Austen, Python and Regaining Humour

Why are things funny? Humour has eluded philosophers, and even more so scientists – and we are living in an increasingly humourless world, with jokes verboten, and everything reduced to a literalistic present tense. Late-night ‘comedians’ no longer tell ‘jokes’ – so I have heard – but instead offer boilerplate social commentary, a mirror held up to a narcissistic society, and people laugh at their own complaisance and obeisance.

Peter Leithart makes the invaluable point, using Jane Austen, that humour is only possible if we first have a fixed moral law, along with expected customs that flow from that law. We find it funny when that law is broken – not in too vivid a way, which would be a tragedy – but in some less serious way, if you will, that offers a vivid juxtaposition between what we see, and what we should expect to see. Leithart recounts the unwittingly humorous pomposity of the the toothpick-case buyer from Sense and Sensibility – It’s often funniest when the comedian doesn’t even know he’s being funny.

But if the unexpected and ridiculous become the expected and ‘normal’, then where’s the joke? Benny Hill and the Monty Python guys got laughs dressing up as women, for it was weird and shocking. Here’s a clip from one of the latter’s films – yes, I know, the quasi-blasphemous Life of Brian, and I am not recommending a viewing – but this clip is ironically prescient, the joke here now taught in the curricula of major universities. We’ve come a long way from the subtlety of Jane Austen, and I’m surprised it’s survived in the scorched joke-less earth of YouTube:

When men do for real what Eric Idle’s fictional character pines for, even mutilating themselves – one shudders to think how far they have gone – to ‘be’ women, we know not whether to cry or laugh, as the comedic becomes the tragic. The faintest of snickers would bring on the police hate-squad. I wonder how long before they contemplate uterus transplants for transgenders?

As we unhinge from the moral law, and all we are left with is a drab, incoherent moralism, not only do things cease to be funny, but nothing is allowed to be funny. In a deadpan culture of death, everything becomes so sadly and deadly serious.

The solution? Humour can only be rediscovered with humility, recognizing our dependence upon God and His natural and moral law – then everything becomes weirdly wonderful simply being what God made and intended them to be, from the duck-billed platypus to the spindly giraffe, all the way to the amusing awkwardness of incipient romance, and our own gangly bodies, soon to be resurrected in glory.

To paraphrase Chesterton, angels can fly – and we might add, laugh – because they know who they are before their Creator God, and hence take themselves so lightly.

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Presidential Pardon of Weronika Krawczyk

As a good news, follow-up to our story from Poland, of the persecution of Weronika Krawczyk for her pro-life views, we heard that she has been granted a presidential pardon. One might still wonder why one needs a presidential pardon for simply holding the long-held belief that the child within the womb is a child,[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace

Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→

Payette’s Payout

I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→