Transcendence-Finitude Comic Structure
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.52
Lack and Excess > The Jewish Joke
Theoretical move: McGowan argues that the structural condition of Jewish comedy—the intersection of extreme lack (historical exclusion and suffering) with extreme excess (universal dominance of the Jewish God)—is not a cultural peculiarity but the paradigmatic form of comedy as such: every joke is structurally a Jewish joke because comedy always turns on the conjunction of lack and excess.
We create humor within a religion by associating the transcendence of God with the finitude of humanity. When the transcendent reveals itself as weak and finite, we find comedy.