I look to laughter to tell me what the laughed-at will not say. When it's about me, or something that's close to me, then it's even more important, because that's where I look for truth, for what I couldn't otherwise perceive.
I think that that is very true and very worthwhile and that you're very cool to hold that as a creed. But I also think that there are different kinds of laughter. C.S. Lewis has this wonderful bit in The Screwtape Letters about how there are different kinds of laughter, from the Joke Proper to the merriment of good friends (a kind of enjoyment of each other, even when nothing appears actually funny) to flippancy. And he made a good point, I think; that if one is being flippant and cynical, one doesn't have to actually find something that is funny-- one "assumes the joke has already been made," and that anything one says on the subject is worth laughing about. I think that that kind of laughter doesn't have much truth to it-- it's just a means of showing power or anger or fear. And I see that kind of laughter often when people talk about very-geeky-geeks.
So I think that if we're laughing at ourselves-- at our foibles and excesses-- and it's actually funny, then yeah, that's a way of keeping ourselves balanced and in-perspective, and it's very worth doing. But if there's not actually a joke, if there's not actually an unexpected connection or a piece of irony or whatever else jokes are, if it's just a "omg, can you BELIEVE her?", I don't see much value to it.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2005-01-26 06:20 pm (UTC)I think that that is very true and very worthwhile and that you're very cool to hold that as a creed. But I also think that there are different kinds of laughter. C.S. Lewis has this wonderful bit in The Screwtape Letters about how there are different kinds of laughter, from the Joke Proper to the merriment of good friends (a kind of enjoyment of each other, even when nothing appears actually funny) to flippancy. And he made a good point, I think; that if one is being flippant and cynical, one doesn't have to actually find something that is funny-- one "assumes the joke has already been made," and that anything one says on the subject is worth laughing about. I think that that kind of laughter doesn't have much truth to it-- it's just a means of showing power or anger or fear. And I see that kind of laughter often when people talk about very-geeky-geeks.
So I think that if we're laughing at ourselves-- at our foibles and excesses-- and it's actually funny, then yeah, that's a way of keeping ourselves balanced and in-perspective, and it's very worth doing. But if there's not actually a joke, if there's not actually an unexpected connection or a piece of irony or whatever else jokes are, if it's just a "omg, can you BELIEVE her?", I don't see much value to it.