I wonder where this fits in with abortion–or Terry Schaivo–on the Sliding Scale of Evil.
Do what again? