Today the new Adam Smith Institute blog is officially launched. Most of it is political, to the effect that there should be a lot less politics. Strongly agreed.

The nearest thing to a culture-related posting is one by Dr Madsen Pirie entitled Laughing all the way to the market:

Is a sense of humour right-wing? I think it is. I know the BBC uses right-wing to mean simply bad, but I use it to indicate support for a spontaneous society made by the free economic and personal decisions of its members. Left-wing implies support for a more centrally planned society which seeks to reproduce in the world a vision of what some people think society ought to be like.

Left-wingers see how far the world falls short of their ideal, and are impatient to put it right. They are very political, for they see problems to be solved by collective effort. Right-wingers see opportunities for enjoyment and fulfilment by people of all stations, through social interaction and enjoyment of art or nature. They have time for wry comment, irony, and an appreciation of the funny side of things.

I think this is wrong. The claim "humour = right wing" reminds me of the many philosophical reductions of ideology which say things like "moral relativism = leftism" or "natural rights = non-leftism" or "utilitarianism = leftism". The ones that particularly annoy me are the ones that say "libertarianism is based on this philosophy blah blah blah", implying that all libertarians agree about this philosophy (when libertarian me doesn't) and that all who agree about this philosophy are libertarians (which they aren't). That's all rubbish and so is this attempt to create imaginary correspondences between one ideological camp and being humorous.

All ideological camps contain their jokers and their humourless dorks, their open-hearted team players and their bitter and twisted failures and maniacs. Look at all the lunatics who oppose the European Union to see just how crazed "right wingers" can be. (Many of these maniacs are also doctrinaire libertarians. I agree with quite a lot of what these people say, but luckily the triumph of the anti-European cause won't mean us being in any way ruled by these lunatics, the way that the triumph of the pro-European cause does mean us being ruled by those lunatics.)

Part of the problem is that we have here two different definitions of "right-wing" here, to mean (a) relaxed about things having to change and actually being rather happy if they don't change, and (b) a belief that things should change for the better, and that this better should be in a free market direction. Relaxed or even opposed to change versus free market change. Not the same thing.

If right wing means opposed to change, then where does that leave a New Labour supporting grandee like Stephen Fry? He is both (depending on your definitions) left wing in that he supports Labour and despises the Conservatives, and right wing in doing this in a lordly and snobbish and humorous and self-deprecating and self-sending-up way and in wanting left wing rule to continue for ever and not ever to be changed back into Conservative rule. Does Stephen Fry have no sense of humour? The Alternative Comedians were left wing, and funny. And extremely numerous. And also they're getting rather "right wing" and relaxed and content with how things are as they get older.

I have friends who insist that Alternative Comedians are not funny. But if you have a guy at the front of a room telling jokes, and a room full of people listening to those jokes and laughing, you definitely have humour there, even if you don't share it. And by this definition (a behavioural one) there's plenty of left wing humour.

In fact, you could probably lash together a better case than Madsen makes for his thesis to the effect that these days the left has bugger all going for it except humour.

Similar thoughts must have occurred to Madsen while he was writing his first two paragraphs, because the third and final one starts with a U-turn:

Left-wing humour is heavily loaded to satire, and is but another weapon in the unending fight to make the world conform to their ideal. They see too many problems and injustices to allow time out for light-hearted observation on human follies and absurdities. Most right-wingers also want a better life, but even in the world's present, imperfect state, they find space enough for laughter.

The claim that the "right wing" contains no unrelaxed ideologues stressing and straining to make the world conform to their ideal has already been distrousered above. But now we learn that, yes, there is "left wing humour" after all. It's just a bit different. It's humour for ideological fanatics.

But is humour that is bitter and an ideological weapon not humour? Another definition hop. Humour as relaxation from the battle is humour, but "humour" that is part of the battle isn't humour. It's … "satire".

But does the "right wing" have no satirists of left wing folly, no writers who use humour as a weapon in the ideological struggle? No writers who are anxious about the future, deadly serious about trying to improve things, and screemingly funny with all that? Richard "you couldn't make it up" Littlejohn? P. J. O'Rourke?

In my opinion a lot of P. J. O'Rourke's imperfections as a humorist happen when he tries to be too relaxed, too deliberately "homorous". When he says to hell with the jokes, I've actually got something I want to say about this – in other words when he gets serious – that's when his real jokes happen. But when he pulls back from serious and tells a "joke" instead, you cringe at the unfunniness of it. He lacks confidence. I'm not joking. P. J. O'Rourke lacks confidence in his own opinions, and he is frightened of not being as funny, now, as everyone says he is. So he tells a lame joke instead of saying the next satirical, bitter, serious thing he really wants to say that might if taken seriously change the world for the better. And get a huge, huge laugh on account of being so seriously funny.

This posting of Madsen's is a muddle, but it has at least provoked me into some worthwhile ruminations. On balance, therefore, it was a good thing.

Ah, I think I get it. It was a joke.