Trump and Vance’s jokes are designed to beat down, not include. They elicit Hobbesian laughter, not Shaftesburian.
Tag Archives: Leviathan
Laughter in the Presidential Campaign
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blood libel, Caite Upton, Comedy, Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, Kamala Harris, Laughter, Mel Brooks, mysogeny, Tom Jones Comments closed
Obey Your Parents or Face the Lion
Today being Hilaire Belloc’s birthday, I share one of his darkly comic “Cautionary Tales for Children.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "How Doth the Little Crocodile", "How Doth the Little Busy Bee", Alice in Wonderland, Cautionary Verses for Children, Children, Heinrich Hoffman, Hilaire Belloc, Isaac Watt, Lewis Carroll, Struwwelpeter, Thomas Hobbes Comments closed
Why Tyrants Hate Laughter
Tuesday In a recent essay on Arthur Koestler’s theory of comedy, the New York Review of Books’ Liesl Schillinger cites a passage from Koestler’s Darkness at Noon to explain Donald Trump’s attacks on Saturday Night Live. In his fictional account of Stalin’s show trials, Koestler shows that authoritarian personalities lack a sense of humor. Loyal […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift", Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Hobbes Comments closed
Why Do We Laugh? Various Theories
Whether you see laughter as benign or hostile may come down to what kind of person you are.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anthony Ashley Cooper, Comedy, Laughter, Mikhail Bakhtin, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Hobbes Comments closed
