the absurd

November 3, 2012 11:13 AM

Please give me examples of absurdity in the world, or evidence that the world is genuinely absurd.

Examples could include artefacts, social practices or natural phenomena. They should not merely be unusual or random. It will help if you can explain why the thing you think is absurd is so. I do not want fictional examples, but examples where a comic has pointed out the (true) absurdity would be helpful. My ultimate goal is to see if it there are cases where it is correct or most appropriate to take a comic perspective on things.

posted by leibniz to Religion & Philosophy (11 answers total)

You might need to define your terms here. I can think if several absurd things that are not in the least comic.
posted by rtha at 11:18 AM on November 3, 2012

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but comedian Brian Regan points out the absurdity (and danger) of ironing boards. Here's the bit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ml3OIvoKs
posted by Sassyfras at 11:22 AM on November 3, 2012

If you fill a manger with grain, and put a horse in front of it, the horse will eat itself to death. It's known as "foundering" and it's because the horse's wild diet is grass and leaves, so it's evolved to stuff itself because the nutrition level is poor. Grain is a lot more nutritive, but even worse, grain in the horse's belly will absorb water and swell, and the horse's stomach can burst. That kills the animal.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:25 AM on November 3, 2012

Absurd Warning Labels
posted by Xurando at 11:25 AM on November 3, 2012

The ancient notion of akrasia has struck most people throughout history (philosophers, theologians, whoever) as being absurd, and much energy has been expended to try and explain why this is a feature of human existence. Namely, that we often feel unable to do what we know to be in our best self-interest; and we often choose, sometimes in a very self-aware fashion, what we know not to be in our self-interest. There have been efforts to resolve this conundrum, at least conceptually. But the fact that we still often do this, even if we think we understand it, strikes me as the epitome of absurd.

That being said, I think it can also be the source of much humor. At least, in terms of not always taking ourselves too seriously in this regard if we have hope of surviving an honest assessment of our shortcomings.
posted by SpacemanStix at 11:26 AM on November 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do you mean absurd in the sense of self-contradictory?
Or absurd in the sense of treating things as meaningful when they are meaningless?
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:27 AM on November 3, 2012

Th habit of saying "bless you" when someone sneezes. That struck me as absurd recently. It would be hard to get people to not do it.
posted by vitabellosi at 11:28 AM on November 3, 2012

Well, the concept of marriage comes to mind.
posted by Fister Roboto at 11:28 AM on November 3, 2012

Supporting right to life and the death penalty at the same time.
posted by Xurando at 11:32 AM on November 3, 2012

Response by poster: What it means for something to be 'absurd' is up for grabs. It need not necessarily be comic, or self-contradictory, or meaningless. One way you might get a handle on it is by considering that if the universe has followed deterministic physical laws since the big bang, and yet that exists, clearly something is fundamentally absurd about the world.
posted by leibniz at 11:36 AM on November 3, 2012

Entropy.
posted by dekathelon at 11:38 AM on November 3, 2012