Buckley’s Mix

How to Write Satire

It is sometimes thought that satire is no longer possible, as reality has outstripped it. There is nothing left to mock. But there always is something, and nothing is easier to write than satire. Merely find a bad idea, and take it to another level. “We take Gay Pride Month very seriously indeed, here at [...]

American Laughter

Other countries, other laughter. American laughter emphasizes the social bond between joke-teller and listener more than it does the sense of superiority to the butt. Not that I find this in any way attractive, as it expresses an excessive concern about fitting in, about communicating subservience to the joke-teller. Judges know this. When appointed to [...]

The Best Joke in the World

Some years back, after I had written a book about laughter, I appeared on a number of call-in radio shows. Inevitably I’d be asked to tell a joke. I bristled a little at this, as joke-telling seems to me a mark of an inferior wit. But when pressed I would tell what I think the [...]

Analytic Philosophy: A Wittgenstinian Joke

When I talk to natural lawyers, I feel like a man who has been thrown up on a strange beach, where he understands only one in three words spoken to him. One reason for this is that, as an undergraduate, I studied analytic philosophy–the ordinary language philosophy that dominated the philosophy world 40 years ago. Since [...]