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Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

George Carlin should be studied, translated and dubbed in every possible language.

The better stand-up comedians are hard to distinguish from philosophers. Carlin is right up there. It's a pity he's gone, we kind of need him right now.

Note that the opposite can also be true: some philosophers can also be good comedians (in spite of the general stereotype that all philosophers are excruciatingly boring and dry, which can partially be attributed to the proliferation of analytic philosophy.)

For example Slavoj Zizek has a whole book dedicated to cataloguing his (often "politically incorrect") jokes. Link here: https://meydanehonar.com/Panel/Uploads/6/3/7/8d1a8c61-47d2-4...

Fun fact: In German the words for knowledge ('Wissen') and wit/joke ('Witz') share the same root.

It's fun, and they share the two first letters but it's not a fact:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wissen#German

From Middle High German and Old High German wizzan, from Proto-West Germanic witan, from Proto-Germanic witaną, from Proto-Indo-European wóyde (“to see, to know”).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Witz#Etymology

From Middle High German witz, from Old High German wizzi, from Proto-West Germanic witi, from Proto-Germanic witją from Proto-Indo-European weyd- (“see, know”).

Cognate to English wit, archaic Dutch wit, akin to Old Saxon giwit.

So they share the same concepts ('to see, to know') but not the same roots! Very closely related though.

Then you click on wóyde and see that it's the

> Root stative of the root *weyd-.

Thanks for sharing this! Zizek is extremely engaging but I wish he would be more perscriptive than just descriptive.

Thank you. This is why I keep coming back here. I would not have stumbled on it on my own. It hits quite hard for me.

He would have had a field day if he was alive. It is a loss for all of us that he is gone.

Still, we now have Chapelle, who is building similiar legacy and potentially Bill Burr one day.

Absolute agreement on the philosopher/jester vibes.

Dave Chappelle is the most overrated standup comedian in the world right now. He was funny before he left. He shouldn't have come back. He is now a cheap reactionary. He is not even in the same league as George Carlin.

Carlin was always a cheap reactionary. we are just a generation past what he was reacting to

They're not even in the same sport, let alone the same league.

Not yet, but if you watch early Carlin it is the same pattern:

1. initially safe,sanitized corporate friendly jokes 2. some commercial success 3. ? 4. jokes increasingly become a social commentary and are less and less 'friendly'

I remember early Carlin and he pushed the legal limits of radio and TV broadcast from the start. AFAIK he was also the first to cross the lines with the "7 words" one can not say on that industry. He was always providing commentary on society but what I noticed was that his views got darker and more jaded with time. He started off using his knowledge of language to be rebellious and edgy, then delving more into self analysis tearing himself apart for self deprecating routines then eventually teasing and tearing society apart.

No one ever seems to remember Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce was in the same league as Carlin. Carlin's seven dirty words was straight from one of Bruce's routines.

Hmm. My point is that Carlin did not start with 7 words. That is what he is famous for, but he didn't magically show up that day to recors that line out of the blue.

I am too lazy to dig it up now, but youtube has multiple interviews that go over that stage of his life.

Yeah I am not saying he started with the 7 words either, rather he was always one of the first to push the limits as the limits evolved. There were other taboos crossed prior to him.

"I Love Lucy" was the first TV show to say "Pregnant". "Bewitched" filmed Samantha wearing almost see through evening wear but television was such grainy low resolution analog broadcast that the audience was unaware. The remastered DVD's make that more obvious now. There are many other lines that in hind sight seem odd now. Benny Hill crossed a few lines and managed to get nudity allowed on TV when it was otherwise forbidden.

Not disagreeing, but since society was evolving as well, it seems more like Carlin was pushing whatever the current boundary was at the time. When he pushed and society gave a bit, he pushed more.

Trying to start his career with The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television would have clearly been a ... non-starter.

That's mostly the timeframe of his career. It doesn't put jerks at his level.

3. shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits

For anyone wondering, these are the seven words you can’t say on TV (or couldn’t in 1970?) and the actual monologue about them is insightful and eloquent.

This is just the punchline without the setup.

I figured in a thread about George Carlin most people would at least get the hint, and also it marked a pretty important point in his career between family friendly comedian and counter-culture icon

" ...and tits doesn't even sound like a swear word. It sounds like something you should eat.

Try new cheese-tits! Bet you can't eat just one"

R.I.P. George

Carlin and safe, sanitized corporate friendly jokes never happened. If anything he became less intentionally rude over time.

