THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

LAUGHTER IS SERIOUS BUSINESS | 2008-02-11

You are in deep trouble when you do not laugh at absurdities.

It is no accident that George Orwell began the book 1984 by quoting the capital letters every person under the tyranny saw: "Freedom is Slavery." No one would have THOUGHT of laughing at this. Orwell's theme was "Freedom is the right to say that two plus two is four."

What does a free man do when someone insists and argues and spends billions to promote the idea that two and two is three? If his first reaction is not to laugh at him, that is not a free man. Someone who takes crap seriously is on his way to slavery.

This is Mantra thinking. It proceeds from a basic: Man is the only animal that laughs. Man is the only animal who knows he will die. Laughter is a survival mechanism. A society which has forgotten what to laugh at is a society which is on its way to the grave.

You cannot go anywhere if you take absurdities seriously. That is why conservatives have no place in the election of 2008.