In chapters 16 and 17 of 'Heretics', Chesterton discusses humor and people's attitude about it. First of all, he adamantly states that funny is not the opposite of seriousness. "Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to the problem whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or German." Making a joke about something does not imply that one does not take the subject seriously, on the contrary.
Chesterton's next point is how the new 'scientific civilization' tends to destroy the 'democracy or power of the ordinary man'. Specialization is the evil here; Chesterton emphasizes that everyone needs to use frivolity (or dance, or any of his other examples) because it is in the nature of man.
A final Chestertonian observation is made about taking oneself too seriously: only 'third-rate men' take themselves to be superior: "If a man is genuinely superior to his fellows, the first thing he believes is in the equality of man." These men have "too much in them of an ancient laughter even to endure to discuss the difference between the hats of the two men who were both born of a woman, or between the subtly varied cultures of two men who have both to die".
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