National Catholic Register, Joseph Pearce: Laughter has its place but it can be awkward when it’s out of place. There is, for instance, something decidedly awkward when an audience fails to laugh at the punchline of a joke.
Almost as awkward is when an audience laughs when the speaker is not aware that he has said anything funny. This latter experience happened to me, many years ago, during a talk I was giving in Portugal. I can’t recall the topic of the talk itself but it was probably Tolkien-related because I was addressing the hierarchy of creative value, which is the implicit backdrop to Tolkien’s work. I informed the audience that God the Creator was at the top of this hierarchy; then came Creation, those things made directly by God ex nihilo. Below the Creator and Creation was sub-creation, those things made by men from other things that already exist. I then said that sub-creation itself could be subdivided into two distinct levels within the hierarchy. The higher form was sub-creation in the service of beauty, which is art; the lower form was sub-creation in the service of utilitarianism, which is technology. Read the rest here.
