Light On Dark Water

I started to add this to the comments on the previous post, in which Dave refers to “glum” conservatives, then amends that to “pessimistic,” but I thought it deserved the visibility of its own post. It’s true that we conservatives have a somewhat pessimistic view of things in general and of human beings in particular; it’s not true that we’re glum or humorless. On the contrary, a certain amount of pessimism can free one to laugh.

This item, from the New York Times, of all places, points to some studies which indicate that conservatives might actually in general have a better sense of humor than liberals—an amusing thought.

And I’m often reminded, on this subject, of the closing lines of Yeats’s “Lapis Lazuli”:

There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

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