David Cameron: socialists have no sense of humour

[Idris2002]

shit, was about to make spirited defense of socialists sense of humour and fecking LLETSA of all people turns up : (

After they drop the Big One, the only things left will be cockroaches and LLETSA.

'Don't wave your antennae at me in that disgusting display of naive optimism' he will post on hivemind75.

 

[DotCommunist]

Ben Elton sort of disproves the whole thing because he wasn't funny when he was lefty and never got any funnier. But accepted upper bourgeoisie dissenter of that tradition Peter Cook was very funny. Arsehole, but funny.

tbh the whole PMQ's set up fucks me right right off. Its smirky and 6th form. They lean in on the pulpits, appeal to the audience with smiles and knowing lines while the mobs cheer behind them. Give me chains, padlocks and thermite charges.

 

[cantsin]

It takes a sense of humour to recognise just how doomed we are in the long run.

enough already, ya killing me here

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

's a joke

 

[The39thStep]

Now this is humour:

Lord Glasman's largely worthless attempt to ingratiate Labour with the working class falls into a deadly trap. Just because the working class believes something that does not make it right. Because they are poor, they are badly educated; because they are badly educated, they are suspicious of change, foreigners and intellectualism.

The solution? Well, any social democrat would agree we need to make them richer and give them a better education.

Not so Blue Labour. It tries to implement what working-class people think without asking why they think it. The effect is to ignore their real problems and focus on those trumpeted by the Daily Mail.

Most of the ideas are taken straight from the Powellite handbook: anti-immigrants, anti-Europe, pro-class, pro-religion. This is the same as the big society, though not as left wing.

The economics is also rather suspect. Glasman seems to believe international finance capitalism can be regulated by Neighbourhood Watch committees.

Glasman has abandoned the left and abandoned Labour. His theory is a bad pun based on a PR wheeze by the opposite party. Ed Miliband embraces it at his peril.

Robin McGhee

St Anne's College

Oxford

Letter in Sunday's Observer

 

[Idris2002]

You should have called this sock-puppet 'Ulick McGhee' for added lols, Step.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

I'm uneducated and happily with a foreigner.

 

[LLETSA]

After they drop the Big One, the only things left will be cockroaches and LLETSA.

'Don't wave your antennae at me in that disgusting display of naive optimism' he will post on hivemind75.

It isn't necessarily a case of anybody dropping the big one. It's more that it's been as good as it gets for the human race (as poor a show as that may seem), and we're already on the downward slope. All the signs are there: the disappearance of political alternatives; ever greater expectations by ever greater numbers of people even as the material means to fulfil them become exhausted; perpetual war. Etc.

 

[LLETSA]

enough already, ya killing me here

Has cantsin ever written a post with any kind of content?

 

[Idris2002]

It isn't necessarily a case of anybody dropping the big one. It's more that it's been as good as it gets for the human race (as poor a show as that may seem), and we're already on the downward slope. All the signs are there: the disappearance of political alternatives; ever greater expectations by ever greater numbers of people even as the material means to fulfil them become exhausted; perpetual war. Etc.

And this is my cue to get 'the antennae' out and wave them at LLETSA.

E2A: I'm reading a lot of stuff on the anthropology of war at the moment, and what's coming through to me is that the relationship between the human race and violence is the same as that between a recovering alcoholic and alcohol. A recovering alcoholic knows that he can't have just one drink, becuase it won't be 'just one'. And the anthropology of war shows that human being all too easily move from one level of violence to another, especially if particular types of stress are applied to them. . .

That said, though, it's by no means inevitable that particular stresses that encourage the resort of violence against the 'other' will inevitably produce that sort of response. There are cases of communities being able to break the cycle and get off the warpath. So, yes, all the signs are there, but reading those signs may be harder than it looks.

 

[butchersapron]

Don't do humour? What's this then? A masterpiece of comic timing:

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Don't do humour? What's this then? A masterpiece of comic timing:

hahaha, she even makes a "machine gun noise".

 

[LLETSA]

And this is my cue to get 'the antennae' out and wave them at LLETSA.

E2A: I'm reading a lot of stuff on the anthropology of war at the moment, and what's coming through to me is that the relationship between the human race and violence is the same as that between a recovering alcoholic and alcohol. A recovering alcoholic knows that he can't have just one drink, becuase it won't be 'just one'. And the anthropology of war shows that human being all too easily move from one level of violence to another, especially if particular types of stress are applied to them. . .

