Genuinely humorous people, you will notice, have the rare ability to laugh at themselves. The reason most people cannot do that is that they take themselves too seriously. That is a common affliction not only of saints and statesmen, but also, I have noticed, of government clerks and schoolteachers, newspaper editors and run-of-the-mill parents! If you instinctively believe (though you might never admit it) that the world revolves – or ought to revolve – around you, you cannot make fun of yourself now and then.
Birbal – the fabled courtier, not necessarily the character in history – was supposed to have been one who could pull his own leg sometimes. On one occasion he is supposed to have put Akbar at position number two on his list of the biggest fools in the kingdom (and he gave the emperor satisfactory reason for so doing, seeing that his head didn’t roll, but that is another story), and placed himself right on top of the list: because he was fool enough, he said, to make a career of humouring such a foolish overlord!
There have been honorable exceptions among saints, philosophers and statesmen, of course. Some of my greatest heroes are among them. Socrates, who had a shrew of a wife, sagely observed that a man who finds a good wife becomes a householder, a man who is not so lucky has to find solace in philosophy. Abraham Lincoln, when called ‘two-faced’ by a critic in Congress, pointed at his own face and remarked – ‘Look at this mug! If I had another face, would I use this one?’ When someone bowed low before Vivekananda and addressed him as god incarnate, he is supposed to have pointed to his midriff and said ‘You think God has a pot belly?’ And Mahatma Gandhi often had his audience in splits by lampooning himself. When someone asked him if he did not feel ashamed to present himself before the King-Emperor clad only in a short dhoti, he shot back ‘Why? The king was wearing enough for both of us!’
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17 comments:
Sir,
Another example in the context of having this rare ability of laughing at oneself or rather making a fool of oneself would be that of Charlie Chaplin. Though all such examples in his case would come directly from his movies where he makes a laughing stock of himself at the point when he is at the peak of his character which is absolutely somber. Here his sarcasm is always pointed at those who think that the world revolves – or ought to revolve – around them. But even in real life, he definitely must be so. Yes this definitely is a fact that it is only wise men that have this ability.
Nishant
Dear Suvroda, It is enlightening to read your post as always. I especially liked the anecdote on Vivekananda which I never knew. Thank you for sharing such beautiful anecdotes.
Regards
Tanmoy
Dear Sir,
It is very disheartening to live in the present world where most people go around with serious faces and very rarely laugh or make people laugh.
Sir, please write about how a person can find solace in philosophy.
-Pritha
I remember this one from Bertrand Russell -
Answering a question about the cover design to the publishers of his book 'The problems of philosophy' he wrote - "The most suitable cover for this volume, in my opinion, would be a picture of a monkey tumbling over a precipice and exclaiming "Oh dear, I wish I hadn't read Einstein". He added as a P.S.:"On no account should the monkey look like me."
I don't know whether this next one from Russell again is entirely related to the present post but I could not stop myself from saying it-
Bertrand Russell once taught a class in logic. He was trying to teach his students why inconsistency was important: because you can prove that anything is true if you start from false assumptions.
One of his students interpreted that as a challenge. "Given that one equals two, prove that you're the pope," he shouted.
Russell immediately replied, "Nothing could be simpler. The pope and I are two, and two equals one, so the pope and I are one. Therefore, I am the pope."
I am sorry I did not provide the context of the first Russell quote. The thing is, by his own admission, Russell hadn't sufficiently realized the importance of special relativity at the time when he wrote 'The problems....'. He says in the appendix of the book that he would have used certain expressions differently had he taken account of relativity theory.
And gravitating from science to "social" Science!
Talking about an economist, econometrician and a management consultant, what's the essential difference, the 'diffentia specifica', between them ? With due apologies to all, let me share the odd bit that I read once!!
The first one is, of course, the person searching for a black cat, in a dark room, blindfolded.
The second one, poor soul, doing the same thing but when the cat isn't there !
And the third person! He's still searching for the black cat in the dark room, blindfolded when the cat isn't there and yet when he triumphantly exclaims "I've got it! I've got it!"
Regards and best wishes.
On a rejoinder, that one on inconsistency was hilarious, Sayan, and a very subtle, instructive lesson for us, too!! Don't you think this craft of sophistry or at times, specious logic, is employed so artfully and consciously and diabolically by the politicians,(why upbraid this breed always, we also do it quite too often!!) yes, during the election times, to prove whatever they want to, riding high on the ignorance/gullibility of ordinary, poor souls ? Before you've realised you're only biting the dust, the other one has already left with the cake! Ha!
And, of course, this reminds us of the other variant of the logical principle which we employ to substantiate our case, by premising on an auxiliary stance and drill it down to the point of its logical absurdity ! that of 'reductio-ad-absurdum'!
An interesting exemplar, apart from the myriad instances (lemmas, theorems etc) we use in our academic exercises, comes to mind where Satish, in Tagore's "Chaturanga" did it so eloquently! Being staunchly atheistic by temperament, he could loudly proclaim, to take the wind out of his opponents’ sails :
" Okay, I start with the premise that God exists. God has created me. My consciousness, intelligence are but His products. That part of me says God doesn't exist. So God says He doesn't exist!"
Regards, my warm wishes.
Your comment had me thinking Kaushik da!
Of the politicians we all know. Come election time and one time foes are seen to join hands, the staunchest critic becomes the closest friend and contrasting ideologies find their place in the grand cocktail, all with their due share of reason (or so they make us believe).
Yes, we have all done it so many times. To make a cause seem plausible and worthwhile every action, even of the most vile and despicable kind, finds logic and reason in the mind of the proponent.
I, however, feel there is an important difference between the way we use logic and the way a person such as Russell or a scientist would. We always have an end in mind and treat logic as a means to that end, while they do not always begin with such a predefined end in mind and let it (logic) take wherever it leads them. That kind of use of logic is purer and hence more appealing.
But then again that eternal question arises - How logical is logic? It has bothered many a philosopher I think, for even some light contemplation on the question is difficult,for our arguments are doomed to be reduced to the hen came first or egg came first kind of cycle. Your example from Tagore's "Chaturanga" does indeed illustrate that eloquently.
Sayan Datta.
Thank You Sir, for this post. Although I had read (and tried to feel completely) the definition of a bad joke by Cliff Thomas, many a times, I had wondered what 'good humour' exactly was. Now, I have come a little closer to distinguishing a joke as good or bad. The ones in your post are examples of humour that is not only good but also spontaneous, intelligent and wise.
What Sayan has said about the difference in the way we use logic and the way Russell or a scientist would use has triggered my mind. This may be a little out of the context but is a similar example of ‘We always have an end in mind and treat logic as a means to that end, while they do not always begin with such a predefined end in mind and let it (logic) take wherever it leads them.’
My friend and me were performing a simple scientific activity. We had to categorize various materials as conductors or non-conductors of electicity. We had made a simple electric circuit with a switch and had to test whether the bulb would glow or not when various objects (like a pencil, my gold ring, my friend’s copper ring, a wooden block, rubber balloons and anything we could get our hands on) were placed in the circuit connected with the switch.
Now, as we had crammed for years that metal is a good conductor of electricity and rubber is not, the crux of the activity was missing, as we already ‘knew’ that the bulb would not glow when the rubber balloons would be in the circuit. We felt an incompleteness and finally found a way. Whenever we would put a ‘test object’ in the circuit, we would always wish and expect the bulb to glow and when it wouldn’t, we used to conclude sadly, “This is not a good conductor of electricity”. I remember noting down in my observation note book “Shefali’s finger: bad conductor” when we found that the bulb did not glow when my friend placed her finger in the circuit.(The circuit consisted of only a single electric cell).
Although this example may seem trivial on the first reading, I could experience and feel what a close friend of mine always used to tell me: When you start with doubts, you end up with strong beliefs and when you start with strong beliefs, you end up in doubts.This is what happens in Science(and life?)
