CLASS HUMOR Romney criticized for being out of touch – rather than being the mem

CLASS HUMOR

Romney criticized for being out of touch – rather than being the member of another social class. the implication is that the only ‘good’ ruler is one from the lower classes.

Humor in the upper classes consists of self-ridicule and hyperbolic absurdity — usually amplifying the mundane as if the trivial is important in order to add levity to the conversation. To ask the cookie question of a person in the upper and upper middle classes is a demonstration of that humor.

Conservatism universally conceives of the world as a necessary hierarchy. A hierarchy of responsibility. To conservatives and the upper classes such humor is a compliment that is meant to demonstrate that the speaker has abandoned his hierarchical position with relation to the listener. It is a statement of care-taking.

To the lower classes, and particularly to the left, this can be an insult. To liberals the hierarchical construct is a ‘bad’ on it’s face, so both the humor and the compliment are lost.

In effect, self-ridicule, and hyperbolic ridicule, are means of levity that demonstrate equality. And liberals will never, ever, understand it.