From: bavafa@netcom.com (Hooshyar Naraghi)
Subject: Jokers Perplexed (was Re: Jokes, Ramin S.)
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 06:33:17 GMT
Organization: joke bazi

****  Warning:  Another long article, I am afraid.  Just another view point.
*************

In article <1992Sep05.173838.15936@eng.umd.edu> alireza@eng.umd.edu (Alireza Karimzadeh-Rad) writes:

[Original text of Reza Ebrahimpour deleted for brevity -HFN]

Dear Alireza, this is only an attempt to share with you, and hopefully the
readers at sci, another side of the discussion about jokes.  Toward the end
of your article you suggested that we not discuss this issue, or as you implied
discussing too much of it will eventually cause disunity among _us_ at sci.
And to be frank with you, it is this kind of 'victim responsibility' that has
encouraged me to share some other views.  Those who uphold the pilar of jokes'
innocency are now concerned that those who are offended by them and feel bad 
about them better not discuss these things, because once you talk about it too 
much "shookhi, shookhi, mas'aleh jedi misheh," and some kind of disunity might
possibly prevail.

I didn't know that if a handful of people decide to tell few jokes at this
forum under the disguise of "it's Iranian, then has everything to do with sci,"
and when a discussion came about to honestly and kindly _question_ the 
validity and properness of the above-mentioned reasoning, it would be treated -
by the very same group - as a sign of the beginning of disunity and 'nefAgh'
among us.  So let me be bold and say I for one will continue to bring the topic
to the attention of the group without a fear of promoting disunity.  This is 
a fear of unknown; it does not exist.  The real fear is that which thrives on
jokes and cannot visualize a day when we Iranians will stop telling jokes.
BTW, this disease - telling ethnic jokes - is not confined to the Iranian
borders.  It is indeed an international disease.

>No I don't believe that you would. Let me tell you why. What makes a
>joke a joke? Why are some jokes funnier than others? Well, I'll tell
>you every joke has an exaggeration; in every joke something has to be
>blown way out of proportion, otherwise it will not be funny.

Come on young man, are you stating this as a fact or you read a sociological
paper published somewhere?  Or, perhaps it's simply a statement out of your
own speculation?  Please understand that I have no problem if you just _happen_
to think this way.  I am only asking to understand where you are coming from.

For your information there are a lot of jokes that are so funny and they are
not exaggerated at all.  Perhaps you were trying to make a point in order to 
justify or reason that was why we Iranians had chosen to ridicule ethnic
communities as a means of proving the theory that yes indeed every joke has
to be blown out of proportion.  Sorry this paragraph was only a speculation
on my part, wrong or right.  Let's go on to find out more.

>about any joke that you want, and inevitably you'll find something that
>has been exaggerated. The greater the exaggeration the funnier the
>joke. Of course there is more to it than that, but the above statement
>is a good rule of thumb. 

So far you have stated a theory.  Let's go on . . . 

>Now, I don't know how all the myths about
>different ethnic groups started in our country, but I do know that
>they are common knowledge, thus laying the grounds for these jokes.

Then why don't you study about it?  It's a suggestion from a person interested
in the subject and please do not take it as answer to prove you are uneducated.
I hope this will encourage you to explore this subject more thoroughly.  As an
apetizer I can share with you that these so called jokes were preceeded with 
those moral stories (ghesehAy-e akhlAghi) way back about thousand years ago.
The morals had an objective:  to convey a message.  MollA's tales are a good
example of such stories.  BTW, today we refer to MollA's tales as jokes which
is absolutely a mistatement for his tales are immune from cities and
ridiculing the citizens of those cities or towns.  And they are not told for
the sake of 'shekam' of the story teller.  At the end there is always a moral.

The jokes as we know them today are a recent phenomenon.  Jokes have few
inherent properties, or characterizations:  they are exaggerated so there is
always a way out to claim "well, this is only a joke; it's not real."  Also,
they have no moral.  They are told for the sake of a moment of _fun_.

>My grandfather was from Azarbaijan, but I don't take jokes about Turks
>personally, I accept them for what they are, namely jokes. You may
>not enjoy these jokes, and I know there many more like you. That is
>fine. You had the choice of not reading Ramin's jokes, but you did.

I guess NOT!  Alireza, I guess you are too much mesmorized by this Western
idea of choice.  I have bad news for you.  _Choice_ is a two-edged sword,
my friend.  We have a choice not to read the joke, but once we read it, it's
our very same _choice_ to respond to it if we find it compelled to respond.
This is very true in a medium like newsgroups under internet.  A poster has
the right to share something to the newsgroup - sci in this case.  However,
once it's posted and everybody reads it, it's no longer a private message
from X to Y personality, and by then the post is open for discussion.  It is
true that it originated from one poster, but once it hits the newsgroup it 
is no longer the original poster's idea, but everyone's.  So all this talk
about 'if you don't like my post hit n and get it over with' is utter
non-sense, IMHO.

