As the poster of the very long post about my soldier (a post that, remarkably, no one has flamed yet) I must say I sympathize with Swalest's post about laughing at patriot day. I'm solemn about 9/11, sure, many of you deemed my post appropriate… but in the face of tragedy is it not possible that all some can do is find the humor? I agree with one of the posters in the thread I speak of. Humor is a valid human coping mechanism, and a vital one.
At least we, as Americans, may pride ourselves on being in a country where we are allowed to make fun of our government, disdain its principles, desecrate its sacred things both ancient and new. Frequent reexamination of the things that a country holds most dear and most true is the only safe way of allowing any notion of direct truth to exist at all. A government and its ‘self-evident’ truths are sometimes all the more dangerous when not challenged. It paves the way for things to be carried to extremism. Even something harmless when not taken in moderation, and when not questioned can grow into something more. Think Nazis. Think Iraq. All beliefs worthy of being argued stand up to argument, do they not? So why do those with serious opinions on 9/11 take so much offence at those who do not?
Everything I said about soldiers everywhere still rings true… but one of the dearest things to that soldier mine in his distant hell is the ability to escape, to smile, to find humor with which to forget that which pains us.
If the president and the nation’s response to this is laughable, why not laugh?
Take heart.
Anonymous
08:24:09 PM
5 comments:
Rashi's reply annoyed me, yes, but I agree that your premise is dumb.
Ernest Hemingway summed it up a lot better than I did in his short story "Soldier's Home."
You should read that.
I would like to point out that I did not author the post, but only publish it.
And I think that the author of the post found the humor in the fact that someone was wishing a "Happy Patriot Day" to others; the humor came from the absurdity of juxtaposing an excitedly positive adjective with such a somber day, not from the tragedy itself.
Why not laugh? Because many people in the vicinity, who were not struck by the apparent "hilarity" of patriot day, were attempting to take a moment of silence to remember and reflect on the tragedy. Someone giggling nearby would've been rude and distracting. Perhaps, the OP of that post only laughed inside their head, in which case, who cares? They can think whatever they want to think about patriot day. I think it's absurd too, though not funny.
On another "holocaust" note, Rumsfeld recently compared criticisers of the Bush administration to Nazis, also mentioning that we "face a new kind of fascism".
Right... as far as that whole freedom to desecrate the ideologies of your government goes? Don't count on it to last ;)
You can laugh at bad situations sometimes...but I think they generally apply to specific people. Like if you have cancer and like 38 other diseases, it's a laugh just out of sheer disbelief like oh my god I'm sorry...but in a laugh. I don't know how to explain it.
But I don't know about laughing about deaths of many people in things like terror attacks and the holocaust.
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