Perfecting the high art of ridicule

They were doing it again. And as many times as I have seen it, I still can't understand either the reaction of the person being poorly ridiculed or the motivation of those doing the substandard ridiculing. Don't misunderstand me, I am not against making fun of people. I'm a dog, and we do it more often than you think and in ways you will probably never understand. What is disappointing is the poor use of the rich art of ridicule. Ridicule as a way to energize everyone, not just the person dishing it out, is one of the most powerful emotional activities you all have, so it's no surprise that it's being misused - that's a pattern among the human race whether it's with nuclear energy, water, or religion -- the more potential a concept has for good the more likely it will be used for evil.

At first I thought the poor implementation of the fine art of ridicule was just people practicing. But they never seem to get any better. Generation after generation, humans get stuck in the ugly immature stage of ridicule - the toxic energy stage. There is no more public display of love and trust than when someone is able to participate in the high art of ridicule. But art wasn't what I was seeing today. Today it was the boring and repetitive exploration of power misused. So it ended in tears, as well as contorted bonding among the mendacious group of girls exploring, again, their own boundarylessness of insensitivity. It's what happens when youth comes too early and wisdom comes too late. When maturity lags chronology and someone turns seven and doesn't get it. When accountability and responsibility don't exist, but the option to be unaccountable and irresponsible is available. When compassion is a word defined by a Republican presidential candidate who, in spectacular verbal and intellectual failure, reconciles, for the blocked thinkers, compassion with endorsement of the death penalty.

Proper ridicule is usually followed with a kiss where neither is doing the kissing. This means, the cynic's rule of always being the person who kisses and the person who is kissed, doesn't apply here. In high-art ridicule, the kiss is joint with power sharing, not power broking.

What about the recipient, or in the case of sloppy ridicule, the victim. In order to be the victim of bad ridicule you have to be vulnerable. Arthritis works. In order to be the recipient of great ridicule you need to be confident. Arthritis works here too. Anyone who has had arthritis from a young age knows the sting as well as the salve of ridicule. Group acceptance through high-art ridicule can energize creaky joints for days. Rejection through gratuitously violent ridicule can prevent mobility.

The greatest gift a young person with arthritis can give is lessons in high-art ridicule, and this begins by not accepting any other kind. The teachable moment the touchy feeley educators extol - when through a series of events a mind is able to live a lesson -- is the domain of the student with arthritis. Just as it is the purview of a young person who is gay or lesbian. To deny yourself the pleasure of teaching when the opportunity arises is to leave positive energy in the universe the way a bad business negotiator leaves money on the table when closing a deal.

The concept of ridicule as teaching opportunity is the only way I have seen to elevate poor ridicule. For example. The initial volley of, "We only have 20 minutes for lunch and I have to get behind the gimp ," said loudly enough for you and her three other girlfriends to hear, needs to be redressed. This is a teachable moment. Accepting a victim's role would dictate that you try to speed up, get nervous, pretend you didn't hear it, get a stomach ache and then yell at your mother when you get home. This reinforces the power to destroy of low-art ridicule. The power reversal response is, "Oh yea, I forgot my crutches today or we could see how fast you get through this line with one up your fat ass." But, the person who understands it's her responsibility to teach these anti-deluvians -- which it is, would say -- "I'm glad you don't have this terrible disease because if there were two of us this slow, the soup would clot before we could get to our tables. Can you get ahead of me and hold my tray while I find a Jell-O without an insect suspended in it?" And then you make her hold your tray, making sure you touch her physically during this lesson. Yes, I prefer the response that includes the visual of a crutch in her colon, but it's a short-lived pleasure. You've lost a crutch and the lesson she learned is that you're an aggressive bitch while she's just stupid and insensitive. Tomorrow you'll still be an aggressive bitch. Real life isn't like the movies where the victim says something powerfully witty referring to someone's ass and then they become best friends. You threaten to shove a crutch up there and you don't get elevated to the A-list. Who cares? You should. A-list presence confers credibility and credibility makes teaching easier.