Humorists

Prompt:

In his 2004 book, Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton argues that the chief aim of humorists is not merely to entertain but “to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly.” Because society allows humorists to say things that other people cannot or will not say, de-Botton sees humorists as serving a vital function in society.

Think about the implications of de Botton’s view of the role of humorists (cartoonists, stand-up comics, satirical writers, hosts of television programs, etc.).



Alain de Botton, the author of Status Anxiety, argues that the chief aim of humorists is to “convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly.” He proposes that humorists are allowed by society to say things that people do not want to hear or believe, ergo serving a vital role in society. However there is a major difference between humorist and their purposes that they are conveying these messages is the biggest factor that distinguishes them.

There are two kinds of satirist; one the entertainer and the other the enlightener. These two may give a speech the same topic, but each one is fundamentally different and their effects on society or the audience is polar opposites. The only aim of the entertainer is to make the audience laugh or be amused and in a large scale-- to earn money. However the aim for the enlightener is to force people to come to terms with society’s failings; and in the large scale try to bring about a change in society. They also present their arguments in very different ways since the entertainer will want the end result to be humor, while in the enlightener’s case, humor is usually a bi-product that is produced since the claims they propose are utterly ludicrous. Why is it then that humorists who aim to make people laugh are unable to get the message across to the people. The main reason for this is the stereotypes that exist among these comedians. In general society these people are viewed a light hearted individuals who make people laugh. Therefore anything that they may say will be viewed in such a manner and lose its importance. Take for example Russell Peter a famous comedian. In one skit he talks about how beating ones child, usually a tabooed topic in our modern society. However since it is Russell Peter everyone takes it a light hearted manner losing the seriousness of it and instead focusing more only on the actual jokes themselves. It is highly unlikely that any of the audience members that night went home thinking about child beating and its consequences, nor did they take any learning experiences away from that event. Why? It is simply because once the aim of the person conveying the message is to entertain the people, the humorist immediately loses the ability to send the messages to the people as they are only interested in the jokes.

However with satirist who have the main objective of conveying messages to people and trying to bring about change in society, they present the problems of society and then argue from a very immoral stand point that is laughable and therefore the humor is a bi-product of their argument. One very prominent example would be Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal where he argues that the best way to stem the rise of poverty in Ireland is to eat poor peoples babies as a food product domestically. He presents facts and many arguments to support his claim and as a result of this outright ridiculous idea people are usually humored by it. But since his aim is not merely to entertain the audience, his arguments also shed light on the Irish’s plight at that time and how the wealthy landowners were metaphorically “devouring” the Irish people. Although while keeping up his facade he clearly states the many problems with society and in his rebuttal he states his true ideas of how these can be changed. He forces society to come to terms with its problems not by exposing it directly, but rather by forcing his audience to come to the conclusion themselves.

Undoubtedly the latter kind of humorists serve a vital role in society, just as Alain de Botton states as they have the ability to use their facade to bring light tabooed problems with society that might otherwise be impossible to state directly. They are far more effective the humorists with the aim of entertaining people since humor is a bi-product of their arguments rather then the final result.

Freedom is an illusion of the mind

Many people will claim that they have the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. This statement is probably one of the biggest lies that you will ever be told in your life, and most of the people who strongly believe this do not really understand just how little freedom they possess. Firstly what exactly is freedom. It is simply the act of acting, speaking or doing whatever you want without any hindrance or obstacle against it. However freedom is an illusion, an impossible goal to try and reach. Our freedom, the choices we make and the decisions we make are all affected by society, by laws, by peer pressure and countless other factors.

Society prohibits us from doing many things, not only by the laws that are created in society, but by the values and such that are in society. Say for example, you could not walk about around in public butt naked, because society frowns down upon such things and therefore doing such a thing is not allowed by society. If one were to do this society would shun you and you would probably end up in a jail or such for a charge against you. It is not the laws that stop many people from doing bad things or things that are looked down by society, but more of what other people think of them. This is the same reason that consumerism is so powerful, because society itself has caused people to give too much care about what others think of them. Another way in which people’s freedoms are curbed are by how little say they have on their life. If the government were to deicide tomorrow that all prices of eggs were going to go up by a dollar, then we would have very little say in it and most probably would not be able to do much to change it.

Freedom is an illusion of the mind, and our mind changes our freedom beliefs to fit with what society agrees with at that time. The only possibly true way to achieve freedom in a society would be to have an anarchist society, where there you could truly be free to whatever you wanted. However is too much freedom really a good thing. Probably not. Freedom is good up to a limit, up till they start to become too much of a nuisance to society. For example freedom should not be misused to spread lies in an attempt to overthrow the government, nor should it be used to create civil unrest in society. However the most important rule of freedom, and the one where upon breaking you would lose your own freedom, would be that your freedom should never curb someone else’s freedom. Everyone should have equal freedom and if someone were to ever take away someone else’s right to freedom then that person does not deserve to have freedom.

However as of now, freedom is merely used as an illusion so that corporation or governments can use it to pacify people when they make a unfavorable decision against the people. As I’ve said, freedom is an illusion.