Author Topic: Humor as Redemption  (Read 1408 times)

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Nation of One

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Humor as Redemption
« on: January 25, 2019, 10:09:39 am »
Before rising from slumber, I had visions of the words anhedonic and miserablism ... so I did some investigations upon awakening rather than jumping directly into mathematics.

Researching Miserablism (minus certain words to eliminate redundant links: miserablism -Pet -Shop -Boys), I was led back to an article I had read before about the invisible presence of Julius Bahnsen in Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race:  The Miserablist: Thomas Ligotti's Puppet Philosophy

Tsanoff suggest that for Bahnsen the only "pessimism worthy of the name is a pessimism tragically earnest and at the same time grimly humorous: I am a puppet in the hands of Infinite Perversity, and there is absolutely no way out of it, but I know it, and so take the puppet-play in which I take a part with a sense of humor; I laugh at the puller of the strings, and this is my revenge" (362).


This led me to search for works by or about Julius Bahnsen, but most everything was in German, and one in Italian by Giuseppe Invernizzi called Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Bahnsen, e Mainländer

I was pleased to find a reference to chapter seven of a 2018 collection of works called ALL TOO HUMAN [Lydia l. Moland]: Chapter 7: Humor as Redemption in the Pessimistic Philosophy of Julius Bahnsen.

The author is Frederick C. Beiser who wrote Weltschmerz (world-pain, world-weary) which Holden suggested to us.

Quote from: Beiser
Humor and Pessimism

If we are to understand humor, we have to consider, sooner or later, its relation to pessimism. There are those moments in life, at least for most of us, when we feel that all is futile, that all our struggles and suffering have been in vain. Humor is often an effective—indeed the only—antidote to those moments.


See also chapter 6: Schopenhauer's Theory of What is Laughable.


There is also a link at The Nightmare Network to a dropbox account of one of the members there:  An essay called Julius Bahnsen:  Philosopher of Despair by Harry Slochower, circa 1932

Quote from: Slochower
If Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, Mainlander and other pessimists ultimately offered 'solutions' in one form or another, Bahnsen teaches, practically, the inevitability of suffering throughout time and, theoretically, the impossibility of a logical grasp of nature.

Quote from: Slochower
All through his life Bahnsen regarded himself as a disciple of Schopenhauer. In the year I856, he called on the master. " I went away conscious that I had seen not only a genius-of ideas, but also a character of the most genuine sublimity . . I felt myself . . . transported into a new existence. Francis of Assisi and the other heroes of asceticism had become my ideals."

Fourteen months later he saw Schopenhauer again. In the meantime he had read and studied " every line " of the revered teacher, and Schopenhauer now honored his new follower by ranking him with the " apostle " Frauenstadt.

Quote from: Slockower
Through the whole world stalks a never-ending discord, for the will carries the roots of dissatisfaction in its breast through all eternity.  Theoretically, too, the way is barred; for all our knowledge turns about in a circle of contradictions.

Quote from: Slochower
At least in one instance Bahnsen points to a definite avenue of escape - namely, through humor. In humor the intellect for once is liberated from the sinister power of the will; and with a mighty effort it swings itself up into the sphere of the pure spirit - and laughs.

The gist of this is that I suspect that describing myself as an Anhedonic Miserablist is done so with a sense of humor, albeit, a rather bleak and grim sense of humor, and this is key for me.

As for the anhedonic part, it is crucial for my continued study of mathematics to embrace the fact that this is not about having "fun" for me.   In other words, I do not require it to be a pleasurable experience as a kind of insurance against anhedonic tendencies.  That is, I will want to perservere even and especially during "depressive states."

Life is not a party and math doesn't have to be "fun." 
« Last Edit: March 28, 2022, 08:27:44 pm by Miserable Mike (Woods) »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Nation of One

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Re: Humor as Redemption
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2019, 08:26:40 pm »
I read the chapter, 7:  Humor as Redemption in the Pessimistic Philosophy of Julius Bahnsen by Beiser, but did not get too much from it.   There does not seem to be much redemption in having a sense of humor, it just makes one a "good sport."

I am looking for a kind of humor where I can learn to accept being miserable, to even embrace it as a consequence of staring into the abyss.

How else to put it?  I am looking for an antidote to the desire to be happy or content.

There has to be something to laugh about in our ridiculous predicament.  But what kind of laughter is it?

Better still would be a kind of humor that is pessimistic to its core.  Isn't that, by definition, black comedy = "dark satire" ?

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."    ~    Mel Brooks.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 08:33:37 pm by Kaspar the Jaded »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Gallows Humour for Herr Kaspar
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2019, 04:16:36 am »
“So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die."
"Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried.
"What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round.
"No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Humor as Redemption
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2019, 04:37:53 am »
“First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me.”
― Steve Martin


“I kept a picture of me kissing my dad’s corpse on the forehead in my wallet for years. I’d break it out any time someone showed me a baby picture, just so they would know how it ends.”
― Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

“My dear dead mother wanted me to go into an honorable trade, like grave robbing. Would I listen? No. Be an assassin, like your uncle Gustav, she said. Would I pay heed? No. Apprentice to the Necromancer―”
― Raymond E. Feist, Prince of the Blood
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Silenus

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Re: Humor as Redemption
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2019, 10:40:00 am »
You've gotta love Doug Stanhope's brutal honesty!

