Why are almost all humorists liberals?

Here in Canada as in the US and likely elsewhere, there has been a long-standing criticism of postal services and the cost of mailing a letter. One wag explained that the cost of postage here is as high as it is because they are charging us for storage. (I hope that joke translates properly)

Puberty is the point at which the brain difference is manifest. Something about the flow of calcium into the brains cells. This condition is often associated with literal thinking. Humor requires the ability to understand metaphor. This failure may account for the fact that many conservatives will fail to identify the humor contained in this post.

And now you understand why it's rare to find any liberals with a sense of humor.

Fits over here too.
I have a book with letters from Danes in USA written end of 1800 and beginning of 1900. Sometimes the writer thanks for the letter of...date.
Have the feeling it took about 2 weeks to get to Denmark.
That is what it also takes now by air.
According to Pear´ Calender 1914
Mails from America
Day of sailing Wednesday - Amrican Line - due in London - Wednesday
The others also took a week.
I know that a letter mailed in N:Y in the 60ies arrived in Sweden Wednesday - as rule - when one answered the same day it could be in N.Y again Saturday.
Now an e-mail takes a minute - and the answer months....

As you do not know the fine differences in Swedish politics I will call one group of politicians Alpha and the other group Omega.
Up in northern Sweden where the rivers freeze during winter a group of politicians from Alpha and Omega parties were fishing. One group on each side.
The Alphas noticed how the Omegas got one fish after the other and they thenselves did not get one single one.
After a long discussion back and forth one of them marched over to the omegas to ask how come they get to much fish.
The omegas looked at the Alpha and :"We have made holes in the ice"

And that's funny.

My opinion is the mindset of conservatives is one of traditionalist where you play by rules that are dated and do not advocate creative freedom. The rules don't allow it. But the liberal has abandoned the traditional dogma which allows for out of the box thinking.

Because they own all the comedy clubs and other platforms that the liberal "humorists" use to continue doing nothing productive.

Snark, I gather. But one of the last groups of people I'd label as doing nothing productive would be humorists. How much less rich would American culture be minus Groucho or Allen or Twain or Keillor or Robin Williams, etc?

Have to head out to a children's theater thingy but let's see if we can focus a bit.

There is something about the social and psychological function of humor which, it seems, is more aligned with a liberal state of mind rather than a conservative state of mind. Something roughly like that must be so.

Isn´ this rather black and white? You can vote conservative and still have a sence of humor or be to the left and have no sence of humour what so ever.
There are deeply religious people who would not even smile and others that can really be fun.
What a Swede thinks is really funny the Dane looks like a ? when he hears it.
Germans as a rule do not understand "playing with words" in which the Danes are masters in doing.
For me a good humorist makes fun of himself, his group and also about others.
If you only can make fun of others - it is no longer really humour in my opinion.

I once heard a psychological explanation for so much of Hollywood, including humorists, being liberal. GUILT. Many were once starving artists, and those few that made it big might be suffering from survivior guilt of sorts. Many of their early years, in whatever field they pursued, they were one of the few successes. They might feel guilty for those they left behind (as those that weren't so successful), and it extrapolates to liberal, progressive beliefs, possibly. It was a theory. One would have to sample successful Hollywood types to see if it might be valid?

First, I necessarily have to restrict what I say to English speakers. I'm not at all familiar with French or Swedish or Russian humorists. But if what I am suggesting sounds black and white, it's because an assay of English humorists looks to be extremely unbalanced. That's not to say that liberal X will predictably be more humorous than conservative Y. Winston Churchill, for example, was brilliantly funny. But as I said earlier, we have to somehow account for the imbalance I point to.


Actually, I think that's exactly right and I also think you get very close to an important part of the answer here.

I'm not sure that works. For example, why wouldn't the same mechanism work in other fields like law or engineering or medicine or theology? And I don't know of example where a humorist was conservative minded before success or that humorists who were less successful than many others are conservative.

Some find the carrot amuses , others prefer the shtick.

Quote McGentrix:

I think you're onto something there. Conservative humorists just can't get a break. Take a look at this laughfest that was on TV for only a few months back in 2007. As usual, the liberal network pulled the plug on them before the show had the chance to take the comedy world by storm:

Everyone's a comic these days.

Actually, that's cute. Pleased to meet you, Miss L

Yes. There were hopes for that Fox conservative version of Jon Stewart. It didn't work.

Ms Saab, our Swedish contributor (who hates Volvos, so clearly a subversive) got to something key, I think. She observed that humor works best when the subject is oneself (or where oneself is included as target).

- I would never join any club that would have me for a member (Groucho)
- Oedipus Schmoedipus. At least he loved his mother (unknown Jewish person)

The first is an example where self as subject is precisely the center of the joke (and it's maybe my all time favorite joke). The second relies on references to Jewish culture (from a Jewish perspective) in two ways: the oed/schmoed formula and the demonstration of sufficient levels of love for a mother (the source of lots of Jewish jokes).

Or take Woody Allen who has always been prepared to place himself as representative of failure and hopeful delusion.

A very serious person, or an "uptight" person, is far less likely to be able to move in that direction, for whatever set of reasons. So that's definitely part of what's going on here.

If you have some favorite joke or piece of humor, note it and then see if you/we can figure out some reasons why it is funny.

For me a joke has to fit the situation and not just be told out of the blue.
My favorite humor is Danish and the man behind is Piet Hein and his Gruks. or in English Grooks. He makes you think.

Knowledge
To know
what you don´t know
is also a form of knowledge