Idle thought

It is easy to mock that which we understand well. It is also easy to mock that which we do not understand. Many times people who believe they are doing the former are actually engaged in the latter.

And a quote, on a similar theme...

Only a clever human can make a real joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. 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.

- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters