• Lunatic Writer
  • Novels & Novellas
    • Big Ledge Front
    • Big Ledge Back >
      • Big Ledge Review
      • Big Ledge More Reviews
      • Chicken Thief
      • Heaven
    • Loose Ends Front
    • Loose Ends Back
    • Loose Ends Interview
    • Loose Ends Reviews
    • Lunatics >
      • Copernicus Images
    • The Draper Catalogue
    • Eta Carinae >
      • Reviews
    • All Saints Day
    • Eta Carinae
    • Echoes
    • Book Reviews
  • Short Fiction
    • Sweet Melancholy
    • More Short Fiction
  • Drama
    • Willful Pursuits
    • More Willful Pursuits
    • Sproule's Folly
    • Gravity
    • Audio Drama
    • All the World's a Stage
    • Theatre Reviews
  • Astro
  • Author's Blog
  • Comments & Contacts
  • Res Naturae
    • Valhalla Provincial Park >
      • Gwillim Lakes
    • Record Ridge
    • Skattebo
    • Rock Slide Lake
    • Kootenay National Park >
      • Juniper
      • Marble Canyon
      • Paint Pots
      • Cobb Lake
      • Redstreak
      • Stanley Glacier
    • Waterton Lakes National Park >
      • Bear's Hump
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Bertha Lake
      • Wall Lake
      • Prince of Wales
    • Old Growth Forest
    • Ripple Ridge
  • Abroad
    • Jamaica >
      • Aerial Creatures
      • Land Creatures
      • Ocean & Beach
      • Miscellaneous
    • France >
      • Paris I
      • Le Sud
      • Paris II
    • Oregon >
      • Washington
      • Cannonbeach
      • North Coast
      • Portland & Corvallis
      • Central Coast
      • Ashland
      • Crater Lake
      • Mt. Rainier
    • Belize >
      • Birds of Belize
      • Daily Life
      • Water Scenes
    • Greece >
      • Athens
      • Hydra
      • Argolid
      • Crete
      • Santorini
      • Mykonos & Delos
      • Delphi
    • Canyon Country >
      • Red Rock Canyon
      • Valley of Fire
      • Zion NP
      • Bryce Canyon NP
      • Grand Canyon
      • Sedona
    • Cuba >
      • Varadero
      • Jeep Tour
      • Havana
    • Cozumel >
      • All-Inclusive
      • Island Tour
      • Tulum
      • About Town
    • UK & Ireland >
      • London >
        • Ealing
        • Tower of London
        • Westminster
        • British Museum & the Eye
        • Thames & Greenwich
        • Victoria & Albert Museum
      • Northwest >
        • Grasmere
        • Chester
        • Liverpool
      • Southeast >
        • North Marston
        • Oxford
        • Hughenden Manor
        • Brighton
      • IRELAND >
        • Dublin
        • Killarney & Dingle
        • Muckross
      • York
      • West Midlands >
        • Hereford
        • Shrewsbury
      • Wales
      • Southwest >
        • Bath
        • Cornwall
    • Arizona >
      • Phoenix
      • Biosphere
      • Tucson
      • Nogales
      • Tombstone
      • Chiricahua
      • Kitt Peak
      • Casa Grande
  • I See You
  Lunatic Writer

Gravitas in the Age of Flippancy

3/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Flippancy is hardly a new phenomenon. To a large extent it defined the world of my adolescence. It was expected that my friends and I would make light of everything, especially anything which showed the least pretense of being serious or important.
 
Twenty-first century flippancy seems to be alive and well, even thriving. As a substitute teacher, I see it in the playgrounds and classrooms, beginning to come to the fore as early as Grade Four, becoming fully-blown in the Junior High years and then. . . .  Well, that’s really the problem, I think—I’m not sure it ever comes to an end any more.
 
It sometimes evolves into satire, which can be outrageously funny, biting, and on occasion (though rarely, I think) the spur to constructive political action. All too often, however, it stays stuck in its adolescent form: an aimless disrespectful levity, which really takes us nowhere, other than providing a transitory chuckle and a likely unwarranted sense of superiority.
 
It took some time, but eventually I found myself ready to say goodbye to flippancy. Okay, I would say to myself. Very good, you have made light of some behaviour you think is pompous, absurd, hypocritical, but what now? What do you propose to do about it? When sharing these questions with my peers, I was generally greeted with a shrug and the unspoken message that I was “not cool” and should really “get a life.”
 
Flippancy has followed me wherever I have gone. It is the mainstay of many genres of Hollywood movies, a prevailing attitude among young literati; it defines the locker room banter of many male athletic teams. I get it. Disparaging others can be a powerful bonding agent. And, I admit, I like good satire as much as the next person—I’m a fan of the TV show 22 Minutes and I find some of the skits on Saturday Night Live side-splittingly funny. 


Picture
But why has our appetite for satire and a flippant world view grown to such heights? I’m not sure. Is it our default reaction to a sense of powerlessness? If you feel you can’t bring about constructive change (as adolescents, surely we all have felt this) well, at least you can complain. If you can complain in a witty manner, and entertain your friends, all the better. Who would dare argue against laughter?
 
