Mother-In-Law Wants To Laugh Last

Three comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  Cabbage Boy on August 25 at 11:16 a.m.

  Bet that makes for some interesting fodder at holidays

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  Liz on August 25 at 1:19 p.m.

  being as my mother in law died when my husband was a kid: no. but I get along great with my father in law. He’s this crusty old New England sort of guy.

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  spokelooneh on August 26 at 4:12 a.m.

  Leave it to the Germans to over-analyze it:

  “Humour is an act of aggression, claims German academic

  Humour is an act of aggression and making others laugh means you see yourself as higher up the social ladder than your audience, according to a German academic.
  
  Published: 11:57AM BST 23 Aug 2009

  The ability to make others laugh confers a degree of control which dominant people exploit to show they are in charge, claims Helga Kotthoff of the Frieburg University if Education.

  “Those ‘on top’ are freer to make others laugh. They are also freer to be more aggressive and a lot of what is funny is making jokes at someone else’s expense,” she said.

  “Displaying humour means taking control of the situation from those higher up the hierarchy and this is risky for people of lower status, which before the 1960s meant women rarely made other people laugh — they couldn’t afford to.
  …”

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6077338/Humour-is-an-act-of-aggression-claims-German-academic.html

  OK, so Freud was an Austrian. Sue me. Ever read German philosophers? Scary stuff.

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