Thanks for all the replies. As I said in the post, I also don’t think Adams is completely serious. Here is the weaker version of his argument that I find interesting: if someone can make you (or maybe other rational/informed people) laugh at your beliefs, should that cause you to reassess your level of certainty in those beliefs?
In other words, I don’t think Adams really believes that someone “successfully” mocking your opinions automatically makes them false—but he’s asserting at least some connection between this kind of humor and truth. Which feels right to me, though I can’t really articulate it any better than he did.
Or maybe it’s more of a connection to self-deception—the easier it is to laugh at your own beliefs, the more likely they are to be somehow insincere, regardless of their truth or falsehood.
Most of the time when I see someone (myself included) mock their own beliefs, it translates to “yes, I’m not an idiot—I understand that these are low-status. That said,”
As other commenters have said, mockery is mainly a status game and the funny thing is to lower the status of the mocked person (“only an idiot can believe such silly nonsense”). The success of mockery relies upon speaker’s rhetorical qualities and opinions (often read: prejudices) of the audience. I almost think that these are the only things it relies upon while truth of the belief doesn’t matter.
As for the weaker version, it is damned difficult to laugh at one’s own beliefs, no matter how false they are. I even suspect that the correlation is opposite: if one’s beliefs are well founded, one may feel more comfortable making fun of them, because one is certain that the humor doesn’t threaten the beliefs which are part of one’s perceived identity.
Thanks for all the replies. As I said in the post, I also don’t think Adams is completely serious. Here is the weaker version of his argument that I find interesting: if someone can make you (or maybe other rational/informed people) laugh at your beliefs, should that cause you to reassess your level of certainty in those beliefs?
In other words, I don’t think Adams really believes that someone “successfully” mocking your opinions automatically makes them false—but he’s asserting at least some connection between this kind of humor and truth. Which feels right to me, though I can’t really articulate it any better than he did.
Or maybe it’s more of a connection to self-deception—the easier it is to laugh at your own beliefs, the more likely they are to be somehow insincere, regardless of their truth or falsehood.
Most of the time when I see someone (myself included) mock their own beliefs, it translates to “yes, I’m not an idiot—I understand that these are low-status. That said,”
As other commenters have said, mockery is mainly a status game and the funny thing is to lower the status of the mocked person (“only an idiot can believe such silly nonsense”). The success of mockery relies upon speaker’s rhetorical qualities and opinions (often read: prejudices) of the audience. I almost think that these are the only things it relies upon while truth of the belief doesn’t matter.
As for the weaker version, it is damned difficult to laugh at one’s own beliefs, no matter how false they are. I even suspect that the correlation is opposite: if one’s beliefs are well founded, one may feel more comfortable making fun of them, because one is certain that the humor doesn’t threaten the beliefs which are part of one’s perceived identity.
If it’s a belief you’ve previously thought of as obvious and left unexamined, then this is probably a useful heuristic. Otherwise, no.