Laughter 3. For Good

In High School, my english teacher took me aside and told me that I was very funny.  He taught a class on comedy, and was generally respected as a very funny person, as well as the best teacher anyone would ever have.  I mentioned that, in some zine or other, I had copied Swift’s essay on baby-skins.  But Swift, he said, used comedy for good.  He esteemed that I could easily be as funny as Swift–but that I was being childish and irresponsible.  Typically, I can only remember how I paraphrased him later to my Father, in my Father’s voice, quoting Spiderman: “…to use my superpowers for good.”  I remember that I said I didn’t believe in good, but lately had been warming up to it as I realized that critique of “belief in good” was itself founded on belief.  He replied that he was sympathetic to such an existentialist viewpoint, but was, “You know me–,” himself was a Marxist-Leninist.