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

Nation of One

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Re: Humor as Redemption
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2019, 01:37:30 pm »
Do you remember when the psychopathic cannibal-serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prison? Reportedly his last words were, "I used to eat guys like you for breakfast!"
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 01:40:28 pm by Kaspar the Jaded »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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The Comedic Base of Black Comedy
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2020, 11:58:47 pm »
It goes without saying that, by Black Comedy, we mean Dark Satire, so as not to confuse those who might think we refer to black comedians.

Click hyperlink to download The Comedic Base of Black Comedy: An analysis of black comedy as a unique contemporary film genre.

from Introduuction:

Black comedy offers the film-maker a chance to make a strong statement about  society. The subject matter of genre films (both story and theme) can be considered a mirror our society, its concerns and preoccupations.  While genre film-makers artfully express their vision, they are in fact slaves to the audience and what it wants or needs to see. What the audience wants or needs to see is influenced by culture, politics, economics, morality - the “Zeitgeist” of the age. The changing focus of subject and style is a reflection of the changing values and anxieties of our contemporary society.

Black comedy, more than any other genre, is a reflection of the short comings of society. Theme is a subtle didactic mechanism in other genres however in black comedy themes are much more evident and incisive. If traditional comedy is a mirror of society, black comedy is the distorted sideshow mirror that exaggerates our imperfections. 

It then differentiates between the device of black humor and genre of black comedy and defines both. 
« Last Edit: September 18, 2020, 12:07:28 am by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Gallows Humour
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2022, 06:56:03 pm »
When my dad asked how I was feeling ,I said just fine!I scream so loudly (in pain),that all the elephants in the nearby forest,go and hide behind a bush when they hear me ,for they think,a mighty and grizzly Lion is on his way!

(Typed out with the left hand)
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Going Postal
« Reply #8 on: May 25, 2023, 01:16:21 pm »
Quote from: Dr Huckleberry
I am looking for a kind of humor where I can learn to accept being miserable, to even embrace it as a consequence of staring into the abyss.

How else to put it?  I am looking for an antidote to the desire to be happy or content.

Dead in the water
Dirty Jersey rejected Los Angeles County's
California-authenticated "copy" of my birth certificate,
and yet that is what is offered.

The fascists are in positions of corporate-state authority -

There is no sympathy for hard circumstances such as my own.

So, rather than "going postal" over such nightmare scenarios as mine, I am going to see if I might at least begin reading something that claims to be "wickedly satirical" .... "hilarious" ...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Postal

Abandon hope all those who enter here.

From what you know about me, Holden, do you think I will be able to get into a "fantasy novel" ?  The reason I am giving it a chance is because the beginning supposedly has philosophical themes.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2023, 01:36:31 pm by Doctor Huckleberry Diesel »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Through the Heart of Darkness
« Reply #9 on: May 25, 2023, 04:11:05 pm »

If I had not met you ,it is quite likely that it might have “Gone Postal” many years back.
I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.
Please remember that there is a huge difference between men like Hinckley and Chapman on the one hand, and men like us & Schopenhauer and Cioran, on the other.

There was an ancient Indian philosopher called Chanakya. He never married and stayed with his old mum and took care of her.
One day he was walking down the street and a thorn pierced his foot.

Now, if he were like Hickley and Chapman he would have taken the thorn out with a great deal of anger crushed it and thrown it away. And that would have been the end of the incident pretty much.

But the Ancient Indian Philospjer was not like them.He knew better.
He  found out the shrub on which many other throns were growing ( the throne that caused him trouble came from this very same shrub).

He went to his mum and asked her to prepare a kind of Indian buttermilk which is highly acidic.

He took the buttermilk and poured it all over the roots of the said shrub.The buttermilk destroyed the roots not only because it was acidic but also because it attracted ferocious Indian ants which chewed up the roots while consuming the buttermilk.

The Shrub was uprooted.Once and for all. Not more thorns ever on the Philospher’s way.

Schopenhauer would have liked the Indian Philosopher and not Hickley and Chapman.



Many years ago, I remember watching an interview of Woody Allen. I tried to find it but could not. Anyway, the interviewer asked him if he has any regrets. ( Please note that Woody Allen has a very dark side and I’m familiar with it, but he is talented in a certain way) . He said what I regret is that when I was a young director , my movies were rather funny albeit in a dark way.As I have thrown older, I wonder if I should I addressed the pain and suffering that the human existence entails in a more  direct and straightforward manner.

For some reason, even after 15 plus years, I still remember that interview.

When Kafka read The Metamorphosis to his sister ,he himself and his sisters were laughing a great deal.

Well,okay.

But when I read The Castle many years back as I today to Don Raul, I found it full of dread and darkness.

I do have to wonder if there is a point at which the Gallows Humour fails. All that is left is pure suffering.

Your predicament gives off very strong vibes of The Castle like scenario. It was after all set in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. The blind and almost demonic bureaucracy.

I am not saying all this to because I want to make you glum.
I am saying this ,only to humbly remind you, that there is a way out.
Only that sometimes I suspect that the way out of pain and suffering may not be by way of a bypass road made of dark humour but right through the very Heart of Darkness.

And my dear friend, I can tell you one thing for certain, if you cannot do it, then no one can.

               Please take care-I think of you every single day.




« Last Edit: May 25, 2023, 04:16:58 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.