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A brief Comment on Compassionate Humor
By Martin Brossman
What really is compassion humor? Or for that
matter, what is non-compassionate humor?
To me non-compassionate humor is inappropriate expression of
some type of anger or hate through humor. It is also, humor
used to give a temporary feeling of strength or power at
someone at another's expense. It may come out when we avoid
addressing a conflict. It can involve making fun of a group
you are not a part of. Racist jokes are often an example or
non-compassionate humor. Non-compassionate humor is often
justified by statement like, "What, can't you take a joke?"
Then what, in contrast, is compassion humor? It is humor that
requires us to be more conscious or see the larger picture.
Compassionate humor involves us laughing at the situation, our
own humanity, and ourselves. Compassionate humor calls forward
courage. For example: Two brother seem to get into an argument
at their mother is home every year just before Thanksgiving.
Then one year in the middle of the argument, one of the
brother stops in mid sentence with a dramatized serious voice
says, "you think the turkey is making us argue? I mean we
start arguing just as mom take the turkey out of the oven…"
Compassionate humor courageously assumes that deep down people
have good intentions, even if it hard to see at the moment. It
lets us take ourselves in a less serious, allowing us to enjoy
more of the humor in being a human being. It creates a context
so we can move though difficult time and reconnect to the love
in our lives. It’s "laugh muscle" that gets stronger as we
practice it. To quote Charlie Chaplin, “To truly laugh, you
must be able to take your pain and play with it!”
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