At 09:32 AM 7/7/98 -0700, Gregg Camfield wrote:
>I thank John Bird for mentioning my _Sentimental Twain_ as I do, indeed
>recognize Twain as a thinker.  But I've come to take my own thesis with a
>grain of salt after reading Bruce Michelson's _Mark Twain on the Loose_,
>which talks about humor as an escape, including an escape from the control
>and determination required of serious thinking. This is not to say that
>Twain's humor is not deep, nor to say that he wasn't a thinker, but only
>to suggest that his humor is often at odds with his thinking, at least as
>thinking is formally practiced.  He tended to think seriously through
>satire, and to explore creatively--to escape thinking as his peers defined
>it--through humor.
>
>                                Gregg Camfield
>
>

Interesting points made by most of those who've commented on this thread.  I
should have defined "thinker" as (say) someone in the class of Aristotle,
Aquinas, Locke, Kant, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, et al.  I can't really
think of any funny men who could be classed in this category, though
Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain probably come the closest.

I also don't think current day "stand up" comics even approach the category
of being thinkers, so please folks, don't offer up Whoopi Goldberg or Robin
Williams as thinkers.  I could rest my case on such example.  (I sometimes
have a hard time understanding how any of these individuals can be classed
in the category of humorist. :-)

In any case, I tend to agree that humor--like fiction--is an attempt to
escape, to escape the rationalistic fog of too much thinking for a breath of
the clean fresh down-to-earth air of living.  That's why I often repair to
Mark Twain when I've gotten too far down into the blue water of
philosophical speculation.

Cordially,

Vern