In the most recent episode of Old School, Shilo Brooks and Richard Dawkins talk about humorist P. G. Wodehouse.
Towards the end, Brooks contrasts the bloodless prose of Kant and Hegel with Homer. He accurately observes that Homer represents a world of life in a way that the paragons of reasons do not. “It’s not clear to me that reason can stand on its own grounds and refute revelation,” Brooks says.
Brooks is comparing works of fiction with scientific writing, but that’s not the biggest problem with his observation. The problem is conflating the idea of revelation with all the wonderful and terrible things life encompasses. Like Dawkins, I have no time for revelation, yet I sometimes encounter grace. Grace doesn’t need revelation.
This isn’t the only part of the 39 minutes conversation that makes Dawkins look good. His view that we shouldn’t assume that Wodehouse had a larger agenda than making us smile rings true, just as I don’t think most contemporaneous stand-ups care much about politics unless it gets laughs. This doesn’t make them shallow, just as a scientist who doesn’t inject politics into their work isn’t shallow.
Brooks also asks, “I wonder if you might engage in an intellectual exercise with me, which is to evaluate the role of laughter in a godless world.” I found it hard not to guffaw at the way he posed that question. Dawkins wisely refuses to engage in this question or any evolutionary psychology speculations about the origins of humor.
The bigger theme here is that looking for greater principles behind the facts of the world, whether they be grace, Wodehouse’s writing, or the existence of humor more generally, can be a fool’s errand. Scientists like Dawkins recognize this, but it’s a hard truth to accept for other well-meaning people like Brooks.
Nehaveigur 