Does slipping on a banana peel and falling on your head still get a laugh? Exactly what kind of person does the laughing? Someone you love? Are you laughing together? I'm wondering about the perverse joy some people get watching as someone else, for a moment, looses control of their bodies, emotions or body in public. A entire entertainment industry is built around spin offs of American Home Video type shows. Every Hollywood movie seems to have a scene of the male lead getting hit in the balls. We wait on the edge of chairs for Britney to break down again, so we can get tons of amusement and reinforce to each other just how well we have it together. What a bunch of bullshiters we are. How can a person sit at his computer terminal in Arizona, control a drone through satellite, and bomb innocent people half war around the world? Go home and have dinner with the wife and kids, just another day at the office. He didn't kill, the robot did. This society promotes separating yourself completely, emotions especially, from all other human beings, at the same time pushing Family First ideology. Our minds have collectively been compartmentalized starting from youth education. Prejudices are strengthened by language as we get older. This sick strain in our psyche is not innate and can be abolished, and returning our minds to its natural compassionate state takes self work and recognition of it is painful. It threatens the State and its' junior partner, Organized Religion. Breaking free of conditioned responses with disciplined expanded consciousness has never been readily understood and has often been punished most brutally by the powers that be. I see this as my path. I've battled the structures and the people in them. I can't change others minds, only my own. More forgiveness and compassion has made me a happier person. I will continue as best I can to live a more humane life.
This comment is years late to a closed blog, but heck, why not.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that laughter directed at simple physical humor, like this:
"I'm wondering about the perverse joy some people get watching as someone else, for a moment, looses control of their bodies... in public. A entire entertainment industry is built around spin offs of American Home Video type shows. Every Hollywood movie seems to have a scene of the male lead getting hit in the balls. "
was more of a way of saying "You're okay, we're okay." When my friend trips, I'm looking first to see if they're alright. If they're not, I don't laugh.
If they are, I laugh. I laugh at this strange thing that has happened. (Why did they trip now? What are the chances?!) I laugh to see if they laugh and confirm that they are okay. I laugh from relief.
I specifically left out the "emotion" part in that quote because when a slip-up occurs there, it's usually never "okay".
But it can be hard for people to separate this from laughing at someone for being "inferior" or "stupid", etc.
I definitely respect your decision to steer clear of the line entirely. That takes something strong that I don't have.