French mystic Eliphas Levi had the most profound, yet, mostly ignored observation about his compatriot Voltaire when he said that Voltaire was a great man but he laughed at every opportunity when he was supposed to learn.
Had Voltaire been alive today, who knows, he might have had a show on Comedy Central between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert spots. Not to equate the hit and run style of Jonnie and Stevie’s social ridicule to the genuine wit and devastating satire of Voltaire but the early Enlightenment secularists and their late night TV comedian descendants are the representatives of the same school of social criticism through ridicule.
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The analogy between bucolic Rousseau and another nocturnal creature Bill Maher falls within the same line- both men embarked on a journey to expose the emptiness of the religious beliefs of their time.
Mockery and ridicule are the most used and powerful tools in the armory of secular liberalism. Once I ran into Woody Allen in New York. Since I lived on the Upper East Side, a block away from his office, I knew that one day I would run into one of my favorite directors.
I saw his “Annie Hall” more than I saw my father when growing up, so Woody was, however strange this may sound, my childhood hero.
I was ready for the encounter; to tell him how much I loved his movies.
Then it happened. I was dumping garbage into one of those New York metal bins reminiscent of Hitler’s bunker when I saw my hero rapidly approaching me along with his wife. To my astonishment my only thought was, “If not for his movies and humor, this guy could not get laid in a whorehouse.”
I couldn’t take him seriously; years of him making fun of others had a perverse effect on me when I saw him. He seemed ridiculous – a distorted, jittery guy with his young weirdo wife. Here was a master but I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate the moment I had been waiting for. I just wanted to make fun of him…
Yes, I know it is really easy for a civilian like me to ridicule an aging Woody Allen. Yet, it is much easier for the movie star to ridicule a patriot waving a flag at a Tea Party. Just the idea of grown men and women waving a piece of fabric while proclaiming their allegiance to a two thousand year old teaching of a carpenter can provide enough default comedic material to turn Barney Frank into a chick magnet at a DC fundraiser.
Social satire and ridicule of rotten institutions is a very important antidote to humorless fanaticism of social experimentation (although, some of the funniest lines came from the most dead serious dictatorships, like the Soviet propaganda bragging that there was no sex in the Soviet Union and Iran’s Ahmadenijad announcing at the Columbia University that there were no gays in Iran).
Ridicule and mockery may organically develop into an art form of political satire; so can seriousness and love for one’s country and its foundation develop into an art form of true patriotism. Just as satire should not be impeded by dogmatic humorlessness, so true patriotism should not be mocked by silliness.
Voltaire laughed when he was supposed to learn but he truly laughed at the authority. His disdain was for a corrupt alliance of church and state. Not a great fan of mass movements, he was, nevertheless, a true inspiration to the Tea Party of the day- the French Revolution.
On the contrary, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert organizing a rally to mock the Tea Party Movement is not a wit fest aimed at exposing corruption of social institutions or of a corrupt mindset. They are simply making fun of people with whom they disagree in order to protect an ideology currently in power. It is a serious propaganda stunt masquerading as a ‘Jon and Steve’ travelling freak show.
Stephen Colbert’s recent mock testimony at the Congress could’ve passed as a challenge to power had he not been invited to testify by the ruling Democrats to further their cause through ‘comic’ relief. It may have been funny for the highly intoxicated but, in reality,
it was nothing more than a pathetic and disrespectful attempt of a house lackey to deter the public’s attention, as John Nolte observed, from the hearing of the Black Panthers’ voter intimidation case that was happening at the same time.
During the decline of mid-level kingdoms, when the court intrigue and bureaucracy became unbearably serious for free-spirited court jesters, the latter went freelance by becoming clowns and speaking the truth to the power from the streets. Modern clowns like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and their ilk are the sad end of the movement that laughed when it was supposed to learn. They are the clowns who left the street for the ‘bright lights,’ giving up the street in order to get back to the more elite and stable position of a court jester. And now that the jesters are also eligible for the universal health care benefits, who can blame them?