Modified On August 14, 2012
We missed this comment, at the bottom of Joe Stender’s piece in the Eagle Eye (see posting from earlier today, below). The commenter calls himself “Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” so we initially suspected it to be a gag. After reading it, we’re inclined to believe that the idiot is sincere. We run it here in its entirety.
Yes. Laughter can be wonderful for those experiencing the laughing, however, your article has completely failed to acknowledge the suffering and humiliation experienced by those being laughed at! To them, anything ranging from mild chuckles to hearty laughter can be an extraordinarily terrorizing experience.
Put yourself in this situation: You’re a 13 year old middle schooler. Its lunch time and your the quiet type. However, unbeknownst to you, your about the be the focus of 250 of your peers! You gather your lunch onto your tray, get one of those chocolate milk cartons and pay the lunch lady. This is very routine for you. Typically you would advance to a corner table and sit with your head down until your food is consumed and the bell rings, but today my friend, today is a-typical. The lunch lady suddenly gets an itch just above her ankle but instead of bending down to scratch it she bends as the knee raising her foot from the ground. Just then you catch your leg on it and before you have the chance to react you find yourself on the floor with sloppy joe in your hair, JoJo potatoes behind your left ear and apple sauce covering your face. The entire room beings to laugh at you! According to you, this is just another phenomenal experience in which all 250 peers get the chance to laugh in unison and exponentially increase their happiness! Hurrah!!!
However, now we turn our attention to the subject of this wonderful laughter. Unfortunately we discover that this child has not only abandoned his delicately spiced sloppy joe and potatoes but he has left the cafeteria humiliated, crying and severely emotionally impaired. This child will become more reclusive (which unfortunately can lead to “lashing out” behavior, which can be extremely destructive and dangerous on many levels) and potentially remain impaired for a large portion of their lives.
I ask this of you:
Is laughing such a wonderful thing that we can appreciate it knowing it has permanently damaged the lives of good people? I think not!
Of course, the commenter is a total moron. Nearly every joke has a victim or an object. Otherwise, the joke is weakened, the laughter diluted, the humor and purpose lost.
The commenter here is utterly humorless. He looks at the world in a narrow and unhealthy way. For him, laughter is bad and painful. Life is miserable.
We’re glad we don’t live in his world.