Of the four types of humor, Screwtape prefers jokes and flippancy. How is it that a joke can be a means of justifying bad behavior?  

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3 thoughts on “The Screwtape Letters | Letter Eleven

  1. Jokes can be funny and beak the ice in a conversation. But, they have a dark side. They can be used as a cover up of a deeper problem. They can also be used to make light of a problem and push it off as a no big deal issue. This can lead one down a treacherous road.

  2. Jokes or flippancy can me a means of making a behavior that is bad into some kind of joke. One can take a bad situation make a joke about it and if not received well the teller can say “too soon?” He knows that his joke is going to be hurtful but masks it by making it into something “funny”.

  3. I once heard it put this way- “How bad can it be if you laugh about it? Surely you must be over exaggerating how detrimental that behavior really is”. Jokes and flippancy can very well be the cheap imitation of joy and fun.

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