The Matter of Comedy

Mosaic of a Roman Comedy Mask

The Matter of Comedy |
Friday – September 4, 2026

Should we be laughing? Why are people so obsessed with the matter of comedy anyways? First of all, I am someone who seldom engages in the art of comedy, mostly because of its strong political angle and tilt; I will however say that there are many absurd things about the world that truly deserves to be uncovered, and I suppose that comedy indeed has a role to play in any society to that end, to that end. The problem with modern comedy is that it is mostly nothingness punctuated by failure, and this can be said about these people who engage in what they call "stand up comedy" in particular. Since when should talking aimlessly until you happen to come upon an idea qualify for anything? It seems to me that these people would have been better off just guessing, which is what they are doing half of the time anyways. I suppose comedians of that kind are similar to the bastard poets in these so-called "poetry slam" events, read "Qualification". This is not to say that there may never be such a thing as a qualified comedian, but it is to suggest that a lot of these people rely far too often on sentimentalism and emotion, which is not helpful, at least not if we are trying to understand the world. This is also not to say that it would be wrong to laugh; in fact I believe that a good man should enjoy laughing. I suppose though, that the problem with comedy is that it too often relies on truths that are lazy, truths that can be found in the world but that seldom manifest in our considerations of the world, really comedy relies on a certain amount of absurdism. The thing about absurdism is that it describes something that is non sequitur, and while this is funny, it is also false, but not always false, and this is where the lazy truth makes itself even more obvious. Should comedy have to be obvious though? No, but comedy should rely on something that is not too obvious while still holding true, and I suppose that this balance is hard; really, it is a kind of balance between something predictable in chaos.

    Of course, with most things in the world you can sense that certain aspects of a given principle carry within them more quality, while other aspects that devolve and mutate out of higher principles carry less quality and subsequently more quantity, for quantity is often the means to and end, and in most instance the end of filling the gaps, the missing gaps. Yes, the gaps are missing; the gaps are missing for there is too much ignorance and too little knowledge in the world. Now, when it comes to "stand up" comedy, I would like to draw the parallel to action movies, or really to modern movies in general, read "Directing Films", for what this style or genre really amounts to is not only sentimentalism but a kind of vain sense of being the underdog. Yes, modern men are obsessed with the underdog narrative, as if people who exist on the bottom, according to themselves, are by definition good, and everyone that exists on the "top" conversely must be bad. Really, this kind of populism is really quite significant in our times, read "Politics & Ideology", because it serves to invert the whole natural order. Really, one could view this subversion as a kind of mind virus, read "What are Demons?", that was planted in the collective unconscious by certain subversives, starting out with the revolt against spiritual authority, followed by the bourgeois revolt, and eventually all sorts of bolshevik confusions etc, read "Temporal Power"; the point is that all of these people have always felt themselves the underdog. Of course, to be the underdog is another one of these modern identities, read "Identity Politics", a common point of reference that one chooses to identify with in order to rally the masses, read "Democracy". See, why are "stand up" comedians so efficient when they are seldom funny? First of all, it is perfectly accurate to label them subversives and dissidents, labels that most of them would embrace, but perhaps more so, most of these people are actually failed, and so they have decided to allow for their pathological egoism to completely consume them, and everyone around them. Indeed, the similarity between modern comedians and so-called demagogues is striking. Yes, their purpose is to challenge power, and to that end I suppose it would be just as well to commend them, but what they seldom tell you is that they also seek to establish a new power, a new kingdom. When subversives are attempting to bring forth one of their fevered revolutions, they always use comedy as one avenue to attack the already established power, but as they always attack from below, they are destined to always bring out the worst in each principle, read "Theory of Mind".

    I actually ended up in some trouble while writing this post and because of these troubles I am now distracted, which does bring some comedic relief to this whole post, which I guess is funny. Well, it is not funny for me, but I gather that people with the wrong intentions may find the whole situation very funny. I am not a very lucky person, and to that extent I suppose that I am similar to a lot of comedians, especially these so-called "stand up comedians". Again, I do not generally find such talk funny. However, on occasion I do find some of them funny, especially when they make it clear that they are nihilists. Nihilism I can accept, because it is just against everything. Being against everything is not something that I can recommend if you intend to be a part of the "system", because the system relies on you at least believing in your own ability to "pull yourself up". Why do people go to "work" everyday? Why do people value education so much? These ends only have one major thing in common: materialism and the pursuit of materialism, that is it. I suppose the fact that some of these comedians tend to highlight this is at least of some value; it is of some value for the person who is seeking "higher ground", but this is only a start. Nothing worthwhile can be sustained in this way, and this is another problem with these people. While they can help guide certain persons towards higher knowledge, they fail to sustain the power within, which makes them not as bad as the psychoanalysts, but dangerous enough, read "The Ego". Now, I must leave you, for I am not able to engage further with this topic anymore, due to the disturbances that I am facing, but I am sure that I will return to this topic at another time. In the meantime, I can recommend that you look at comedy and see for yourself if there is anything about the comedy that is reminiscent of my points, or rather the points that I made here today.

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – September 4, 2026.