THE COMIC AGE
Posted Thu Jun 22 08:35:45 BST 2000 by Soren Kierkergaard
The present age with its sudden enthusiasms followed by apathy and indolence is very near the comic; but those who understand the comic see quite clearly that the comic is not where the present age imagines. Now satire, if it is to do a little good and not cause immeasurable harm, must be firmly based upon a consistent ethical view of life, a natural distinction which renounces the success of the moment; otherwise the cure will be infinitely worse than the disease. The really comic thing is that an age such as this should try to be witty and humorous; for that is most certainly the last and most acrobatic way out of the impasse. What, indeed, is there for an age of reflection and thought to defy with humour? For being without passion it has lost all feeling for erotic values, or for enthusiasm and sincerity in politics and religion, or for piety, admiration and domesticity in everyday life. But even if the vulgar laugh, life only mocks at the wit which has no values. To be witty without possessing the riches of inwardness is like squandering money upon luxuries and dispensing with necessities, or, as the proverb says, like selling one's breeches to buy a wig. But an age without passion has no values, and everything is transformed into representational ideas. Thus there are certain remarks and expressions current which, though true and reasonable up to a point) are lifeless. On the other hand no hero, no lover, no thinker, no knight of the faith, no proud man, no man in despair would claim to have experienced them completely and personally. And just as one longs for the clink of real money after the crackle of bank-notes, one longs nowadays for a little originality. Yet what is more original than wit? It is more original, at least more surprising, even than the first bud of spring and the first tender shoots of grain. Why, even if spring came according to agreement it would still be spring, but wit upon agreement would be disgusting.
But, now, supposing that as a relief from the feverishness of a sudden enthusiasm things went so far that wit, that divine accident-an additional favour which comes as a sign from the gods, from the mysterious source of the inexplicable, so that not even the wittiest of men dares to say: to-morrow, but adoringly says: when it pleases the gods -but supposing that wit were to be transformed into its shabbiest contrary, a trivial necessity, so that it became a profitable branch of trade to manufacture and make up and remake, and buy up old and new witticisms - what an epigram on a witty age!
So that, finally, money will be the one thing people will desire, and it is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays even a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am helped. And the young man will not run riot, he will not deserve what repentance repays. He would die with nothing to reproach himself with and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great.
Soren Kierkergaard 1848
Subject: Re: THE COMIC AGE
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Posted By ian c on Thu Jun 22 18:42:54 BST 2000:
Did you ever play for Denmark?
Subject: Re: THE COMIC AGE
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Posted By Al on Thu Jun 22 21:42:33 BST 2000:
Nah - you're thinking of Heisenberg...
Subject: Re: nostalgia isn't what it used to be
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Posted By dr_hackenbush on Fri Jun 23 09:17:22 BST 2000:
Interesting that Kierkegaard writing 150 years ago sounds so like the Corpses. Maybe they're harking back to a Golden Age of Comedy that never existed. I mean, there is never going to be more than a handful of comedy at any one time that's actually any good. There must have been a lot of dross around at the same time as Monty Python. So is the comedy world really 'in ruins'?
Think of the best stuff of the last few years: Armstrong and Miller, Jam (which will come to be regarded as a classic - if only for the unprecedented creative control given to Morris and co.), TMWRNJ ... I would even defend Smack The Pony (in parts).
There may be "more opportunities" for comedians now, but we shouldn't expect that to translate into loads and loads of good comedians. Why? Once an excellent act has worked through a certain seam of comedy, someone else trying to do the same sort of thing will either look derivative, or, if they have sense, go off and look for something else. There are only one or a few places in each niche. For example, take the 'fake news' genre - 'On The Hour'/'Brass Eye' and The Onion have it pretty much covered. ANyone else trying to do the same kind of thing has to approach it from another angle (e.g. the excellent tvgohome.com) or give up. People who don't realise this are the people who can't write anyway (mediapill, The Mushroom, segfault, The Eleven O'Clock Show) etc.
NOt that The Boosh, TEOCS etc. aren't shit, though.
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