I went to bed last night still thinking about this--about why it bothered me so much. I compared this to the burning bed scenario, which I wasn't upset about at all. Why was this different? I realized that-- I really don't care about the guy--he's a jerk. Nor do I care about the women--they're stupid. I care more about people thinking it's funny. I
understand why people laugh at such things--I just don't
like it.
I just have a "Thing" about people being mean, petty, and cruel. Of course, I don't have as much of a problem with being shallow, selfish, and lazy.
And my last word on the subject-- if you didn't recognize the chimp reference, here's my foundation: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. (I've often said I read too much Heinlein at an impressionable age).
Quote:
Of course it wasn't funny-it was tragic. That's why I had to laugh. I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly 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 laughing."
"But- Mike dear, laughing is something you do when something is nice - . . not when it's horrid."
"Is it? Think back to Las Vegas- When all you pretty girls came out on the 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."
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Here's an article on the whole thing--about The Nature of Laughter:
http://ockhamsrazor.joeuser.com/article/161492