govern behavior within a society?Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 7:11 amYou are just compounding your error here.Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 3:59 am
I think that's true in the same sense that most people on Earth have absolutely no awareness of gravity. i.e. they have a good everyday intuitive, practical knowledge of it, because it's an integral part of the environment in which they exist and that knowledge is extremely useful for surviving in that environment, but they are not familiar with Newton's law of Universal Gravitation and have never heard of Kepler.
100% of people have an awareness of gravity.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
Yes, unknown knowns.
But where gravity is concerned the reality often comes hard first thing in the morning when you get out of bed.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
Compounding what error? What error did I make prior to the post to which you were replying here, which was compounded by that post?Sculptor1 wrote:You are just compounding your error here.
Yes. That was my point. Hence this:100% of people have an awareness of gravity.
Steve3007 wrote:they have a good everyday intuitive, practical knowledge of it, ...
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Re: Ethics and comedy
- h_k_s
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Re: Ethics and comedy
I was reading a science article recently which stated that even to this day we do not know what causes gravity.Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 3:59 amI think that's true in the same sense that most people on Earth have absolutely no awareness of gravity. i.e. they have a good everyday intuitive, practical knowledge of it, because it's an integral part of the environment in which they exist and that knowledge is extremely useful for surviving in that environment, but they are not familiar with Newton's law of Universal Gravitation and have never heard of Kepler.h_k_s wrote:Most people on this Earth have absolutely no awareness of ethics at all.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
The difference between the theoretical academic world and the one the rest of us live in. In the former you have to know which academic described the phenomenon using what equation, in the latter you you just know things fall down.Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 3:59 amI think that's true in the same sense that most people on Earth have absolutely no awareness of gravity. i.e. they have a good everyday intuitive, practical knowledge of it, because it's an integral part of the environment in which they exist and that knowledge is extremely useful for surviving in that environment, but they are not familiar with Newton's law of Universal Gravitation and have never heard of Kepler.h_k_s wrote:Most people on this Earth have absolutely no awareness of ethics at all.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
I'd suggest all comedy is critical, negative and mocking, it appears to be the only way to get throught the rhino hide of the arrogant and self satisfied.Steve3007 wrote: ↑July 15th, 2019, 4:09 am I hadn't previously heard of "The Good Place" so googled it. Is it a satire on the concept of an afterlife?
I've always been in two minds about the value of satire. Sometimes it seems like the only effective way to encapsulate the madnesses of the world, but I think it also runs the risk of creating an entirely cynical and negative worldview. Comedy which relies for its humour on social and political commentary is, by its nature, critical, negative and mocking. I find it difficult to imagine a form of comedy which relies for its humour on saying something positive or complementary about out culture or politics.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
I don't think all comedy is like that. But satire is.Mark1955 wrote:I'd suggest all comedy is critical, negative and mocking, it appears to be the only way to get throught the rhino hide of the arrogant and self satisfied.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
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Re: Ethics and comedy
An example of non critical, negative or mocking comedy would be..............
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Re: Ethics and comedy
The Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch? That one relies simply on the alleged comedic value of listing many, many different types of cheeses and imagining the existence of a shop that claims cheese as its main trading commodity but which doesn't actually stock any of them.An example of non critical, negative or mocking comedy would be..............
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Re: Ethics and comedy
I wouldn't really class those two as satires. I suppose you might say that Father Ted satirises Irish Catholic Priests and associated stereotypes, but it seems to me too bizarre and surreal to be fully characterised as a satire in the way that, say, "The Thick Of It" is. And I don't think Steptoe and Son is a satire of rag and bone men. But it does seem to be the classic example of the comedy of thwarted aspirations to intellectual greatness and desperate but futile attempts to break out of the class system, in the same vein as Hancock or Fawlty Towers.Belindi wrote:'Father Ted' and "Steptoe and Son" are satires that besides critical,negative, and mocking, are humane. Is there any popular satire that's not humane?
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Re: Ethics and comedy
Steptoe and Son satirises our pussyfooting around old age and death.
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Re: Ethics and comedy
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023