Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 15:05:21 +0100
To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU
From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski)
Subject: Re: jokes are.... well... funny?

Dear Andrew (and others),

I wish you had tried to *understand* what I said before you criticized
it (yourself flaming?), because then we could have had a better argument.
So let me just try (yet again, as happens every time) to make myself
a wee bit clearer.


>From the first, "pomo disagreeing" post.

> This post is about how we do and / or should react to what we
> disagree with (e.g. about what sorts of posts to a mailing list
> are appropriate or in good taste) in this postmodern world.

Perhaps I phrased this in a misleading manner, judging from your
reaction.  What I meant to say was NOT that I wanted to decide
what was appropriate to post (I have a lot of better things to do
with time, anyway!); rather, I wanted to discuss *how* all of us
*disagree* about what's appropriate to post.

Particularly, in postmodernism the two typical reactions to disagreement
are 1) POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (e.g. in the form of flaming) and
2) ISOLATIONISM (e.g. dropping out of an e-mail list, ceasing
communication, throwing up one's hands in disgust and just hanging
out with one's like-minded friends).

> To those who take issue with the above opinion: The above is *JUST*
>opinion. You are welcome to yours too.

And THAT sounds awfully close to the isolationism I was criticizing.
Of course y'all have opinions different from mine.  But you're certainly
NOT welcome to just sit on them, retreat, and fail to argue with me.
So that's my position about what postmodernism SHOULD be about, in
order to be true to its principles: participating in differences, whether
as conversational disagreements or otherwise.

>2. Jokes can be funny... you *can* laugh at them.

And so some people won't find some jokes funny-- that's a difference
(one of the "otherwise" ones).  Why does it bother you so much,
anyway, if some people don't find it funny?  (However, you've
misunderstood me if you thought *I* didn't find it funny.)


>From the second post, "sociology of humor", which you quoted from:

> Hello again.  Here is a more light-hearted, more speculative, less
                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
As should be clear, this post was meant to have a touch of humor.
It offered to poke fun of itself, in the way of e.g. the Journal of
Polymorphous Perversity or the Journal of Unreproducable Results or
whatever else is out there.  (If you'd read my "pomo" post, you'd have
found a more obvious and liberal dose of humor there.)

This touch of humor may seem to be in contradiction with the other
aspect of the post.  For as a member of homo sapiens I am by nature
curious about things and wouldn't have minded really learning something
about the sociology of humor.  Why not? This was not an interest of mine
as an "academic"-- at least not yet, not if there's nothing *interesting*
and *surprising* and *important* in the answers [cf. the recent post
on, What have high-level statistical methods done for you lately??].
Still, I AM willing to call it a silly human being's FOOLISH interest in
an impossible topic.  I am quite willing to be foolish.  It's fun, and
every once in a while it even makes something wonderful and
unexpected happen (although NO, your post is not one of these).

I think we let social regulations and "rationality" and "sanity"
and "normalcy" regulate our lives too much these days.  And
that's also what made Mike's original post so fun (for me)--
being a bit insane.


Cheers ;-p ,

Jean