In Reply to: Re: that's honest posted by CB on January 06, 2007 at 13:54:44:
Laughter is a way of processing pain. I remember when I was in a refugee camp and saw the results of man's inhumanity: thousands of people crammed together by barbed wire, living with the stench of their own waste, maimed victims of landmines. There was an orphan among them and he was playing with a huge silver toy gun. I was really bothered by it at the time, and that's why I quit refugee work.
Later though, I understood that it is important for children to process their pain by playing, with guns, and even war games. It is actually a form of therapy recommended by doctors for children traumatized by war.
When Diana died, it was a really big deal for a lot of people, but soon enough, people were circulating Diana jokes on the Internet. Same with 9/11, people eventually began joking about it to process their pain.
It is like you say, context is important. Joking about 9/11 to a widow who ost her husband in the WTC is a bad idea.
Given the context of the high control religion we experienced, it was so crazy it should have been a joke. All some of can do now is make it a joke. SGs at movingon do the same thing with their 100 Reasons It's Great to be a Systemite, and "My mom joined a sex cult and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" jokes.