Please note that sometimes a poster warns about the article in advance -
normally in the beginning of the article - but this notice in no wise should
be construed as 'no right to respond.'  It only serves as a courtesy notice
to other readers as to the article's content.  Every reader still has the right
and the _choice_ to respond.  It appears that some chose not to read the
joke and hence chose not to respond to it.  Likewise, some chose to read it
and then chose to respond to it.  Can you dig this?

>Why? Ever ask yourself that. You even admitted that you found them
>amusing yet sad. You also admitted that when you were in Iran you used
>to laugh at these jokes, but now your views have changed. Again why? 

Some people are brave enough to talk about it, even if they happen to be
part of the problem.  In my small town we refer to this behaviour 'honesty.'
BTW, honesty is a product of maturity.  And with maturity one becomes more
open.  So I am afraid you missed the point.  The original poster was mature
enough to admit that he was carrying the disease, hence making it easy for
jokers (those who say jokes) to include him in their camp just to listen
what he had to say.  That was probably the motive behind the admittance.

>I believe that many Iranians that have moved to the States have become so
>influenced by the race conscious culture of this country, that they
>now believe that by default tension exists among all ethnic groups
>around the world.

Race consciousness?  In this country?  Are you really living in this country?
The slavery is on, my brother.  It never ended in 1863.  Racism is as healthly
and as powerful as those days in the South.  The only difference is today in
the era of sophistication and subtlety racism is _smart_.  It has adjusted
itself to the laws of the land, and has _learned_ how to attack the very
fabric of this society.  And please, study more and more and get out _ why not
simply moving to East Los Angeles to smell the rose or coffee whichever is your
taste - or find more ethnic friends and _discuss_, _understand_, and _learn_
from them about this _default_ tension.

Oh, BTW, those Iranians who took this tension _real_ are the very same people
who have witnessed the evils of racism, and are now very concerned.  Go to
rasht and start saying rashti jokes, and come back to sci and share with us
that the tension you felt in terms of the treatment you received from them was
'by default.'  The problem is the tension is damn real.  It has always been
like that.  It just happens that with a powerful tool like sci, we can now
_talk_ about it; try to _understand_ it; and hopefully and if there is still
some love left _do_ something about it.

>In this country if you tell a joke, hell if you say
>anything about the blacks, it is racism. The reason is that the whites
>have treated the blacks so badly all through the history of this
>country. In our country we have not had the same problems. If your are
>a smart ass you'll probably say well we didn't have that many blacks
>in Iran :). 

No, I won't say so because I am not a smart ass. :-)  I am a smart human
being.  In my beloved city Abadan, we did ridicule Arabs and called them
'arab-e malakh-khor.'  I never saw in my short stay in Abadan if one Arab
ate malakh.  Babe, instead of blacks we had other minorities to pick on.

>Hell, who knows, maybe the fact that most of the ethnic
>groups in Iran kind of look alike has had something to do with
>comparative racial harmony that exists there, but what is really
>important is that it does, and in my opinion it's going to take more
>than a few dumb jokes to create racial problems in our country.

Again, please study this area too before expressing your opinion.  Not that
you should not express your opinion before investigation,  After all it's 
sci and we have all the _right_ and _freedom_ to say whatever we _choose_
to say.  BTW, we are not talking about whether saying jokes will divide our
nation, unless you are still under the influence of Babak Sehari's opinion.
We are instead talking about people (jokers) who say their desired jokes and
try to justify it with personal and unbased speculations, as soon as another
poster wonders about the validity and appropriateness of the act of telling
ethnic jokes in the first place.

>On the other hand if we keep picking at it, if we keep arguing about it,
>these arguements will definitely lead to an ugly situation. Think
>about it, you accepted these jokes as jokes before, but now you find
>them offensive, why? 

Nobody is arguing about it.  _YOU_ are the one to argue about it.  I suggest
you _jokers_ continue to tell your innocent and exagerrated jokes, and leave
the discussion of the validity and appropriateness of such acts to those who
are concerned about it.  Nobody has demanded you to stop.  Some people have
suggested that you pause and ponder about the situation.  It's your _choice_
eh?  After all you could also hit the n key and forget about it.

It does not mean that you ought to prove - via a theory or speculation - that
jokes are OK.  Just tell jokes and be happy as you talked about their being
funny.  Likewise, some will talk about their harms without resorting to 
stopping jokers from telling jokes.  How about that for a start?

And hopefully, we will all learn something out of this.

Happy joking :-)


Regards,
Hooshyar F. Naraghi
bavafa@netcom.com
(415) 322-8056


Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian