Humorless in Gaza

September 14, 2015
Humorless in Gaza
 

               There are wits with no sense of humor.  - Uncle Albert

On wit and humor. Several propositions in no particular order . . . .

Alexander as Pope

I’m afraid sometimes that I’m losing my sense of humor. This happens to people when little things begin to matter. The big things become irritants, because they distract you from the minutia that must be dealt with – ruthlessly, or it won’t get dealt with at all.

When I say I’m afraid I’m losing my sense of humor, I’m assuming I had one, not just a sharp wit. Sharp and sometimes mean. Wit is often mean, though it needn’t be. Humor can be nasty, but it’s very, very seldom mean.

     Both wit and humor can be exasperated; but humor tries to allay, wit wants desperately to exacerbate.

Dog farts are humorous. Commenting on a dog fart – particularly to make a point – witty.

Wit loves metaphor. Humor has a dick, wit a sword.

Wits can be – they often are – enjoyable drinking companions, but they never follow you into the can when you run from the bar, puke already leaking out of your nose. Those with a sense of humor will hold your head over the bowl, though they may be laughing at you.

Humor chortles; wit’s laugh is a bark.

There can be wit in humor, but it can’t overcome the humor. Wit can be used in the service of humor – Aristophanes, the best of the Restoration comedies, Blazing Saddles. But humor cannot be used in the service of wit; inevitably it will become its slave – Juvenal, much of Pope and Christopher Hitchens.

People are born with sunnier and darker dispositions. But it isn’t true that everyone with a sunny disposition has a sense of humor – think of a regularly church-going Southern Baptist, a rabid Auburn fan that teaches middle school science.