That said, though, it's by no means inevitable that particular stresses that encourage the resort of violence against the 'other' will inevitably produce that sort of response. There are cases of communities being able to break the cycle and get off the warpath. So, yes, all the signs are there, but reading those signs may be harder than it looks.

I'm not necessarily talking about the inevitability of violent conflict either, although war in remote places does seem to be permanently on the agenda now. But all the big problems we face have no solutions and can't fail to sweep away most of what we know sooner or later. It's just a case of how, not when.

But it might be a matter mostly of 'not with a bag but a whimper...'

 

[Idris2002]

Not in fire but in ice. . .

 

[LLETSA]

Not in fire but in ice. . .

And the relevance to the thread is that whatever happens, the joke is on us. All of us.

Human history is one gigantic tragicomedy. If you didn't laugh etc.

 

[Idris2002]

First as tragedy, then as farce. Then back to tragedy again.

 

[isvicthere?]

It's a standard defence right-wingers use when they've been caught out 'jokingly' being racist/sexist/classist etc...

^^^^this.

 

[LLETSA]

^^^^this.

Isn't the point being missed in much of this thread, however? The point being that those who believe in the perfectability of the world (the political preference being irrelevant) generally have the worst sense of humour. What they're doing is far too important to laugh at the absurdity of everything.

What matters is not your politics but your level of scepticism. The hard fact is that prejudice and failure in all its forms is the stuff that humour is made of. It's why old school comedians are generally funnier than alternative comedians.

 

[ericjarvis]

Isn't the point being missed in much of this thread, however? The point being that those who believe in the perfectability of the world (the political preference being irrelevant) generally have the worst sense of humour. What they're doing is far too important to laugh at the absurdity of everything.

What matters is not your politics but your level of scepticism. The hard fact is that prejudice and failure in all its forms is the stuff that humour is made of. It's why old school comedians are generally funnier than alternative comedians.

Wrong. Humour is made of jokes. There are two jokes. Something isn't what you were expecting it to be, or something bad happens and it didn't happen to you. This is regardless of political opinion.

What leads to sense of humour failure more often than anything else is over analysis. The second most common culprit is the false assumption that important things can't be funny.

 

[LLETSA]

Wrong. Humour is made of jokes. There are two jokes. Something isn't what you were expecting it to be, or something bad happens and it didn't happen to you. This is regardless of political opinion.

What leads to sense of humour failure more often than anything else is over analysis. The second most common culprit is the false assumption that important things can't be funny.

The only point I was making was that those who think that prejudice and failure can be eradicated often have the least sense of humour.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Miserable people are funnier. People who are overbearingly optimistic are not funny. Left or right.

 

[isvicthere?]

maybe osbournes next budget report will be 'We've sold the NHS and outsourced all DWP activities to contractors. Simples'

"Even though the bankers have fucked up big style, we're still paying them huge bonuses from the public purse. Because they're worth it."

 

[LLETSA]

Miserable people are funnier. People who are overbearingly optimistic are not funny. Left or right.

Exactly. Neo-conservatives, for example, are as humourless as anybody can be. The worldwide spreading of democracy is far too important to recognise the absurdity of the project. And from that stems the inability to recognise the absurdity of everything else.

 

[audiotech]

 

[isvicthere?]

old school comedians are generally funnier than alternative comedians.

"Alternative" comedians?! Do you still go out "disco dancing" and really "dig" the sounds of the "hit parade"?

 

[Idris2002]

"Alternative" comedians?! Do you still go out "disco dancing" and really "dig" the sounds of the "hit parade"?

Not only that, he regularly 'scores' with a 'chick' in a 'disco bar'.

Drives her home in his hairy little car.

Then finds he went to school with her ma and pa.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Ironically LLETSA would have done well in about 1983. Just walked on stage and said, deadpan, "I believe humanity is doomed. I give it 50 years, tops. It's the way I tell 'em".

 

[Idris2002]

In fairness, he was great on the Muppet show:

 

[LLETSA]

"Alternative" comedians?! Do you still go out "disco dancing" and really "dig" the sounds of the "hit parade"?

That's what they were known as in the 1980s and there's a direct line of descent down to the present day. Most of them are about as funny now as they were then. That is to say not funny at all.

 

[krtek a houby]

That's what they were known as in the 1980s and there's a direct line of descent down to the present day. Most of them are about as funny now as they were then. That is to say not funny at all.

Name and shame?