I watched the complete Carlin HBO specials about five years ago, from the 1970s up to the last one he did, and they are very anodyne at the beginning. Having watched a few documentaries about his career, they don't necessarily reflect the risks he was taking live sometimes; but really, if you watch those specials, he seems to evolve from a tediously corporate comedian into a hilarious and unstoppable force of nature. So I can understand how people would have the perception that he started out generic, as that was what the public saw in popular output he made.

Isn’t that how he started, before the hippy dippy weatherman?

Dave Chappelle walked away from money out of principle when it came to making jokes about people like him for white audiences, but happily cracks jokes about trans people. He's a has-been and a hypocrite and Carlin would end his career.

What's wrong with making jokes about trans people? Christians never seem to get bothered when people make jokes about them. Not like Jews or Muslims, especially since October 7th Maybe Jews and Muslims and Trans people should be more like Christians. When someone is making a joke at your expense, turn the other cheek

Right?

What is this thing about some groups being "off limits" while others are fetishized and babied?

There's no longer anything "brave" in making a joke about a "safe group" to joke about.

In today's day and age since trans is the new sacred cow amongst certain crowds in the Western world, it seems natural that that would be the subject of jokes.

Disagree, but can you substantiate hypocrite claim? Also cancellation chance seems to depend on how 'big' you are. Chapelle wasn't cancelled despite attempts. I suspect Carlin would get in trouble, but since he had a strong following, it is hardly a given.

Refused to make jokes at the expense of one marginalized and vulnerable group he's part of, makes jokes at the expense of another he isn't. That's hypocrisy. The motivation to walk away was self-interested, not principled.

Bill Burr is talented, he definitely has wit, but has gone in such a crusade against feminism that he is almost not funny anymore, just a angry man.

I personally love Louie C.K, he is really at showing our social boundaries, pushing us to the limits, the weirdness of them, without trying to push a narrative on how other people are just stupid.

Sort of agree. I'm a contrarian though that feels like Carlin got less funny the older and angrier he got.

His cynicism was beautiful, but he seemed to dropped using humor to deliver it toward the end.

I've long argued that Nietzsche is actually a comedian. Agree or not with his ideas, he is hysterically funny, in this smart and subtle way, a lot like George Carlin.

> The better stand-up comedians are hard to distinguish from philosophers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZ3bu23BMA

Carlin has only ever been a "philosopher" to juveniles. He was right on corporate America and the American war machine, but he was a self-loathing misanthrope and nihilist

Nihilism and misanthropy are valid philosophical positions though.

No doubt but he's a comedian, not a philosopher. Carlin's crusty curmudgeon personality never did much for me. I'm an atheist but his whole anti religion shtick really turned me off.

I recommend consulting his early/middle material... 1967–1990 maybe. You're only really referring to his last 10–15 years or so.

Unpopular opinion: much of what he said was just total bs. Even in an example from this article, he goes on a tangent about phrases that were not used then and still are not used. "They're not used cars, they're 'previously owned automobiles.'" What? Nobody calls them that, even today, 30 some odd years later.

In my opinion, George Carlin sometimes had some kernel of good observation at the heart of his bits, that he made worse and less correct the more he pontificated on it. And a lot of his observations are the kind of "common sense" folk wisdom that falls apart on closer inspection.

"Previously owned automobiles" just got shortened to "pre-owned" and that's all over the place today, and I daresay it's seeped into things other than cars.

Upcycled is the latest, including upcycled food https://www.upcycledfood.org/

If you are advocating for "used food" as the correct term, there's another state that food enters after it's been used that you might want to be careful about disambiguating :).

And “pre-loved” for things like used clothing …

What? Pre-owned is widely used by dealers and manufacturers

I think his best work was his earliest, such as "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television". But ultimately I think his best routine is "Football vs. Baseball" (American football)

"""Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out. ...

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!"""

It is not that unpopular. I suppose I appreciate his contributions a lot, but I agree about the kernel of truth approach rather than holy gospel.

I just happen to think he forced a lot of people to think. This one of those things some of his contemporaries tried and failed to do ( not for the lack of trying, it is hard to care after certain point ).

he gave simple-minded people comfort for an increasingly complicated world. But notably absent from his calculated monlogue was "grandma went to heaven / (in a better place)", vs "she DIED". even crusty old George knew how far he could push it.

He did say he would never die, just "pass away."

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