Why Christopher Hitchens is an idiot
Thu, 2007-01-04 23:21
#1
Scott Piatkowski
Why Christopher Hitchens is an idiot
Thu, 2007-01-04 23:21
#2
Scott Piatkowski
I think he's done more to prove my headline than his. Reason number 1087 (a number that I just made up, but probably isn't too far off the mark) that Christopher Hitchens is an idiot...
[url=http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/01/hitchens200701?printa... Women Aren't Funny (from Vanity Fair)[/url]
quote:
Be your gender what it may, you will certainly have heard the following from a female friend who is enumerating the charms of a new (male) squeeze: "He's really quite cute, and he's kind to my friends, and he knows all kinds of stuff, and he's so funny … " (If you yourself are a guy, and you know the man in question, you will often have said to yourself, "Funny? He wouldn't know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce bйarnaise.") However, there is something that you absolutely never hear from a male friend who is hymning his latest (female) love interest: "She's a real honey, has a life of her own … [interlude for attributes that are none of your business] … and, man, does she ever make 'em laugh."Now, why is this? Why is it the case?, I mean. Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny? Please do not pretend not to know what I am talking about.
........
Childbearing and rearing are the double root of all this, as Kipling guessed. As every father knows, the placenta is made up of brain cells, which migrate southward during pregnancy and take the sense of humor along with them. And when the bundle is finally delivered, the funny side is not always immediately back in view. Is there anything so utterly lacking in humor as a mother discussing her new child? She is unboreable on the subject. Even the mothers of other fledglings have to drive their fingernails into their palms and wiggle their toes, just to prevent themselves from fainting dead away at the sheer tedium of it. And as the little ones burgeon and thrive, do you find that their mothers enjoy jests at their expense? I thought not.
Humor, if we are to be serious about it, arises from the ineluctable fact that we are all born into a losing struggle. Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can't afford to be too frivolous. (And there just aren't that many episiotomy jokes, even in the male repertoire.) I am certain that this is also partly why, in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion, which in turn is the official enemy of all humor. One tiny snuffle that turns into a wheeze, one little cut that goes septic, one pathetically small coffin, and the woman's universe is left in ashes and ruin. Try being funny about that, if you like. Oscar Wilde was the only person ever to make a decent joke about the death of an infant, and that infant was fictional, and Wilde was (although twice a father) a queer. And because fear is the mother of superstition, and because they are partly ruled in any case by the moon and the tides, women also fall more heavily for dreams, for supposedly significant dates like birthdays and anniversaries, for romantic love, crystals and stones, lockets and relics, and other things that men know are fit mainly for mockery and limericks. Good grief! Is there anything less funny than hearing a woman relate a dream she's just had? ("And then Quentin was there somehow. And so were you, in a strange sort of way. And it was all so peaceful." Peaceful?)
For men, it is a tragedy that the two things they prize the most—women and humor—should be so antithetical. But without tragedy there could be no comedy. My beloved said to me, when I told her I was going to have to address this melancholy topic, that I should cheer up because "women get funnier as they get older."
Observation suggests to me that this might indeed be true, but, excuse me, isn't that rather a long time to have to wait?
More at the link, if you really want to read it.
[Full disclosure: In [url=http://www.rabble.ca/everyones_a_critic.shtml?sh_itm=b61b64bbe07b8aefd9f... very first article[/url] that I had published by rabble, I quoted Hitchens approvingly. Either he hadn't become a fully realized idiot at that point, or I wasn't aware enough of his other writings to comprehend that I was quoting an idiot.]
Fri, 2007-01-05 00:54
#3
remind
Why isn't Christopher Hitchens funny? Or right because he is an idiot! [img]eek.gif" border="0[/img]
So, now we have him jumping on the Pat Robertson band wagon of: "its all women's faults" and notice how he says women are the main members and driving force of ALL religions. He is an idiot Scott.
[quote] I am certain that this is also partly why, [b]in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion[/b], which in turn is the official enemy of all humor.
Let's have a look at religions where women are the rank and file mainstay:
1. Mormons - oh that's right NO women allowed in the upper echelons at all and cannot be clergy, or have a say over their own bodies.
2. Catholics - oh that's right NO women allowed to hold any position other than Sister and women have no say over their own bodies.
3. Evangelical - oh that's right NO women in the work force and men always know best and women have no say over their own bodies.
4. Muslim - oh that's right no women in the clergy women have to pray separately and be covered from head to toe with no say over their bodies
5. Sikhism - oh thats right men come first, all male clergy and women have no say over their bodies.
6. Hinduism - used by men to contol women
7. Judaism - male oriented, male clergy
Um, so just what religions in ALL cultures would Hitchens be speaking of?
Fri, 2007-01-05 06:05
#4
But you see remind mommy made him put on that itchy suit to go to church and then the Sunday school teacher didn't laugh at his fart joke..
Ipso facto all women have no sense of humour and force religion on everyone.
Sun, 2007-01-07 17:59
#5
quote:
in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals. And there is a huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit.
This is exactly it, in my opinion. I also know many males who don't like women singers/guitar players/etc (ESPECIALLY in terms of aggressive music). A lot of men don't seem to like that level of self-confidence in women. They definitely enjoy the idea of a woman in a position of admiring, observing, and then... [i]servicing the entertainer[/i], as the entertainment world has shown us for years (groupies, etc).
Funny women are women who are indeed smart and who are secure enough to realize that tittering at the lame jokes of the guys around them while fixing their lipgloss makes for a dull evening.
Loud, bawdy, outgoing, observant, cynical, FUNNY women do put a lot of men off. And women who put that emphasis on being stereotypically attractive to men like these turn that part of themselves off.
Sun, 2010-02-21 11:25
#6
M. Spector
I thought he came close to a perceptive comment when he said
Precisely because humor is a sign of intelligence (and many women believe, or were taught by their mothers, that they become threatening to men if they appear too bright), it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals. And there is a huge, brimming reservoir of male unease, which it would be too easy for women to exploit.