Dear fellow Courtiers,
recent events have finally driven me to take my quill and a parchment and spill some ink on a certain important matter: HUMOUR.
What on earth are we talking about? Let me look up some definition first.
"Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion." (source: the infamous Wikipedia)
I bet you are all familiar with the first novel by the Italian author Umberto Eco: "The Name of the Rose".
It was the first, but certainly not the last book i read from him (forget the Da Vinci Code, read the real stuff: "Foucault's Pendulum").
The plot: Franciscan friar William of Baskerville (in the movie played by a brilliant as always Sean Connery) and a Benedictine novice Adso of Melk travel to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. There have been a number of unexplained deaths (murders) and they try to solve this "whodunnit".
As the story evolves, it becomes clear that all the death monks have read a secret book, a semi-mythical work by Aristotle which heretically declares laughter as the only escape from the doctrine of Universal Truth. The fanatic Librarian monk wants laughter to be destroyed, because people who laugh and make fun of things, possibly would make fun of God himself, and turn the (Catholic) world into chaos.
I always enjoyed coming to this ning site, because it was a well mix of historically correct posts, and funny, often satirical ones. Some pictures make me say "wow" (gazing at the beauty of historical costumes and buildings), others made me laugh. Personally i need both. For me SL was and shall always be an escape from the Real World. I have a very demanding job in RL, working with people who have become victim of tragedies, traumatized human beings, individuals who have lost all meaning of life, who are extremely sad and depressed. Who have lost all sense of joy, laughter and ... humour.
The moment i see the first smile appear on their face during the therapeutic process, i know they are slowly healing.
There are many forms of humour. First of all there is the subtle, catchy form of humour which actually started to bloom in our beloved 18th Century. Those days one saw the rise of a new kind of humorous author: the wit. A wit is usually a person who can make quick, wry comments in the course of a conversation. My friend Lord de Verne is a master in this genre. So he really is a man of the Enlightenment (i never doubted that anyway).
Then you have the dry 'British' kind of humor. My friend Cpt. Gedenshire masters this genre like no other. Furthermore we have the satire (yes a certain sculpted cow falls under this category), the black humour, the self relativating humour, the humour as a defence mechanism (to overcome anxiety) and many others.
And last but not least the absurd, surreal humour. I am personally a huge fan of this genre. Thinking of this, one name immediately comes into my mind: "Monty Pythons Flying Circus". Only one word for it : B R I L L I A N T. And... timeless. Most of the sketches still look very fresh and some of the themes they card are still actual. In some ways those guys were visionary.
I am not playing a very serious character here (although people who really know me hopefully realize that i am very serious in RL, and if i post something i always do research on the historical accuracy of the content). BUT, I love to behave absurd, and some of my posts, read for instance my 'sailing adventures', are just intended for my own amusement and to cheer people up. If i am getting a smile on someones face, for me its "mission accomplished".
That brings us to another point: satire. Often related to dark humour. The Pythons pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. But at some episodes they certainly will have offended some institutions or persons. "The Meaning of Life" (1983), contained a great deal of black humour (including an exploding man), and after its release the Pythons confessed they wanted "to offend everyone".
The border between satire and "over the top" is sometimes thin. What is funny for one person can be very offending for another. Again i refer to our 18th century were a lot of satire was written. Voltaire for instance wrote a lot of satirical pamflets on the Catholic Church, censorship and the French civil rights (or the lack of it).
As you all know the history of medicine is my specific topic of interest. In the 18th century they published a lot of satirical 'cartoonesque' drawings about doctors and their (lack of) knowledge. Some are really funny to see.
Satire is meant to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon. Satire is necessary for every community to kick them a conscience. Off course, its not always appreciated. One certainly recalls the recent fact that many people died worldwide because of some satirical cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. Although those cartoons certainly testified of very bad taste, the reaction of lots of people worldwide really stupefied and horrified me.
Some sculpted cow falls not only under the category of satire but also under that one of fables. A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim. I never realized that persons like Jean de La Fontaine or Hans Christian Andersen could be cataloged as perverts promoting bestiality. Lets rate them 18 + instead of storytellers for children ?
My SL partner loves to anthropomorphe her beloved animals and give them certain human "qualities". Like her Peacock Dorian, named after "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (vanity you remember?). Courtsie Cow is also a sweet satire on frivolity and vanity. Two properties well known to court life in the 18th century.
Where is the boundary between humour, satire and bad taste? What is acceptable to a community and what not? Not very easy questions to answer. On the contrary. One can argue about this for ages. As long as one argues in respect and tries to come to a consensus.
BUT, banning all humour, insulting and demonizing comedy writers and painters, and strictly getting 'back to serious stuff', is WRONG. It isn't even wrong, its dammm DANGEROUS. It leads to people hurting people, it leads to FEAR and fanaticism and extremism. We all know where that ends. I already see the signs here: people who are getting anxious to publish or comment. People who are apologizing, because they are afraid to have hurt others. People who delete nice posts because they are fearing to be demonized...
Not that long ago the Python sketch about "the witch" was posted here. We laughed at it... Well, now regarding it again... it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth...
I come from a country were every inch is covered in blood. Flanders has been the battlefield of Europe for ages. Every corner breaths history here. My maternal grandparents flew for the enemy to France, my maternal granddad was captured and forced to go work as a forced laborer in Germany. My paternal granddad was member of the resistance. As a kid, my dad saw the prison camp not far from here, where prisoners of war where tortured and killed, or send to the concentration camps. Not much humour left in those days... If persons take themselves too serious, it leads to catastrophes like this.
Humour is an essential human right. It makes you think, sometimes it puzzles you. Sometimes you laugh out loud, sometimes you grin a bit wry. Its all part of the process. Nothing wrong with it, on the contrary, its en essential weapon against bitterness, grief, hate and sadness.
A society that bans humour or satire, that controls what others say or think is INSANE. We live in the age of Enlightenment here don't we? What use is it to study history if we don't LEARN any lessons out of it? Last events didn't only made me sad, but even worse, they let me almost loose my sense of humour...
Pekel.
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updated by @docteur-panacek: 06 Oct 2016 06:07:11AM
) I'm a firm believer that humour is a very important part of life. If given the choice between laughing or crying, I'm going to try to go for the laugh every time.
however, I dont know people in the country...mhh
