The Moral and the Tragic

[Kas]

Actually, I get what he means. The perfect illustration of the extremes in American humor might be typified by South Park which gives you the raunchy, over-the-top, disgusting, crass, and crude side of our humor with each episode wrapped up in a nice little "moral message" about whatever.

15 Important Life Lessons We Learned From South Park

In other words, "moral humor" is often not really about morality, but about the interrelations between human beings, and how they "should" be.

Thanks.

And tragic humour is how we are.

I could see this. The European humour is mainly about how we are or what the society is like. It's laughing at stupidity, poverty and misery (it's a way to deal with them), but rarely gives any solutions. The conclusions are left to the audience.

 

[Mole]

Mole,

But what is the downside of the tragic view? It is not a perfect foil to the moral perspective...

@Stanton,

I think the downside of the tragic view is that it is tragic. We learn of tragedy in the Ancient Greek tragic plays, we learn that tragedy befalls us whether we know about it or not, whether we see it coming or not, and whether we deserve it or not. The protagonists in Ancient Greek tragic plays are completely unconscious of what they are doing and do it for the best of reasons, but still they bring about total tragedy.

And of course the tragic plays are not written for the protagonist but for the audience, who are moved to pity, who are moved to the depth of their emotion, and who experience catharsis at the end of the play.

So the tragic plays have a completely different effect on the audience than the morality plays of today, which teach a moral lesson and leave the audience morally uplifted.

We could say the tragic plays are alien to our way of life, and this is important because it shows our way of life in a new light. We are able to compare our way of life with the way of life in Ancient Greece. And this is an important comparison because Ancient Greece is part of our heritage.

 

[Pionart]

SOME WRITE LOVE SONGS
I WRITE TRAGEDIES
I AM A EMO
I COME FROM A EMO FARM

What this thread is about is I don't know, when I will read the first post, I will second post this write.

edit: certified legion stamp of appropral

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

And tragic humour is how we are.

The world is not composed of poetry or of humor

 

[Mole]

The world is not composed of poetry or of humor

We compose poetry while humour is spontaneous.

There is no need for poetry or humour in the world, poetry and humour serve no purpose, poetry and humour exist for their own sake, so poetry and humour are intrinsically valuable.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

Inside of you is a stream, a torrent of information, it pumps through your capillaries, shoots like lightning through your neurons, and deep, deep within it is clusters of spinning spheroids, and deep with it is a matrix of sybols winking in about out of existence, and from a certain point of view this is poetry and from a certain point of view it is music qne deeper within there is a place of silence and in this place a single note or drop of water falls on the soil and on this soil a single blossom springs forth and neither the blossom, the matrix, nor the joke are real, except insofar as we perceive them to be.

 

[GIjade]

I think the downside of the tragic view is that it is tragic. We learn of tragedy in the Ancient Greek tragic plays, we learn that tragedy befalls us whether we know about it or not, whether we see it coming or not, and whether we deserve it or not. The protagonists in Ancient Greek tragic plays are completely unconscious of what they are doing and do it for the best of reasons, but still they bring about total tragedy.

Sounds like my life.

 

[Mole]

Sounds like my life.

And this is how life is for many of us, at least some of the time.