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From: apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: traditional values, Salome, and a Siberian joke at the end.
Message-ID: <1175@oddjob.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Feb-86 18:16:35 EST
Article-I.D.: oddjob.1175
Posted: Sat Feb 15 18:16:35 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Feb-86 09:11:07 EST
References: <263@galbp.UUCP> <418@cisden.UUCP> <1124@oddjob.UUCP>
Reply-To: apak@oddjob.UUCP (Adrian Kent)
Organization: U. Chicago: Physics
Lines: 30
Summary: 

In article <140@midas.UUCP> jeffw@midas.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) writes:
>If you don't think a joke is funny, you look pretty silly trying to explain
>to everyone where its humor lies.

Glib, but wrong. You might as well say that, if you don't like a play, you
look pretty silly trying to explain what the author was trying to do. It's
perfectly possible intelligently to criticize humor which you don't find
funny. All you need is the ability to understand and write text.
Of course, you may think that a particular person (e.g. me) is failing to
give intelligent criticism, but that's a different question.

>I've got a theory: Most people are not assholes. Most people do not think
>rape is funny. Therefore most people who found the joke funny, did for the
>reason Fr. Woolley claims. 

Your "therefore" doesn't actually reflect any logical implication (draw a few
sets of differing sizes and you'll see what I mean). However, I'm beginning to
think that you're half-right. A significant fraction of those net-readers who
enjoyed the joke did so because they interpreted it in Fr. Woolley's sense,
and didn't notice other messages in the joke. The interesting question is:
why weren't those messages picked up? (Or, if you want to frame it from the
other point of view: why did many people see something offensive in the
joke?) 

>I've got another theory. Some people (fortunately, not many) like to
>prove their imagined moral superiority in front of a wide audience by
>setting up straw men and ostentatiously knocking them down.

This presumably is true. Such is life. 
                                      Adrian Kent