The humor we need, be it bawdy or witty, is grounded in the substance of real life, in human nature and character. Glibness is quite different. It s determinedly insubstantial, irreverent. Its ultimate meaning is that nothing matters enough to matter. Over almost two decades of largely carefree affluence, it s been an easy attitude to adopt.
Glibness now rings horribly, horribly false.
The magazine Entertainment Weekly long ago moved past flirting with glibness into a steady relationship with it. Seemingly harmless copy was sent back to us with notes like Too flip. The way people think, the way people create, is going to change. Even more marginalized than before, thank God, is the sense that America is fundamentally a bad place. No comedian better personifies the obnoxious nature of glibness than George Carlin.