SpongeBob Aquinas
Genuine *Silliness* as the Remedy to Dominant Seriousness Culture
“Your honor, I was just being a little silly.” – Internet meme.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of seriousness.
“Life is serious,” we are told (sometimes by well-meaning folks, sometimes by cranks). “You’ve simply got to take things seriously. And you’ve got to be taken seriously by others. Otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere!”
The propagation of Seriousness Culture begins at home and at school, and then extends to our pastimes.
So-and-so is a serious athlete. Such-and-such is a serious musician. Ever since high school, I’ve aspired to be a serious writer. You know: the kind of wordsmith who delves into the abyss and re-emerges with fountain-penned pages of beauty and wisdom. No banana peels. No ACME rockets. Just timeless truths – like silver apples – plucked from the Garden of Time.
Thank God, there is another side of me that values silliness just as much as seriousness.
Yet until recently, I’ve viewed those two qualities as mutually exclusive, like two opposite ends of a scale. Way over on this end, you have Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. And way over on that end, you have SpongeBob SquarePants.
While I’d love for my own writing to possess the same transcendence of Summa Theologica1, the truth is I’m way closer to Bikini Bottom than 13th Century Naples2. And that’s more than okay.
Seriousness Culture - A Brief History
In previous eras, I’d imagine you (the average townsfolk) really had to separate the silly and serious aspects of your life. This was certainly true for centuries in the vaunted spheres of academia, high commerce, organized religion, and even “the arts” themselves – funded, of course, by organized religion, high commerce, and academia.3
In 20th and 21st Century life, that same full tilt adherence to Seriousness Culture has been kept alive by corporate culture and office culture – themselves descended from the “clerical4” tradition of monasteries, where monks hand-copied the Bible, in silence, by candlelight in scriptoria fitted with desks and inkpots.
Viewed that way, modern return-to-office mandates take on whole new psychological meaning and symbolism: “Be thou at thy desk, and keep thy hand moving.”5
Thankfully, this deep-rooted Seriousness Culture is slowly ebbing, making way for a more even balance between the serious and the silly in our individual and shared existence.
What I Talk About What I Talk About Silliness
Here I want to just make one distinction: I believe that “silly” (in my thinking, anyway) is distinct from: “funny,” “flippant,” “clever,” “satirical,” “sarcastic,” or “goofy.” Specifically, I believe that genuine silliness has a gentle, sincere quality that differentiates it from the other words listed above.
It’s like something Alan Watts6 once said (paraphrasing):
“You can’t say, ‘I love you, darling. I’m serious!’ Because love is not serious. But you can say, ‘I love you, darling. I’m sincere.’”
Silliness has the power to turn seriousness on its own thick head – but it doesn’t do so knowingly, or with any specific, pronged intent.
When I want to be clever, I sort of have to “build up” that cleverness and then deploy it at the right moment. But to be silly, all I have to do is drop whatever is holding me back from organic expression of authentic feeling.
If I had to sum up my concept for a TED Talk, I’d probably put it this way:
“Silliness (as I mean it) can be defined as ‘a relaxed stance or attitude of committed non-seriousness, without concern for its effects or outcomes.’”
Seriousness and silliness have long been culturally siloed, but in fact they are two sides of the same coin – much like the twin masks of tragedy and comedy you see at a theater. Our lives – and our creative works – are most fulfilling when both are present. Even better – when both play into each other.
A black-and-white worldview admonishes us to “pick a lane.” Be silly. Or be serious. But don’t try to be both. However, some of my absolute favorite creative works borne from the union and cooperation of the silly and the serious.
My favorite examples of this, which you’ve probably also seen:
The only thing I can add to these masterful memes is something a family member recently shared: that Tommy Lee Jones is Michael Caine’s equivalent in the Men in Black movie; he treats the aliens as his fellow actors.
Parting Pistolshot
The risk of allowing silliness to play a large role in your life and work, is that over time you might not be taken seriously. But the other side of that coin is this: Live too seriously, and you might not be taken sincerely.
That’s what we’re after, after all, isn’t it? Sincerity - rather than serious, permanent solemnity? A dash (or a heap) of silliness to that end, seems a justifiable and worthwhile tradeoff.
And if you’re feeling, as I have often, a bit stifled by the Seriousness Culture that we have ALL been indoctrinated into - and you’re looking for a way to break out - then let me offer this commandeered quote from another famously silly character:
You can always trust a [serious] man to be [serious]. [Seriously]. It’s the [silly] ones you’ve got to watch out for. You never know when they’ll do something incredibly… [transcendent].
-Captain [Rian] Sparrow
All the best,
Rian
I have never read Summa Theologica, although I once went to a bar near the Dominican House of Studies in D.C. and shared a beer with a guy who was thinking about joining the Dominican Order who claimed he had read the entire thing. I did not in fact fully believe this man.
I had to Google this. I don’t know much about Thomas Aquinas except that his skull recently toured the US, in Fall 2024. But also, there is a second skull in Italy that might really be his. Which is it, Cathol???
Of course there are exceptions as old as time, (ex. Canterbury Tales, if you ever had to take English Lit in HS).
This is where we get the modern words “clerk” and “clerical.” I learned this from a good episode of The Blindboy Podcast where he discussed the history of the color beige.
I made this quote up, but doesn’t it sound just like something a busybody 12th Century Abbot would have tut-tutted over your shoulder one freezing predawn at some windblown abbey? (Thanks,
at Ye Olde Tyme News, for teaching me how to scrive Olde Englishe)Alan Watts and I do not agree on all things but I appreciate many of his insights into human nature and the human condition.
Discussion
Can you relate to Seriousness Culture? How do you see it / feel it / deal with it? What does silliness mean to you? Who are some leading voices in the Silliness Movement we should all know about?
Comment and let us know!