First, I think that the opening part of the clip, about our being an Entertainment Society, is spot on. We have come to IGNORE what isn't entertaining even if it is crucial to our lives. To this I add the rise in my lifetime of Fandom. That is a quality where your support for something, be it team or person, is based mainly on belonging to an in-crowd. When I was growing up, you were a "fan" of your local teams because you had a connection to THEM. Now a lot of fandom seems to be the connection to other fans. Something crucial is lost.
I'm also in agreement that just repeating humor from someone else is not very productive, at least if it becomes a habit. I'm as guilty as anyone of reposting a clever meme--but only once, because it is FRESH the first time I see it, and it strikes me as a new way of looking at something.
Elsewhere I have tried to distinguish between real humor and joke humor. Real humor arises from a flexibility of thought that allows one to consider two things and see the funny connections for yourself, the absurdity of what that connection creates. This is FAR from recognizing a joke. And it is really, really far from saying something offensive and then trying to say you were "just joking."
That flexibility is also a way of connecting a lot of other things, and in particular finding a solution to problems. Thinking out of the box is one way of describing it. This flexibility seems more present in liberals than conservatives, though a lot of MSM seems to have lost it, whether through fear of Der Furrier** or just wanting to be seen as yet another insightful pundit. But we need that flexibility for solution finding if we are ever going to come out the other side when the GOP finally crashes.
Watching real humor (even if Colbert is reciting the humor of his writers, SOMEBODY in the chain has it) is a way of keeping us alert to what it is and with luck, continuing to foster that flexibility in ourselves.
First, I think that the opening part of the clip, about our being an Entertainment Society, is spot on. We have come to IGNORE what isn't entertaining even if it is crucial to our lives. To this I add the rise in my lifetime of Fandom. That is a quality where your support for something, be it team or person, is based mainly on belonging to an in-crowd. When I was growing up, you were a "fan" of your local teams because you had a connection to THEM. Now a lot of fandom seems to be the connection to other fans. Something crucial is lost.
I'm also in agreement that just repeating humor from someone else is not very productive, at least if it becomes a habit. I'm as guilty as anyone of reposting a clever meme--but only once, because it is FRESH the first time I see it, and it strikes me as a new way of looking at something.
Elsewhere I have tried to distinguish between real humor and joke humor. Real humor arises from a flexibility of thought that allows one to consider two things and see the funny connections for yourself, the absurdity of what that connection creates. This is FAR from recognizing a joke. And it is really, really far from saying something offensive and then trying to say you were "just joking."
That flexibility is also a way of connecting a lot of other things, and in particular finding a solution to problems. Thinking out of the box is one way of describing it. This flexibility seems more present in liberals than conservatives, though a lot of MSM seems to have lost it, whether through fear of Der Furrier** or just wanting to be seen as yet another insightful pundit. But we need that flexibility for solution finding if we are ever going to come out the other side when the GOP finally crashes.
Watching real humor (even if Colbert is reciting the humor of his writers, SOMEBODY in the chain has it) is a way of keeping us alert to what it is and with luck, continuing to foster that flexibility in ourselves.
__________________________________________
**See https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/melania-trump-fur
https://substack.com/@johnnogowski2/note/c-81222272?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action