The Ultimate Disarmer - Laughter
How brilliant can a solution be? Well, some can be quite outstandingly so. Make people laugh and you disarm them. Take a belligerent who spouts arrogant rhetoric designed to culminate in a physical attack: tickle his funny bone, make him laugh. No one can be aggressive when they're laughing.
People brood on injustices, real or imagined, knead their victimization close to their hearts, swear revenge plot just that. But show them that the people they think have done them ill are just like them in every possible way, from the most emotionally serious to the trivial and they're seen differently.
To become a comic is to deliver the message of angels. Or doves, take your pick. Or take the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, each of whom claim they are the victim in their intractable war of words, territorial disputes, Jihadist suicidalists, and bomb-lobbers.
Tribal enmity, hatred of the outsider, the insult of the presence of another version of the Holy One are issues immune to reason, rationality, discussion and agreement. Anyone hoping to arrange for a peace conference between the antagonists has the option of locking their representatives up in a room they cannot depart until they come to a mutually acceptable agreement.
Or they can take those representatives, strip them naked and attack them with ostrich feathers to produce convulsions of laughter instead of hate, and while they're trembling with the exhaustion of uncontrolled laughing, each seeing the absurd in the other, make them embrace one another in the realization that the idiot standing beside them is exactly like themselves.
Or, do what a art project "Face to Face" is doing in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, to try to promote a better understanding between the two peoples. Take photographs of people representing either side, including religious figures all of whom have been encouraged to contort their facial features into silly, outrageous poses.
Post these blown-up, ridiculous portraits in the most prominent public places and allow them to be viewed at leisure by members of either group for prolonged periods of time. The sting of enmity will certainly be reduced in serious contention with awarding absurdly-human prizes.
Repeat as required.
People brood on injustices, real or imagined, knead their victimization close to their hearts, swear revenge plot just that. But show them that the people they think have done them ill are just like them in every possible way, from the most emotionally serious to the trivial and they're seen differently.
To become a comic is to deliver the message of angels. Or doves, take your pick. Or take the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, each of whom claim they are the victim in their intractable war of words, territorial disputes, Jihadist suicidalists, and bomb-lobbers.
Tribal enmity, hatred of the outsider, the insult of the presence of another version of the Holy One are issues immune to reason, rationality, discussion and agreement. Anyone hoping to arrange for a peace conference between the antagonists has the option of locking their representatives up in a room they cannot depart until they come to a mutually acceptable agreement.
Or they can take those representatives, strip them naked and attack them with ostrich feathers to produce convulsions of laughter instead of hate, and while they're trembling with the exhaustion of uncontrolled laughing, each seeing the absurd in the other, make them embrace one another in the realization that the idiot standing beside them is exactly like themselves.
Or, do what a art project "Face to Face" is doing in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, to try to promote a better understanding between the two peoples. Take photographs of people representing either side, including religious figures all of whom have been encouraged to contort their facial features into silly, outrageous poses.
Post these blown-up, ridiculous portraits in the most prominent public places and allow them to be viewed at leisure by members of either group for prolonged periods of time. The sting of enmity will certainly be reduced in serious contention with awarding absurdly-human prizes.
Repeat as required.
Labels: Realities
posted by Pieface @ 5:57 PM
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