John Ramsey was one of the smartest comedic dudes around when I lived in Austin Texas 10 years ago. I came across this bit embedded below about monogamy from him. Really great.

It seems to make sense to sometimes look to the animal kingdom as a way to support or discredit certain human social structures or norms. Ramsey makes what I think is a good argument here on why this argument doesn’t work. The ability for man to override our basest animal impulses is what makes us capable of so much great stuff!

It’s also clever how he ends up getting an audience to digest, and likely agree with, a conservative perspective with laughter instead of preachiness.

T.J. Miller said that comics are actually modern day preachers. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Preachers / ministers are still around and doing their jobs. That said, one reason smart comedy like John’s is powerful because most people on the planet, regardless of religion or race, like a good joke so they’ll let the words of a comedian in and keep listening if he’s funny. At the same time, People will not give a religious representative for a religion or philosophy they don’t know about or ascribe to much of a chance at all. So the comedian has a much wider possible  audience. This is powerful. And then making people laugh establishes some trust. It’s disarming. So if you’re not overtly religious or ideological in a way that will make people put up their guard then you’re able to wiggle into their head and maybe make them think harder about something believe in without them shutting off.

Or just tell fart jokes. Those also work.

Footnote 1: M. Scott Peck in “The Road Less Traveled” (I think it’s Peck. It’s either in Peck’s famous older book or in Dalio’s new “Princples” … I have been reading both lately and can’t find it now but wanted to document either way that I remembered this) writes about how some “tradition” is actually the result of centuries of men trying different systems and that while some tradition should be questioned or has become outdated, some has been implemented for good reason and I think his thoughts on this relate to the topic of marriage.

Footnote 2: The commentary series John did with his brother many years ago over old home movies is genius! Check out the most popular one below.