Flippancy

I enjoyed reading The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis recently. I lot of challenging stuff. I was particularly challenged by his discussion in letter 11 of the four causes of human laughter ('Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy'). Screwtape identifies flippancy as the most likely to lead people to damnation. It is something I suffer from, and I found his description of it quite brilliant:

Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy: it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it