Mind's Eye Re: Having a larf? Is humour cruel?

Satire is meant to bite- so it's not truly comedy, i.e. scorn versus
merriement. Yes- I heard ethnic, racial, sexist jokes growing up but
they were not mean-spirited then political correctness pounced though
now the style in political and social humor is mockery>distain/
contempt. I do like slapstick- another great was Sid Ceasar- also Mel
Brooks maybe Jewish humor derives from their tragic history, in part.
As for Kierkegaard, I might have smiled if I could wade through his
style- maybe I was not fair with K. One friend still reminds me of
doing the right thing and is grateful that when a mutual "friend"
thought the behavior of the "ex" in a messy divorce was hysterically
funny I said this is her life and it is not funny at all- there is a
lot of cruelty found in the "nicest" places sometimes. Another ex-
friend is a great mocker- takes on accents and puts on a little show
to illustrate her superiority over others and I don't doubt I am
another on her list. But these type are just cruel and insecure.

On Feb 1, 8:42 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My child hood was littered with jokes.  How do you keep an Irishman
> busy all day - put him in a barrel and tell him to micturate in the
> corner.  The Germans bombed our chip shop and had no sense of humour.
> In France, the Belgians are the butt or "Irish"  jokes; elsewhere the
> Poles.  Jokes often rely on 'taking the Micky' - ridiculing someone
> else.  In Englishmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen jokes it was common for
> the English and Scots to be the suckers to a sharp and cunning
> Irishman.  Even the holocaust has been subject to joking - often by
> the victims.
>
> I have taught Kierkegaard as an example of dark, lengthy Danish humour
> (and can point to books on same).  There is an affinity in his  work
> with the Monty Python poverty joke in which each in turn recalls a
> childhoods in greater poverty than the last.  Eventually, just as one
> thinks the guy claiming to have lived in a shoebox on the central
> reservation of the M6 has 'won' the game another bloke says,
> "Shoebox?  You had a shoebox.  Luxury!"  Kierkegaard does this with
> Christianity.
>
> My own humour is dark, but it's rare I mean anyone harm.  I used to
> think that satire offered some hope of change, but in recent years
> have come to see it as merely part of the problems we have.  It is of
> the Establishment and feigns resistance.
>
> I think humour might be part of a way out of chronic illusion; but it
> is often merely cruel and parochial.