Well. . . I suppose I would—not all laughter certainly—but excessive, unrelenting, even compulsory laughter, yes. I have heard people insist that the trait they value most in others is a sense of humour. Okay, I like a good laugh too. And it is good when people do not take themselves too seriously. It is good to be reminded that each of us is flawed. But is a sense of humour more important than honesty, generosity, compassion, or a thirst for justice?
 
Yes, I think it’s true: for at least a generation, we have abandoned our respect for gravitas. Certainly we’ve lost our respect for authority. It’s not hard to understand why. Unquestioned obedience has led to war, sexual abuse and many other crimes, but the rejection of gravitas wholesale has come at a price. Now we seem to have entered the age of alternative facts, and fake news, and a world in which everyone’s opinion is treated equally. This is a sure recipe for societal disaster. When contemplating brain surgery, I’m absolutely going to prefer the opinion of my doctor over my plumber.

Picture
Mahatma Gandhi had gravitas. So did Martin Luther King Jr. So did Winston Churchill. But who has gravitas today? There are such people to be sure, but they are harder to find. Too often serious-minded people come under immediate suspicion simply for wanting to discuss complex issues in depth. Critical thinking among the general population has never been more important. And, while it’s true that people’s words should never be accepted on mere authority, it is a huge mistake to dismiss opinions outright, simply because they are nuanced and smack of gravitas .
 
I think people who work daily on important issues of justice and truth appreciate humour as much as anyone, maybe more so. I believe this is also true for scientists and artists, and for anyone who devotes his life to seeking truth. For me, some best senses of humour can be found among astrophysicists who often laugh themselves silly over puns. (Some regard puns as the lowest form of humour, I’m told,  in which case, I am a poor lowly creature, I’m afraid.) Gravitas and a sense of humour go together very nicely, but generally, in this duet, you’ll find humour of a different flavour. Humour that does not disparage. Humour that dances, and finds joy in the commonality of humanity.   
 
Flippancy, and its better-dressed brother satire, have a place, but should also have an expiry date. A devotion to it is almost a right of passage for adolescents, but its place in the world of a fully-integrated adult should be limited.
 
A satirical skit to point out the absurdity of a political policy is just fine, much appreciated. But don’t give me a steady diet of such humour. I worry about a world in which satire makes up our only real response to corruption and injustice. Satire turns too easily into cynicism, and cynicism leads very quickly into inaction and even helplessness.
 
Yes, my friends, while it may be true that what the world needs is “a little more cow bell”, it needs also to be tempered by a good deal more gravitas. There is a lot of work to be done. Put your shoulder to the wheel. And do it with a light heart and laughing voice as might the Dali Lama do, or Pope Francis.

Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.






    ​Author

    Brian d'Eon, fiction writer: whose work modulates between speculative, historical and magical realism.

    Categories

    All
    1917
    2010
    Ainsworth
    Albert Einstein
    Apollo XI
    Astronomer
    Baillie Grohman
    Baillie-Grohman
    Begbie
    Big Ledge
    Blade Runner 1982
    Blade Runner 2049
    Bluebell Mine
    Book Review
    British Colonist
    Bruce Dern
    Capitalism Vs Climate
    Chapbook
    Civilization
    Climate Change
    Cosmology
    C.S. Lewis
    Dandelions
    Davie
    Dead Crow
    Deon
    D'Eon
    Diana Morita Cole
    Draper Catalogue
    Dreams
    E-books
    Economics
    Editing
    Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
    Eta Carinae
    Fassbender
    Flashbacks
    Gravity
    Gray
    Green Manifesto
    Grohman
    Guess Who's Back?
    Hammill
    Harold Fry
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Hendryx
    Hitler
    Internees
    Isaac Newton
    Jamaica
    Jfk
    Jobs Vs Environment
    John Keats
    Kenneth Clark
    Kootenays
    Korolev
    Lily Langtry
    Lunatics
    Mark Twain
    Matt Haig
    Mikado
    Millet
    Nebraska Movie
    Nelson
    Nixon
    Novel
    Novel Drafts
    Novella
    Novel Structure
    Opium
    Oscar Nominees
    Photography
    Pitch
    Plague
    Point Of View
    Primack & Abrams
    Publishers
    Queenie Hennessy
    Rachel Joyce
    Rejection
    Review
    Richard Bausch
    Sam Mendes
    Saoirse Ronan
    Science And Religion
    Science Literacy
    Sean Arthur Joyce
    Serkis
    Shakespeare
    Sideways
    Sinixt
    Sproule
    Sputnik
    Steamer
    Stranger Things
    Submissions
    Sweet Melancholy
    Telescope
    The Humans
    The Price Of Transcendence
    The Wind Rises
    Travel
    Treasure Beach
    Van Gogh
    Victoria
    View From The Center Of The Universe
    Von Braun
    Winter Photos
    Yeats

    Archives

    February 2022
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    June 2019
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012