P.S. I hope that this comment was not too irrelevant as ‘inconsistency’ had creeped up into the discussion and I wanted to put in my view of the term.
This discussion about logic/reason and its limitations reminds me of what Martin Luther once said: "Reason is like a drunk on horseback. Prop him up on one side and he falls off on the other"!
As a rejoinder, Sir, I remember a few -
"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand." - Jacques Benigne Bossuel
"I like reality. It tastes of bread." - Jean Anouilh
And here's my favourite -
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It cuts the hand that uses it." - Tagore
Yes, absolutely, Sayan.
Even at the risk of straying marginally from the main thrust of this particular entry of my dear friend, let me concede how much prejudged, tendentious we have unknowingly (?) become in our approaches/attitudes towards life and clutch at their very many 'vindications' (often, as Sayan so thoughtfully avers, adopting the principle of 'backward iteration' to establish a point, we were always dying to prove!) as we perceive them in our narrow sieves ; and how desperately we try to score a few debating points over our fellow adversaries on the issues about which we had already drawn our inferences ‘ex ante’!
Well, somewhat facetiously, if Mr Debater can speak with élan and persuasive eloquence, sitting on both sides of a tabled motion, I've seen quite a few moderators crediting him with all the brownie points of having a razor-sharp mind of a perfect 'logic chopper'!
And I remember how Suvro would be pointing to quite a few theorists in the so-called rarefied disciplines of sociology and economics and other “empirical sciences”, assiduously compiling facts to ‘best-fit’ their theories!
It is on record that Lord Curzon, while making a report on the famine conditions of the Western Part of India, did ask for "appropriate statistics" from one of his deputies to drive home the message he seemed particularly disposed to convey (and he didn’t make any bones about that!) to his end-users!
And yes, I thought Rashmi could so insightfully and with a profound innocence, sum up what Sayan hinted at in his entry!
My regards and thanks for the refresher!
I have no idea where the above comments are going or have gone. I have no idea what more than half of them mean.
To comment on the original post - I found the liners amusing, witty and clever. I'm also reminded of the Birbal tales, the Gopal Bh(n)aar tales and the Mullah Naseeruddin tales (given my appaling memory - I don't remember tales related directly to the current post). The three of these characters remind me of each other in some form or the other. Partly because all of them were pricelessly sharp and quick witted and also took hearty digs at themselves every now and again.
On another note: I'd give a lot to have had a sharp wit without sounding plain rude or mean and completely non-humorous. Or else I wish I got the few of my funny lines on time. What was it that somebody called "stairway wit"...was it? (I remember reading about it on "Wannabe Wodehouse's" blog some/many months ago) - where one remembers a funny line poked half-blinkingly at one's self even(possibly but not necessarily) two seconds too late.
'Course the funny bit is when people do start taking themselves too seriously. Also dangerous is when people self-flagellate themselves too often and too much and not humorously enough - which very often leads to equally non-humorous situations. I am also reminded of the sad and exceptionally annoying specimens who neigh with horsey laugher while cracking jokes (and most often not very humorous ones) at other people's benefit but become sour-pusses once the tables are turned on them. None of these types of people have the required wit and sense of humour (although the last category falsely believe that they are blessed with wit and a great sense of humour). So here too I guess a happy medium is required.
I wish you'd put up some more tales, Suvro da. I am sure you know more than two score and a dozen such tales...
Shilpi
Thanks for trying gently to nudge back the discussion to the contents of the blogpost, Shilpi. It had begun to veer off in another direction a bit!
Of course, I, for one, more than take the share for making it lurch somewhat off-course. The main course offered was scoops of delicious cream layered with dollops of strawberry juices with some lavish garnishings provided by Sayan and others. I, in due course, coarsened it somewhat with mashed potatoes and peas! My apologies for the unintended spoiler! Blame it on my taste buds!
It was not my intention to ascribe blame or to cast aspersions on tastes. I merely wanted, like Shilpi, to draw the discussion back to the subject of the blogpost.
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