Article by Gary Z McGee

The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity. ~R.A. Lafferty

A robust character hinges on the Seven Core Virtues (courage, moderation, wisdom, justice, creativity, honor, and humor). This article is about the last and most powerful core virtue: humor. More specifically, high humor.

So how do we attain high humor? By climbing up the ladder of Virtues. From which a healthy character leads to a healthy sense of wonder which leads to a healthy sense of humor. This healthy sense of humor launches us beyond rightness and wrongness, beyond good and evil, beyond self-seriousness and egocentrism and into the open vistas of high humor. It’s rocket fuel for going Meta. And it’s in the metaparadigm where we discover the genius of levity.

Here, we are free to think curiously. To think courageously. To think largely. To think audaciously. To think magically. To think—full stop—rather than merely believe. When we think rather than believe, our thinking becomes sincere rather than serious. It becomes laced with levity, inflicted with irony, pierced with a sense of play. It’s the last and most powerful of the Seven Core Values because it subsumes them all.

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