| dc.description.abstract | Arguably the greatest political pamphleteer and propagandist in American history, Thomas Paine likewise stands as the father of American Freethought and the patron saint of popular anti-biblicism, his Age of Reason taking higher biblical criticism—in the most pejorative sense of the term—from the circles of the European intelligentsia and transposing it into a remarkably resonant populist key. What has largely gone unrecognized in Paine’s religious (and political) polemics is his reliance on the rhetoric of ridicule: the employment of nonsense to buttress so-called common sense, and of irrationality to police the porous borders of reason. As analyzed through the superiority, incongruity, and relief theories of humor, Paine’s ubiquitous rhetoric of ridicule leveraged shame to demean Bible believers along a sociological axis informed by public opinion, and leveraged absurdity to dismiss biblical belief along a philosophical axis informed by Common Sense Realism. Psychologically, meanwhile, humor simultaneously rallied open infidels and emboldened closeted skeptics, even as it allowed erstwhile believers to probe their scriptural assumptions within the safety of the comic frame. Infuriatingly difficult for Christian apologists to combat, Paine’s ridicule could accuse without being blatant, influence without seeming manipulative, and attack without appearing overly antagonistic, all while preserving the possibility of retreating without seeming to surrender. Under the guise of inherent superiority or objective incongruity, the occasional recourse to ridicule obscures the gravity of the contest, conceals the impossibility of an authoritative verdict, and veils the plausibility of opposing arguments, all while shifting the burden of proof from humor’s source to laughter’s target. Especially when deployed in ostensibly rational argumentation over nondemonstrable issues, a proactive, subjective, and normalizing laughter is a marvel of obfuscatory rhetoric, a persuasive approach exemplified in the anti-biblical writings of Thomas Paine. | |
