ABSTRACT
A part of the pretension of orthodoxies of whatever sort is the claim to have elevated themselves beyond the requirements and qualifications of humor. Though the playfulness of humor may jar our Calvinistic-PuritanCapitalistic sensitivities, seriousness alone is stultifying and creates its own sterile forms of bondage, as well as violent forms of oppression. Such was the tongue-in-cheek Orwellian prophesy offered by Art Buchwald in the midst of the radicalism of establishment and antiestablishment confrontations in the decade of the 1960s. It was the humorist's warning. Unqualified seriousness is dehumanizing and dangerous. As Konrad Lorenz suggests in concluding his important study On Aggression, the survival of civilization depends to a significant degree upon our capacity for humor. Humorists who turn wit and wisdom in the direction of the functionaries and policies of the ascendant regime are open to the charge of unpatriotic, if not subversive, behavior-as in the religious sphere they are open to the charge of her esy or blasphemy.
