Louis CK “Why”

Heads up, there is some naughty language in the embedded video.

“Why” is one of my favorite bits by any comedian, ever, let alone among Louis CK’s work. It’s one of the best examples of how the best comedians may not know they’re philosophers, but they sure hit on the same topics. Watch “Why,” for comedy, then watch it with the following things in mind.

1. Except in a few countries (i.e. Germany), you can name your kid literally anything. Yet there is a fairly standard list of popular names, and more often than not, people will invent a new spelling instead of a new name. Names are subject to potent normative pressures and are indicators of the parents relationship to “normal” society, hence kids with non-standard names (Zara, Moon Unit, DeShawn) identify both themselves and their parents as atypical.

2. The impact of a “single” gaze vs a “parent” gaze on how a situation is perceived. The single person sees a shitty parent, the parent sees a shitty kid. Now think about the influence a gaze like that in relation to male/female or scientist/subject. Yeah, things start to seem a bit less objective, eh?

3. Asking “Why” over and over is, in short, what philosophers do. The trick is to figure out how to find something that proves its own veracity. Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, etc. used a fancy version of this technique to try to give philosophy a foundation. That’s right, Louis CK makes “A-not-A” hilarious. The postmodernists, like the Sophists, decided to take Louis CK’s motto for family and apply it to the search for objective philosophical foundations: “fuck it.”