As for humor as escape, I have always thought humor was the opposite.
It is an attempt to deal with something that can't be hit dead on
for whatever reason--emotion, politics, etc. Escapist humor might
be considered light weight. Humor is quite serious. ;-) People
who dismiss it lightly, miss the point.  Mary Lou in Utica

Vern Crisler wrote:
>
> 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