Sense of Humor, Sense of Seriousness
One must have a sense of humor and a sense of seriousness to distinguish what is supposed to be taken literally or not. An even more keen sense is needed when humor is used to make a serious point. Psychologists have studied how humor is intended to be taken as having seriousness, as when court jesters used humor to convey serious information. Conversely, when humor is not intended to be taken seriously, bad taste in humor may cross a line after which it is taken seriously, though not intended.
Read more about this topic: Theories Of Humor
Famous quotes containing the words sense of, sense and/or seriousness:
“If you could choose your parents,... we would rather have a mother who felt a sense of guilt—at any rate who felt responsible, and felt that if things went wrong it was probably her fault—we’d rather have that than a mother who immediately turned to an outside thing to explain everything, and said it was due to the thunderstorm last night or some quite outside phenomenon and didn’t take responsibility for anything.”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)
“It’s crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)