From: The Low Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Dec 26 1996 - 17:04:46 MST
On Dec 26, 2:17pm, "Lee Daniel Crocker" wrote:
} EY> I see the Holocaust as a horrendous tragedy, and if someone
} EY> smaller than me made a joke about it, I'd punch his lights out.
} than a spoof like _Springtime for Hitler_. It is precisely such
} unhealthy emotional attachment to certain ideas--"sacred cows"--
} that closes otherwise functional minds to different ideas. Humor
} is a valuable tool, because much of what is funny is funny because
Ah, but Eliezer is an Algernon, and the price paid for what superior
function he possesses is the tool of humor. The perils of the Beyond...
} are allowing an indefinable abstraction like "taste" cloud their
} rational values, and they are willfully evading reality, because
} they usually have to suppress their natural urge to laugh at things
Laughing is a rational value? I don't think people who refuse to laugh
at things are always suppressing their urges; I think they generally
don't see a joke. Especially if they have a strong offense reflex.
I should refute the attack on "taste" above, but I don't feel like it.
} If you can't make fun of yourself, your mind will never grow.
On the other hand, reading a lot of C.J. Cherryh and imagining a
firearms instructor has I think given me more empathy with the
humorlessness of security guards on duty. Humor is often something
being out of place, but in Security something out of place can kill you.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
Dance, dance, dance with me
Round and round the greenwood tree.
Dance, dance, while you may,
Tomorrow is your dying day
Dance with me!
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