My debt to Monty Python

Monty Python's comedy sketches are very much a part of my life. Decades ago, when I first began watching them, like so many others, I found them hilarious. However, even though so much time has passed, I continue to draw on their insights in every day life. It has been a long time since I sat down and watched anything by this group, and yet I think about their sketches all the time. While their art was at first an attempt to find humour in life, it seems now for me that much of life tends to imitate the art of Monty Python. It seems that on some days there will be several times that something reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.

I even rely on Monty Python to lighten up my classes from time to time. For example, one aspect of Cultural Anthropology is 'economics', wherein we examine three broad types of exchange, including reciprocity, redistribution, and markets. To show students how price-fixing often works in a face-to-face market system, I show them the following sketch from The Life of Brian. In this sketch, Brian finds himself in a Jerusalem market while trying desperately to escape some pursuing Roman soldiers. Brian stops by a stall to buy a fake moustache and beard, and even though he is desperate, the merchant will not sell anything to Brian until he 'haggles' for it first.



When we cover 'spatial orientations' in Psychological Anthropology, we consider how it is that various cultures perceive individuals in space. Hopi will perceive themselves as a cog in the natural environment, while we in the west see ourselves as individuals in houses, municipalities, states, nation states, continents, planet earth, our solar system, our galaxy, and on and on. To illustrate this really well, Eric Idle sings us the 'Universe Song'.



As discussed in a previous post, in Liberal Studies we cover the Malleus Malificarum, a dark 15th C work that instructs authorities how to find, try in court, and execute witches. In the 'Witch' sketch in The Holy Grail, Monty Python sums up beautifully the absence of logic, the fear, and downright ignorance of people living at a very dark time in western civilization. The logic in this sketch actually has a name: it is called the 'fallacy of the consequent'. In other words, 'A' is 'B', 'B' is like 'C'. Therefore 'A' is 'C'. A witch burns and so does wood, so a witch is made of wood. Wood floats and so does a duck, so wood is like a duck. And so, "If she weighs the same as a duck, she is made of wood, and therefore, a witch!" This logic is not too far off that prescribed by the real life Malleus to find witches.



We also cover the culture of the 'Yanomamo' people of the Brazilian rainforest. Politically, these people arrange themselves in villages that are in constant competetion with other villages. Villages must strike alliances with other villages close to them, or eventually they will come to blows. Often, a smaller village will attempt to strike an alliance with a larger village. When this happens, the smaller village plays down the importance of the alliance, as well as the fact that it needs the alliance more than the larger village. The smaller village will constantly deny its weaknesses while putting up a brave front, continually calling into question the strength of the stronger village. To illustrate this point, we sometimes watch 'The Black Knight' scene from 'The Holy Grail'.



Many, many thanks, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and the late Graham Chapman.