We Smoked the Last One an Hour Ago #2 -- Max Beerbohm

What ails thee, uncle?

Don’t ask AI about political qauestions, but about other things, AI can be charming. Here, my reading of Beerbohm was already largely in accord with the agglomerator’s. I just like the leg up because I don’t trust myself.

My question:

Knowing what you know about Max Beerbohm, here’s a quesiton. In his essay about Bergson’s “Laughter”, he claims he doesn’t understand a word about Bergson or William James, but then he talks of his disdain for philosophy in a way that is almost identical to William James’ careful circumscribing of philosophy. Does he do the same with Bergon’s *Laughter*?

Agglomerator’s response:

Yes, in his essay “Laughter” ( published in And Even Now[I’m in the NYRB compilation] ), Max Beerbohm uses a similar technique of feigned ignorance and ironic disdain to circumscribe Henri Bergson’s theory of laughter, echoing the way he approaches philosophy generally.

The Claim of Ignorance: Beerbohm opens by admitting he has not read Bergson’s famous treatise on laughter until years after its publication, claiming that his “congenital form of procrastination” kept him from it. He plays the role of the amateur, not the philosopher, contrasting his own light, observational style with Bergson’s “profound and rational observations”.

The Rejection of Theory: Just as he sidesteps the heavy, structural nature of philosophy (reminiscent of William James’s pragmatism), Beerbohm rejects the clinical, intellectual, and “logical” definition of laughter proposed by Bergson. Bergson argued that laughter is a social corrective meant to humiliate rigid, machine-like behavior. Beerbohm, instead, focuses on the pure, personal enjoyment of comedy and the sheer absurdity of life.

The Subversion of “Laughter”: Beerbohm ultimately suggests that analyzing “Laughter”—breaking it down intellectually as Bergson does—is a tedious act that destroys the very delight it tries to explain. He turns the essay on “Laughter” into a personal anecdote about a friend’s failed attempt to live as a comic figure, replacing Bergson’s structural theory with his own aesthetic, observational approach.

The New York Times

The New York Times

+2

In essence, Beerbohm uses the essay to celebrate the “divine nonsense” of life while dismissing the need to understand the “why” behind it, treating philosophy as an unnecessary, heavy lens that obscures the simple, comic, and often cruel, truths of human behavior.

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These are familial differences. Bergson, James & Beerbohm are all wordy writers. Beerbohm’s prose is very difficult for me, but it’s not jargon-laced, it’s not trying to be philosophical. His writing shows a committment to what James & Bergson care about deeply?

My next question to the agglomeration wizard would be some question that brings a comparison of Beerbohm’s sense of *getting real* with DH Lawrence’s notion of “the quick”.

And I’m noticing how widespread this Jamesian anti-philosophy and anti-idealism was at the time.

Don’t the Marxists/Feminists/PoMoist people bring back the jargon and the idealism?

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I’ll get back to the DH Lawrence question.

Next question to the agglomerator:

I’ve asked before, but how does pragmatism carry beyond WWI, if it does. How does it carry past WWII, if it does. And do you agree that pragmatism gets lost or hopelessly muddled with the advent of Postmodernism? I’m referring to this broad timeline:

• The founders’ pragmatism
• Lincoln’s actions showing pragmatism at work
• William James & Dewey

Agglomerator responded:

Pragmatism did not end with World War I or World War II; rather, it adapted and evolved from a dominant Progressive Era philosophy into various, often debated, forms. While classical pragmatism (James, Dewey) focused on scientific method, democracy, and tangible results, it later morphed into “neopragmatism”

. Regarding its relationship with Postmodernism, many scholars argue that pragmatism was actually a precursor to it, with classical pragmatists “waiting at the end of the road” that postmodernists later traveled, offering a more robust, active, and less relativistic alternative.

Project MUSE +4

Here is how pragmatism carried through the specified timeline:

Pragmatism Beyond WWI (1918–1939)

• Continued Social Action: John Dewey continued to push his “experimentalist” view of democracy, focusing on education and, with Jane Addams, social work as a pragmatic tool for solving social problems.
• Methodology and Science: George Herbert Mead and others continued to develop pragmatist perspectives on social psychology, focusing on how the self is formed through community, while C.I. Lewis (often considered the “last great pragmatist”) developed a more formal, “conceptualistic” pragmatism in Mind and the World Order (1929).
• Critique of “Cash Value”: Following WWI, critics like Randolph Bourne argued that Deweyan pragmatism had become too accommodating to the state, reducing ideas to mere expediency and failing to articulate new, deeper values.

  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy +4

Pragmatism Past WWII (1945–1970s)

• Temporary Decline (Mid-century): Following the horrors of the Holocaust and the rise of the Cold War, pragmatism lost popularity to Existentialism and Logical Positivism.
• The “Neopragmatist” Turn (1960s-1980s): Pragmatism was revitalized by philosophers like Willard Van Orman Quine and Wilfrid Sellars, who used its anti-foundationalist, experiential roots to critique strict logical positivism.
• Richard Rorty: Rorty emerged as the key figure of this era, shifting pragmatism toward “neopragmatism,” which focused on conversational, anti-authoritarian, and relativistic interpretations of truth.

  Duke University Press +4

Pragmatism and Postmodernism: Lost or Muddled?

It is a common critique that neopragmatism (specifically Rorty’s) became “hopelessly muddled” with postmodernism. However, a strong counter-argument suggests that classical pragmatism is not postmodernism, but rather a better alternative to it.

• The Overlap: Both reject “grand narratives” (Lyotard), foundational truths, and the “spectator theory” of knowledge.
• The Difference: Postmodernists tend to lean toward extreme relativism, deconstruction, and sometimes passivity. Classical pragmatists (Dewey) maintained a belief in “warranted assertibility” (a form of tentative, tested objectivity) and insisted on “experience,” “community,” and action to solve concrete problems.
• “Post-Postmodernism”: Scholars like Larry Hickman argue that Dewey’s pragmatism is actually “post-postmodern” because it already addressed the crisis of authority and subjectivity that postmodernists grapple with, but without abandoning the ability to take action or verify findings.

Summary of Evolution

• Founders/Lincoln: Practical action and “doing.”
• James/Dewey: Truth as “what works” (practical consequences), experimentalism, and democracy.
• Neopragmatism (Rorty): “Truth” as what our peers let us get away with; conversational.
• Contemporary Pragmatism (Hickman, et al.): A return to Deweyan “problem-solving” and “instrumentalism” to handle modern issues like technology, without falling into the “anything goes” trap of some postmodernisms.

Back to me:

I am grateful for whoever pointed out the

“anything goes” trap of some postmodernisms.

That’s what I’m feeling.

Is neo-pragmatism also muddled pragmatism?

That latter day postmodernists consider classic pragmatism a precursor to PoMo is a new one to me because I had dust kicked in my eyes by that “anything goes” aspect.

But it went further than that; didn’t it became hopelessly jargon-ridden?

America is off-course as long as these things are being muddled.

The country’s doomed until we figure out value pluralism again. That may involve finding other words that work around offensive redolences. What’s made the country work gradually became stigmatized in a process of turning things upside-down.