below this dialectic, a sort of divine Untermensch . Brian doesn’t claim to know anything. He would be glad to, but he doesn’t. He is a well-meaning moral idiot, just like nearly everyone else. When questioned, he shifts ground and finally gives up, like anyone with common sense.
The Plumage Don’t Enter into It
Thus, the death of God is not simply the end of a certain concept of God, nor of the power of that concept to fill us with fear. The death of God is the onset of a detachment from the entire question of God, and common sense telling us that no one actually has the answers to questions like “is there a God?” Those who possess such detachment by native temperament find Pythonic religious humor pleasing, while those who do not find it troubling, offensive, or even blasphemous. Common-sense detachment from impossible questions leads us to tend our mortal souls, leaving the immortal soul, if there is one, to its own fortunes.
Today we need not be as upset about all this as Nietzsche. He thought that killing off this old God means humans would have to bear God’s burden—and would be unequal to the task. But I think we are probably up to the chore, which is part of the revelation I received when I asked Brian into my heart. Yet there really is a “moment of decision” Brian puts to his hearers: “shall I
shun this, be offended by this, condemn this?” If the still small voice in the back of your brain says, as mine did: “no, if there is a God, He’s surely enjoying this too, and if not, bugger Him,” then you are open to salvation of the sort Brian brings. Of course, this is salvation from the pathos of religious authorities who would ruin your cheer with their dreary pronouncements of Hellfire, with a thinly veiled confidence in the absolute truth of their own convictions (concealing an utterly unconscious fear that they may be wrong). Their confidence is difficult to distinguish from mere pride, but it is best not to judge, since, as Brian taught, you might get judged yourself if you do it. Better to laugh. They can’t do much about that—at least, not any more.
According to Henri Bergson, “the Comic” just is anything overly stiff that holds itself opposed to the flow of experience, and when its rigid bearing is noted by others, laughter results. The person who is “comic” has at least two very important characteristics. First is this mechanical inelasticity, this rigidity amid what should be a flowing present. Second, a “comic” person is invisible to himself as comic, does not realize he is being rigid. As Bergson says, “the comic person is unconscious. As though wearing the ring of Gyges with reverse effect, he becomes invisible to himself while remaining visible to all the world.” 37 Hence, the art of the straight man affects sincerity, rigidity, unself-conscious pathos—and the Pythons, especially Chapman and Cleese, are among the best straight men comedy has ever produced. But for the pathetic follower of the dead God, comic rigidity is no affectation, it is a mode of existence. So the issue is not whether religious fundamentalists are utterly comic, the crux of the matter is whether anyone will point it out so that we can all laugh. But your soul is still in jeopardy, so don’t laugh yet.
We have more to say of rigidity and the comic, but please grant that it is far more difficult to be funny about things that are already funny, like the Pythons, because funny stuff isn’t rigid and comic. In such situations one needs recourse to the lower types of humor: puns, off-color jokes, ethnic slurs, or, at the very bottom rung, politics. We are not scrupulous people. Let’s do politics.
Romani Ite Domum
It is hard to be the only remaining super-power. One’s empire is always getting a bad rap. But there is no pleasing some people, as both Jesus and Brian taught. Bring people the aquaduct, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, order, peace, and even the public baths and good
The Plumage Don’t Enter into It
Thus, the death of God is not simply the end of a certain concept of God, nor of the power of that concept to fill us with fear. The death of God is the onset of a detachment from the entire question of God, and common sense telling us that no one actually has the answers to questions like “is there a God?” Those who possess such detachment by native temperament find Pythonic religious humor pleasing, while those who do not find it troubling, offensive, or even blasphemous. Common-sense detachment from impossible questions leads us to tend our mortal souls, leaving the immortal soul, if there is one, to its own fortunes.
Today we need not be as upset about all this as Nietzsche. He thought that killing off this old God means humans would have to bear God’s burden—and would be unequal to the task. But I think we are probably up to the chore, which is part of the revelation I received when I asked Brian into my heart. Yet there really is a “moment of decision” Brian puts to his hearers: “shall I
shun this, be offended by this, condemn this?” If the still small voice in the back of your brain says, as mine did: “no, if there is a God, He’s surely enjoying this too, and if not, bugger Him,” then you are open to salvation of the sort Brian brings. Of course, this is salvation from the pathos of religious authorities who would ruin your cheer with their dreary pronouncements of Hellfire, with a thinly veiled confidence in the absolute truth of their own convictions (concealing an utterly unconscious fear that they may be wrong). Their confidence is difficult to distinguish from mere pride, but it is best not to judge, since, as Brian taught, you might get judged yourself if you do it. Better to laugh. They can’t do much about that—at least, not any more.
According to Henri Bergson, “the Comic” just is anything overly stiff that holds itself opposed to the flow of experience, and when its rigid bearing is noted by others, laughter results. The person who is “comic” has at least two very important characteristics. First is this mechanical inelasticity, this rigidity amid what should be a flowing present. Second, a “comic” person is invisible to himself as comic, does not realize he is being rigid. As Bergson says, “the comic person is unconscious. As though wearing the ring of Gyges with reverse effect, he becomes invisible to himself while remaining visible to all the world.” 37 Hence, the art of the straight man affects sincerity, rigidity, unself-conscious pathos—and the Pythons, especially Chapman and Cleese, are among the best straight men comedy has ever produced. But for the pathetic follower of the dead God, comic rigidity is no affectation, it is a mode of existence. So the issue is not whether religious fundamentalists are utterly comic, the crux of the matter is whether anyone will point it out so that we can all laugh. But your soul is still in jeopardy, so don’t laugh yet.
We have more to say of rigidity and the comic, but please grant that it is far more difficult to be funny about things that are already funny, like the Pythons, because funny stuff isn’t rigid and comic. In such situations one needs recourse to the lower types of humor: puns, off-color jokes, ethnic slurs, or, at the very bottom rung, politics. We are not scrupulous people. Let’s do politics.
Romani Ite Domum
It is hard to be the only remaining super-power. One’s empire is always getting a bad rap. But there is no pleasing some people, as both Jesus and Brian taught. Bring people the aquaduct, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, order, peace, and even the public baths and good
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