Inhuman Humor,

 

There was never such a thing, as humor as a coping mechanism. It always was and it still is revengeful, to laugh about others. The only human humor is laughing about oneself. This has to be done alone, not in public. Laughing about oneself in public, may be considered as funny by others, but it is utterly self-defeating.

 

While it kept claiming, it helped to solve them, our inhuman humor has caused incalculable problems. The public display of laughter has never been seen for what it always was and still is: violence. The nasty reality of what is commonly accepted as humor, is that whenever we are laughing at others, someone is getting hurt. Although it may not seem very obvious, that doesn’t make it any less true. Conversely, only real laughter, about us, is harmless. The harmful laughter, we are used to, has never produced the change, forgiveness or understanding, we have always been told, that humor, supposedly, brings.  

 

Humor, in which we laugh about others, always meant one thing and one thing only: getting even with others. Presumably, and, justifyingly, they had it coming, because they had wronged us. What does the old saying, he or she had the last laugh, mean? It is ancient. It describes a situation in which someone, who initially was at a disadvantage and faced ridicule, ultimately emerged victorious. Even so-called harmless humor, isn’t so harmless after all, once we look into what is happening. Humor has always been used as a weapon to oppress, belittle, humiliate and deliberately hurt people and by turning the tables on their tormentors, victims, supposedly, became winners, as they had the last laugh…

 

Laughing at others always involves struggle, competition, envy and hatred. It is called the superiority theory of humor and goes back to the Greeks. Aristotle insisted, we laugh at the ugly and stupid to express the joy we feel, we are better than them and Socrates added, we  laugh at those who are delusional about their own abilities, because we flatter ourselves that we are more clear-sighted. Of course, laughing about others also signifies our unaddressed inability of laughing about ourselves.

 

While laughter about others continues to be promoted as a striking tool of resistance or as the ultimate strategy for playful protest, our common inability to laugh about ourselves demonstrates, that we are basically having no real self-awareness. Our fake-self-awareness is very uptight, because to be laughed at is our worst fear. Historically this was always framed as an issue of honor or respect and those who were being laughed at or dishonored, would often rather die, than experience public dismantling of their identity. There is a sure link between laughter, suicide or hara-kiri. It is an attempt to restore honor of themselves, as an individual. The famous French philosopher Albert Camus once said – apparently, kindly, to himself – should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?

 

During our usual Disembodied Language (DL), we remain terribly worried, that others might laugh at our mistakes, as that would prove what fools we are. As long as we fear being laughed at, we are only superficially self-conscious and remain incapable of laughing about ourselves, since we don’t want to admit the stupid reality of all our repetitive problems. However, the essence of being able to laugh about ourselves, is to catch ourselves, in the habitual, automatic act of doing what we have always done and to be able to release ourselves from our imprisoning DL.

 

Surely, when we finally talk with ourselves and listen to ourselves and let ourselves know about what is going on, we can’t miss, the humoristic liberation, which occurs, due to a shift from our usual DL to Embodied Language (EL). Moreover, once we realize, that everyone with DL is faced with the same dilemma, we are freed from our own DL even quicker. Yes, we are all stuck with our language, that is why we can’t laugh about ourselves. In the same way, that our laughter is almost always about others, so too is our DL.

 

Only when we have ongoing EL is our language about ourselves and only then are we laughing about ourselves in a positive manner. In DL, we also laugh about ourselves, but it is always in a negative, unconscious manner. In DL, in which we don’t listen to ourselves while we speak, we can’t laugh about ourselves – even not while we are alone with ourselves – as that would mean, the end of our tragic, problematic habit. We have glorified our DL, in the same way, as we have sanctified the power, that can be achieved with it. Anyone with power, can seemingly get away with DL and can laugh in everyone’s face.

 

There is, of course, the real laughter of the free individual, who laughs about him or herself and about all the madness of this world, in which no one seems to be able anymore to laugh about themselves. Only the individual, who is able to laugh about him or herself, sets him or herself free from the straight jacket of DL, which is the language of our conditioning, that is, the language of the group and its insidious laughter about others.

 

My laughter of my EL is the laughter afforded to me, by my consciousness, because I listen to myself, while I speak. Moreover, my ongoing EL is my Language Enlightenment (LE). It has never been said, because it couldn’t before be said, but I say it today: the only real laughter, is, of course, the laughter from our LE. Such laughter emerges, as our EL allows us to complete the incomplete picture, we were used to with DL, because during EL, we say everything we can say and want to say. Only an individual – who doesn’t seek to achieve anything – can be him or herself and recognize the absurdity of everyone, who in DL, remains busy with others.

 

Laughter about ourselves, is a positive form of suicide. We seize to exist, as the identity, we have tried so fanatically, stressfully to protect, by not laughing about ourselves. Even if I still have some DL, sometimes, I never fail to laugh at myself. Actually, I have never enjoyed the inhuman humor of laughing about others, because I have secretively always liked my own laughter the best.