Possibility of Offense
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.149
Distance and Proximity > The Possibility of Offense
Theoretical move: Comedy requires a paradoxical dual operation of simultaneous identification and distance from its object; neither proximity alone nor distance alone enables comedy, and the possibility of offense — theorized through Kierkegaard's structure of Christian faith — is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for comedy, structurally paralleling the joke's timeliness with the believer's contemporaneousness with Christ.
The possibility of offense is the crossroad, or it is like standing at the crossroad. From the possibility of offense, one turns either to offense or to faith, but one never comes to faith except from the possibility of offense.