Anyone who reads The Book of the Damned and its sister volumes must admit that they are funny books. The mood of the writing shifts from serious discourse, critical polemics and fantastical visions and imaginaed scenarios, but underlying it all is a powerful and vivid sense of humour. In fact, the humour is so prominent that Fort was once prompted to ask himself whether he was "a scientist or a humorist."
But Fort's humour wasn't just intended to please the reader, but was also an essential aspect of his critical program. Thayer reminded readers that Fort "had the most magnificant 'sense of humour' that ever made life bearable to a thoughtful man", and warned readers not to forget that fact: "If you do, he’ll trick you. He’ll make you hopping mad sometimes, but as your colour rises remember he's doing it purposely and that just when you're boiling he'll stick his head up and thumb his nose at you." Alongside reasoned argument and appeal to evidence and experiment, the Fortean has recourse to the tools of humour and irony; and, in that sense, presaged postmodernism by about thirty years.
Some might find the idea of using humour as a serious critical device to childish, peurile or otherwise "unphilosophical." This is something of a prejudice. Many philosophers and intellectuals - from Socrates and Rabelais to Wittenstein and the Zen Buddhists - have used humour as an effective and quite respectable intellectual device. One contemporary British philosopher once remarked that all philosophy could be done in the form of jokes. Moreover, there isn't any necessary difference between what the philosopher, the humorist and the Fortean are all trying to achieve. As one scholar recently put it, "At their best the philosopher and the humorist are undogmatic and willing to challenge well-established beliefs. Good humour, like good philosophy, is conceptually liberating." So, one might conclude, good Fortean is both humorous and philosophical - and all the more liberating for it.
I couldn't understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
I couldn't understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
I couldn't understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
