Ok ok, it's all water under the bridge.
(((Group Hug))))
Thanks for that series of very good posts, Chris.
chris56789 wrote:Reyn wrote:Where do YOU draw the "line" about what is in good taste to laugh about?
So where do we draw the line on ethics or morals? We can't. Why? Because their is no complete or concrete definition how every person views it in life.
As you can see from my quote, the question wasn't about ethics or morals. It was about what limits is there to what some will laugh at what is supposed to be "funny".
No doubt you're right. There will be those who would find people imitating Jews dying in gas chambers full of hilarity.
It's a sad day for humanity....
I wish the comparison with the Holocaust would stop being made. It shows a total lack of sense of proportion. As such I consider it at least as much in bad taste as that crazy page on 'doing the Schiavo'.
I mean, come on. On the one hand we have the fate of a lady who hasnt been able to feel or think in a decade, and whose wish, according to the Court's weighing of available evidence, was to have been let to die in such circumstance. Her story was blown up into a veritable tragicomedy of media frenzy, political posturing and blogosphere conspiracy theories. I am using the word "tragicomedy" on purpose. There was most definitely an element of the farcical in the surreal media-political circus surrounding the Schiavo case. Conversely, I can't imagine anyone finding the tragicomical in the Holocaust (though I suppose "La Vita e Bella" tried).
nimh wrote:I wish the comparison with the Holocaust would stop being made. It shows a total lack of sense of proportion. As such I consider it at least as much in bad taste as that crazy page on 'doing the Schiavo'.
The example I picked was obviously an extreme one. The question was, "Where do YOU draw the "line" about what is in good taste to laugh about?"
With some, apparently anything can be considered funny.
chris56789 wrote:So where do we draw the line on ethics or morals? We can't. Why? Because their is no complete or concrete definition how every person views it in life.
Again, I thought it would have been obvious to anybody that my extreme example should have brought responses like, "Don't be silly. Of course nobody would find that funny." I haven't seen anything like that yet.
You talk about total lack of sense of proportion. Why? You think that it is "okay" because we are just talking about one person? After all, who is she, right?
What happens to one, happens to all of us. It is a sickness in our society. Lack of empathy for our fellow human beings.
I'm done here. I've made my point and won't be making any further counter-posts.
A friend of mine was on a train that hit and killed a lady. He was a bit shaken up and dwelling rather philosophically on it. At one point he mused "I wonder what the last thing to go through her head was"...
I couldn't resist, I said "the wheel of the train". Half of the people with me laughed then looked disgusted at me. The other half just looked disgusted at me.
So sue me, I find the world funny. Your pain, my pain, starving people in Africa, wars, disease and most of all religion. I pity the poor person who takes the world seriously.
Life is too serious to be taken seriously.
Incidentally I can think up some really funny jokes about jewish people in gas chambers... however I'm sensitive enough to not say them. Doesn't mean I don't think them and/or find them funny.
Oh boy! Don't get me started again!
Montana wrote:Oh boy! Don't get me started again!
Mont, I've caught your posts around here and there. I like you and I'm not saying this to antagonise you any more than my previous post was to antagonise you.
You made your point of view clear, something I hadn't had the chance to do. So I shared my opinion on the topic. Don't take it as an attack, it's not meant that way. Yes, you disagree with me. I appreciate that. Does it mean I don't have a right to state my opinion?
I think the world should be laughed at. I don't usually make fun of people to their faces (well, not without reason), but that doesn't stop me making jokes about things other people might think are too sacred or taboo to be touched.
I do respect your opinion as well, watchmaker, I just think I better run and hide on this subject ;-)
Somebody once said,I forget who, that if you read the death of Little Nell scene in Dickens without laughing you have no sense of humour.
Again, where we draw the line, no one can define. The holocaust is an extreme case. Should we laugh at that, no. Can we laugh at that? Yah. Some people like getting whipped during sex. The things I've seen on the internet I've come across in my time would have shocked me before I ever got a computer. The computer has desensitized us to so many things, even tv and movies couldn't reach. This could be part of the reason for some of the giggles.
Their are more people who die every single day in the entire world than the whole holocaust. So many people die each minute that passes by. It took me around a minute or two to write this far, hundreds of people have just died in the world, maybe thousands, but at the same time around as many are having intercourse and getting pregnant.
