Thursday, May 24, 2007

The dying art of humor

A hundred years ago or so, you could laugh at anyone or anything -- a Jewish person, an African-American, a "dwarf," an epileptic, etc.

Yes, we know that wasn't good. Not good at all. Hurtful, hateful and wrong.

Today, however, we have gone so far overboard, we have become so hypersensitive, that I'm afraid some trendy locale will soon pass a law against laughing about anything at all.

I was having a discussion on a certain webgroup the other day about a certain religious holiday. I was asked whether I was relying upon a secular calendar or one provided by Religion XYZ.

Trying to lighten the situation, I noted that my calendar was a secular production and that it featured a nice picture of a tropical frog. Frogs, I stated, are not kosher but they are also non-denominational.

Obviously, it was a joke. An attempt at breaking tension. At least, I thought the joke was obvious. But I was promptly taken to task on the specifics of kosher, etc., etc., by someone so obviously humor-impaired as to probably have cobwebs wrapped around his/her smile.

People like that win no friends for their viewpoints. And they certainly can't be any fun to be around.

1 comment:

Chase March said...

Here’s one for you. I was dating a girl and we went camping together. We went to the swim hole and she lay on her back and floated on the water. She looked so peaceful so I tried to float. I had never been able to float and my attempt was a disaster. I just couldn’t do it. So I said, “I can’t float. I’m too skinny.”

She got mad at me. He stood up, glared at me, and said, “What does that make me?” She automatically assumed the reverse of what I said and thought I was calling her fat.

I was trying to make fun of myself with that comment. It wasn’t the only time that I offended people with a joke and it probably won’t be the last. I think we need to try to regain the “lost sense of humour” because I agree with you, it seems be to dying.