Writes Rick Rozoff:

From the Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times by the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713).

If Men are forbid to speak their minds seriously on certain Subjects, they will do it ironically. If they are forbid to speak at all upon such Subjects, or if they find it really dangerous to do so; they will then redouble their Disguise, involve themselves in Mysteriousness, and talk so as hardly to be understood, or at least not plainly interpreted, by those who are dispos’d to do ’em a mischief. And thus Raillery is brought more in fashion, and runs into an Extreme. ’Tis the persecuting Spirit has rais’d the bantering one: And want of Liberty may account for want of a true Politeness, and for the Corruption or wrong Use of Pleasantry and Humour.

If in this respect we strain the just measure of what we call Urbanity, and are apt sometimes to take a Buffooning Rustick Air, we may thank the ridiculous Solemnity and sour Humour of our Pedagogues: or rather, they may thank themselves, if they in particular meet with the heaviest of this kind of Treatment. For it will naturally fall heaviest, where the Constraint has been the severest. The greater the Weight is, the bitterer will be the Satire. The higher the Slavery, the more exquisite the Buffoonery.