Xref: utzoo news.misc:2266 soc.culture.jewish:8581 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncrlnk!uunet!mcvax!enea!dkuug!dde!ct From: ct@dde.uucp (Claus Tondering) Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.culture.jewish Subject: Re: How Many (x) Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? Keywords: sensitivity, sensationalism Message-ID: <494@Aragorn.dde.uucp> Date: 1 Dec 88 09:12:21 GMT References: <358@sulaco.Sigma.COM> Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark Lines: 42 allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM (Allen Gwinn) writes: >Q: How Many (x) Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? >A: They don't... they just sit in the dark and suffer. > >If you replace 'x' with your particular ethnic/political/racial/religious >group (or anything else for that matter), does that simple riddle have some >glint of truth to it? Why does it offend some people in 'x' when there >is a joke posted... not with the intent to harm or belittle, but with >the sole attempt at giving someone a good laugh? >The point to my whole article is when humor and the ability to laugh >at one's self cease to exist, culture ceases to exist right along >with it. Your point is a good one, and I agree with 90% of what you say. However, you have posted this article to soc.culture.jewish, and that gives a particular angle to the problem. I think that there is a profound difference between jokes about jews and jokes about Beglians, Irish, Scotchmen etc. Consider, for example, a joke about a Scotchman who is very fond of money. Now, replace the Scotchman with a jew. Is the joke the same? No, it isn't. Why? The joke suddenly becomes sick, because the accusation that jews are overly fond of money has been used for centruries as a pretext for persecution of jews. Nobody has ever persecuted the Scots for being greedy misers, so when you tell a joke about Scotchmen, we can all maintain a detached attitude to the whole thing; we know that there is neither truth nor malice in the joke. But when the same joke is told about jews, it turns into a analogy to one of the sick jokes about starving Biafrans that were so popular in the early 1970's, for suddenly the joke has somthing tangible to hinge on. Jewish history is one of persecution and suffering. Making jokes about that is tasteless, even if the same jokes can be told about another ethnic group with no ill effects. For the record: I am not jewish. -- Claus Tondering Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark E-mail: ct@dde.dk or ...!uunet!mcvax!diku!dde!ct