PMP#17: Comedy as Philosophy w/ Daniel Lobell

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Are stand-up comedians the Modern Day Philosophers? This claim forms the premise of Daniel’s podcast where interviews some of our best known and loved comedians, but really, only some comedians are trying to express original views on the world instead of just telling a good joke. Even so, do the words of comics telling their truth or pronouncing sentence on the world count as philosophy?  Does telling the whole truth (instead of a funny one-side or exaggerated take on truth) rule out being funny? 

We consider questions of authenticity and offensive humor.  We look at how philosophers and comics can use some of the same communicative tools like inventing new words, irony, and auto-biography. We touch on Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Hannah Gadsby, George Carlin, Emo Phillips, Rodney Dangerfield, Louis CK, Between Two Ferns, Berkeley, Socrates, Kierkegaard, Pirsig, and more.

A few sources:

• “Hannah Gadsby: If Political Correctness Can Kill Comedy, It’s Already Dead” from NPR’s All Things Considered
• “Comedians Are Our Modern Day Philosophers” by Dana Espinosa
• And here’s a Quora discussion on the topic 

Danny’s podcast is called Modern Day Philosophers; he’s interviewed Bill Burr, Marc Maron, Maria Bamford, Bob Goldthwait, Maria Bamford, Lewis Black, Fred Armisen, Carl Reiner, Aisha Tyler, Jackie Mason, Reggie Watts, Mayim Bialik, and many others. Find it at moderndayphilosophers.net. Learn about his auto-biographical comic book, Fair Enough, at fairenoughcomic.com. You can watch his stand-up and other stuff at dannylobell.com.

And of course you know about Mark’s other podcast The Partially Examined Life where there’s a discussion on every philosopher mentioned here, right? 

This episode includes bonus discussion (including some out-takes from the interview where we got too off-topic) that you can only hear by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

Sponsor: Visit Keeps.com/EXAMINED for a free month of hair loss treatment.