Hi all,

        On Wed, 13 Dec 2000, in the digest, Robert A. Fink wrote:

> ...
> and neither did I object to humor, as long as the "humor" was not
> sexist, racist, ageist, or otherwise inconsiderate of others.  Humor does
> not have to be hurtful to others in order to be "funny" ...

        As  much  as  I  tend  to agree with Dr. Fink, the text quoted
     above reminded me of a passage from one of my favorite books:

        Stranger In a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlen
        Part Three: His Eccentric Education
        Chapter XXIX

        Location: San Francisco Zoo
        Premise: Mike, the human raised by Martians, has never laughed.
        (Read the word "grok" as "understand very thoroughly.")

     ------------------------------------------------------------------

        ...  They  stood in front of a cage containing a family of ca-
     puchins, watching them eat, sleep, court, nurse, groom, and swarm
     aimlessly around, while Jill tossed them peanuts.

        She tossed one to a monk; before he could eat it a larger male
     not only stole his peanut but gave him  a  beating.   The  little
     fellow  made  no  attempt to pursue his tormentor; he pounded his
     knuckles against the floor and  chattered  helpless  rage.   Mike
     watched solemnly.

        Suddenly  the mistreated monkey rushed across the cage, picked
     a monkey still smaller, boweled it over and gave  it  a  drubbing
     worse  than  the  one  he suffered.  The third monk crawled away,
     whimpering. The other monkeys paid no attention.

        Mike  threw  back his head and laughed -- and went on laughing
     uncontrollably ... continued to  chuckle,  laugh  aloud,  chuckle
     again,  while  she wiped his eyes, all the minutes it took to get
     home ...

        ...  "Mike, what happened?"

        "Jill  ...  I grok people! ...  Come here ... put your head on
     my shoulder and tell me a joke."

        "Just tell you a joke?"

        "... Tell me a joke I've never heard and see if I laugh at the
     right place.  I will, I'm sure of it -- and  I'll  tell  you  why
     it's  funny.  Jill ...  I grok people! ...  They laugh because it
     hurts ... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop  hurt-
     ing ... That poor little monk."

        "Which  one,  dear?   I thought that big one was just mean ...
     and the one I flipped the peanut to turned  out  to  be  just  as
     mean.  There certainly wasn't anything funny."

        "Jill  ...  Of  course it wasn't funny; it was tragic.  That's
     why I had to laugh.  I looked at a cageful of monkeys and sudden-
     ly  I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things
     I've seen and heard and read about in the time I've been with  my
     own  people -- and suddenly it hurt so much I found myself laugh-
     ing."

        "But  --  Mike dear, laughing is what you do when something is
     nice ... not when it's  horrid."

        "Is it?  Think back to Las Vegas -- When you girls came out on
     stage, did people laugh?"

        "Well, no."

        "But  you girls were the nicest part of the show.  I grok now,
     that if they  had laughed, you would have been  hurt.   No,  they
     laughed  when  a comic tripped over his feet and fell down ... or
     something else that is not a goodness."

        "But that's not *all* people laugh at."

        "Isn't  it? ... find me something that makes you laugh, sweet-
     heart ... a joke, anything -- but something that gave you a belly
     laugh,  not  a  smile.  Then we'll see if there isn't a wrongness
     somewhere -- and whether you would laugh if the wrongness  wasn't
     there."   He  thought.  "I grok when apes learn to laugh, they'll
     be people."

        ...  Doubtfully  but  earnestly  Jill started digging into her
     memory for jokes that had struck her as irresistably funny,  ones
     which had jerked a laugh out of her:

        "--  her entire bridge club." ... "Should I bow?" ... "Neither
     one, you idiot -- *instead*!" ... "-- the Chinaman  objects"  ...
     "--  broke her leg." ...  "-- make trouble for *me*?" ... "-- but
     it'll spoil the ride  for  me."  ...  "-- and  his  mother-in-law
     fainted."  ...  "Stop  you?  I bet three to one you could do it!"
     ... "-- something has happened to Ole." ... "-- and so  are  you,
     you clumsy ox!"

        She  gave  up  on "funny" stories, pointing out such were just
     fantasies, and tried to recall real incidents.  Practical  jokes?
     All practical jokes supported Mike's thesis, even ones as mild as
     a dribble glass ... What  else?   The  time  Elsa  Mae  lost  her
     panties? It hadn't been funny to Elsa Mae. Or the --

        She said grimly, "Apparently the pratt fall is the peak of all
     humor.  It's not a pretty picture of the human race, Mike."

        "... I  had thought -- I had been told -- that a 'funny' thing
     is a thing of goodness.  It isn't.  Not ever is it funny  to  the
     person  it  happens  to.  ... The goodness is in the laughing.  I
     grok it is a bravery ... and a sharing ... against pain and  sor-
     row and defeat."

        "But -- Mike, it is not a goodness to laugh *at* people."

        "No.   But  I  was  not  laughing at the little monkey.  I was
     laughing at *us*.  People.  And suddenly I knew I was people  and
     could  not  stop  laughing  ...   things that *do* happen on Mars
     which we laugh at here on Earth aren't funny because there is  no
     wrongness about them. Death, for example."

        "Death isn't funny."

        "Then why are there so many jokes about death? ... death is so
     sad that we *must* laugh at it.  All those religions -- they con-
     tradict  each  other  on every other point but each one is filled
     with ways to help people be brave enough even  though  they  know
     they are dying." ...

     ------------------------------------------------------------------

        I'm  not  much of a jokester myself -- I don't laugh a lot.  I
     try to use humor when I teach in the classroom --  I'm  not  very
     good at it; people tell me my humor is dry.

        Every time I read the passage above, I pause to think if I can
     remember something that I thought was funny that didn't contain a
     "wrongness"  somewhere  in it.  I have not been successful.  And,
     for the most part, I tend to agree with the character Mike  above
     in that almost every joke I can think of or that I have heard was
     sexist, racist, ageist, or otherwise inconsiderate of someone  or
     group of others.

        It seems to me that humor almost always is hurtful to someone,
     somewhere, some place, some others, or  something.   And,  it  is
     'funny'  --  it  makes  us laugh -- to help us deal with the pain
     that would otherwise occur.

        Just  some  off-topic  food  for thought.  And, as I have been
     known to say here and in other forums, may  you  always  grok  in
     fullness ...

Bill--
  ...who thinks that life is a yo-yo and mankind ties knots in the string.

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