I've looked at dead pics of Tsunami victims(the hard to find ones), their was one guy laying dead, but his penis was stiff, standing straight up (because a body turns rigamortest(sp) or stiff after it dies), and someone sent me that pic and pointed that out to me, and I was sickened, but giggled at what he was focusing on.
That doesn't make me a bad person. If the tsunami hit, and I was there with that guy and I saw him in trouble, and if I thought I could help him and could get us both out of trouble, I would have helped him.
A lot of people can laugh at anything, if they can transform it into a parody. Again, it all comes down to each person reacting to it in a way to best deal with it in their own mind I think.
Or maybe......
some people out there laugh at things they feel it shouldn't be laughed at just so their "ego" can be defended or even boosted. What happens is that the "ego" tells the brain, "this event won't break me even if I know it could happen to me, so I refuse to be sad or afraid, instead, I'll laugh at it."
chris56789 wrote:
Or maybe......
some people out there laugh at things they feel it shouldn't be laughed at just so their "ego" can be defended or even boosted. What happens is that the "ego" tells the brain, "this event won't break me even if I know it could happen to me, so I refuse to be sad or afraid, instead, I'll laugh at it."
I think that this is a huge factor, chris. I definitely agree with this. I think people don't want to be afraid or sad so they laugh to cover it up and deny that the possibility of such a thing can happen to them.
Bella Dea wrote:I think people don't want to be afraid or sad so they laugh to cover it up and deny that the possibility of such a thing can happen to them.
Or perhaps they just find it funny?
Our world, for all its humour, discourages laughter and amusement. I've seen the funny side of the world my entire life and outside of a few rare and specialised occasions people look down on laughter and humour. We are taught to treat so many things as sacredly "beyond humour".
watchmakers guidedog wrote:
Or perhaps they just find it funny?
This would indicate that people are insensitive and heartless. At least when it comes to major issues concerning humanity.
I think some people are but most are just scared because not one of us really knows what is going to happen to us.
Bella Dea wrote:This would indicate that people are insensitive and heartless.
Oh pish posh and nonsense, get over your self-righteousness. I care for the plight of starving children and donate money (when I can afford it) to help feed them, yet when I hear the "what do Yoko Ono and Ethiopians have in common?" joke I can't help but laugh, it's a good funny joke.
The world and our minds aren't a single line with fear and love at each end or anything approaching the psycho-babble that confronts us on talkshow programs. We can laugh without being scared or heartless... some of us just have a sense of humour that includes the sacred cows of others.
Maybe you think we're bastards, but that's an individual judgement call and really more of an aesthetic point than anything else.
Quote:because not one of us really knows what is going to happen to us.
As much as my previous paragraph was dedicated the complexity of psychology as a field alone, the universe is really not the confusing and overwhelming place that some of us seem to find it to be.
Life can be quite simple if you let it.
watchmakers guidedog wrote:
Bella Dea wrote:This would indicate that people are insensitive and heartless.
Oh pish posh and nonsense, get over your self-righteousness. I care for the plight of starving children and donate money (when I can afford it) to help feed them, yet when I hear the "what do Yoko Ono and Ethiopians have in common?" joke I can't help but laugh, it's a good funny joke.
Haven't heard it so don't know if it's funny or not. And I am in no way being self-righteous. If anyone is, it's you.
watchmakers guidedog wrote:
The world and our minds aren't a single line with fear and love at each end or anything approaching the psycho-babble that confronts us on talkshow programs. We can laugh without being scared or heartless... some of us just have a sense of humour that includes the sacred cows of others.
Maybe you think we're bastards, but that's an individual judgement call and really more of an aesthetic point than anything else.
You didn't quote the rest of what I had to say. I think that it changes the context of my statement.
"At least when it comes to major issues concerning humanity. " You wouldn't bust out laughing at a starving child. At least I hope you wouldn't.
"Hey, look at that kid....his belly looks like he's pregnant! That is so f'ing funny!!!" I highly doubt anyone with a heart or a brain in their head would say that. But I could be wrong.
watchmakers guidedog wrote:
Quote:because not one of us really knows what is going to happen to us.
As much as my previous paragraph was dedicated the complexity of psychology as a field alone, the universe is really not the confusing and overwhelming place that some of us seem to find it to be.
Life can be quite simple if you let it.
I do think life is simple. As simple as we are humans and have no clue what's going on. We are all more alike than most people want to believe. And to say that you are not the least bit confused when it comes to the world is to lie.
