VS. THE TRAGEDIANS:

Mark Steyn II: Cultural boogaloo (Bernard Chapin, June 4, 2007, Enter Stage Right)

BC: Personally, I think your strongest attribute as a writer is your sense of humor but was there ever a time when it proved a detriment? Did editors ever criticize you for not being “serious enough”?

Mark Steyn: Well I think there’s a tendency in this country to separate funny stuff from serious stuff and that’s a mistake. You might say that’s the secret behind the decline of the American newspaper as they put serious stuff in one section of the paper and funny stuff over in the corner by the bar code. If you’re funny then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be funny in regards to war, jihad, death, and disease. That’s the main difference between us and the enemy we’re facing. They’re not what you’d call a barrel of laughs. Ayatollah Khomeini said that there is no humor in Islam and he lived a life to prove it.

An Imam in Afghanistan clarified the Taliban’s position on music; he said that people weren’t allowed to listen and weren’t allowed to enjoy it. These guys make for hilarious enemies. No, humor is an important and vital weapon. It makes people understand that we simply cannot allow ourselves to lose this fight. Furthermore, humor clarifies positions wonderfully. The one thing that spoke well of Julius Nyerere is that he kept a copy of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief on his nightstand, but what’s tragic is that if he read the novel it made no impression on him as his actions show that he never really understood it.

Of course, as the media became increasingly liberal it naturally ditched humor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 4, 2007 7:05 AM