Sense of Humor Died the Day PC Was Born

A Good Day in the Boonies

I finally figured out why negativity is filling the highways and byways in the world of the web.  Political Correctness was born and killed off Sense of Humor. 

People are made so self-conscious and fearful of offending someone, (and you know someone is always offended)  that conversation is limited to a bare minimum of well chosen words about the weather.  Raining hard.  Storming here.  Sunny and Hot!  Whoops, Sunny and Hot is ignored for the different view.  Her post is passed over.  Better pretend a storm just blew in, quick!   Silly stuff.  I can have an intelligent conversation in person, but online it’s almost impossible.  Sometimes I forget and sure enough, someone is offended.

Text messaging  and chat posts are helping to eliminate the learning the skill of basic friendly respect for another.  In today’s Internet world, you are judged by the emoticon you keep, or the handle you are known by; but mostly by who you offended before you became message board savvy.   Onliner’s are a tough bunch; they don’t like and never forgive a newbie poster’s mistake.  It’s a hellish world unto itself.  Some are smart enough to change their handles often and therefore hide and confuse the enemy.

 Discrimination doesn’t go away, it only changes targets in concert with PC dictums.  Some humans have a deep seated need to point fingers and judge themselves better than another, for whatever imagined reason is fashionable and acceptable at the time.   The need to be King or Queen of a message board is powerful and some will do and say anything to achieve it.  Pointing fingers publicly at someone who considered them an online friend is common and the easiest, quickest way to gain notoriety, because  people love gossip; they yearn for it.  They love the game of Bait and Switch, and they’re expert at it.  But, trust and respect they’ll never learn or earn.

Laughter really is the Best Medicine.  Who remembers Don Rickles?   He makes fun of everyone.  Fat, skinny, black, white, bald… , and all of these people love him.  When we laugh at ourselves and each other, we grow stronger.   Laughing shows us how silly we are to stress over every little thing someone may say or imagine about us, and it hides a truckload of pain; both physical and mental.  

I hear I come across as whiny, and so I suppose I do.  I won’t argue with another’s opinion, I have one of my own.   I have griped  and groaned about stuff right along with others, but never made it a personal dogfight as many do.  I have stood alone and defended those who couldn’t defend themselves, and I gained nothing but trouble for myself.  I’ve listened to gripes and added my own on many message boards.  Are they whiners too?  Apparently not.   What is different about me?   When I know I have offended someone, I reach out to them for forgiveness.  What is different about any of us?  Nothing really,   A whiner?  Sure, why not; I’m not perfect.  But, I  don’t carry on and pretend I have it any worse than the rest of the world.  I get over it and move on.  I can laugh at how serious we take ourselves because before the birth of the Internet, I was fortunate enough to learn how to respect people.  Does that make me better, you betcha!

Powered by Qumana