would much rather be laughing. On Friday, November 30, 2012 6:29:50 AM UTC-5, andrew vecsey wrote: > > What In find interesting is how it is almost impossible to see the > physical difference of someone laughing his head off and someone crying his > heart out. Both are a result of a sudden unexpected disclosure of truth.. > > On Saturday, November 24, 2012 7:51:00 PM UTC+1, archytas wrote: >> >> While there is only speculation about how humor developed in early >> humans, we know that by the 6th century BCE the Greeks had >> institutionalized it in the ritual known as comedy, and that it was >> performed with a contrasting dramatic form known as tragedy. Both were >> based on the violation of mental patterns and expectations, and in >> both the world is a tangle of conflicting systems where humans live in >> the shadow of failure, folly, and death. Like tragedy, comedy >> represents life as full of tension, danger, and struggle, with success >> or failure often depending on chance factors. Where they differ is in >> the responses of the lead characters to life's incongruities. >> Identifying with these characters, audiences at comedies and tragedies >> have contrasting responses to events in the dramas. And because these >> responses carry over to similar situations in life, comedy and tragedy >> embody contrasting responses to the incongruities in life. >> >> Tragedy valorizes serious, emotional engagement with life's problems, >> even struggle to the death. Along with epic, it is part of the Western >> heroic tradition that extols ideals, the willingness to fight for >> them, and honor. The tragic ethos is linked to patriarchy and >> militarism—many of its heroes are kings and conquerors—and it >> valorizes what Conrad Hyers (1996) calls Warrior Virtues—blind >> obedience, the willingness to kill or die on command, unquestioning >> loyalty, single-mindedness, resoluteness of purpose, and pride. >> >> Comedy, by contrast, embodies an anti-heroic, pragmatic attitude >> toward life's incongruities. From Aristophanes' Lysistrata to Charlie >> Chaplin's The Great Dictator to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, >> comedy has mocked the irrationality of militarism and blind respect >> for authority. Its own methods of handling conflict include deal- >> making, trickery, getting an enemy drunk, and running away. As the >> Irish saying goes, you're only a coward for a moment, but you're dead >> for the rest of your life. In place of Warrior Virtues, it extols >> critical thinking, cleverness, adaptability, and an appreciation of >> physical pleasures like eating, drinking, and sex. >> >> Much humour is cruel - but try and read cruelty in to 'Doctor, doctor, >> I've lost an electron'. 'Are you sure'? 'Yes, I'm positive'. >> >> What do we think humour is? >> >
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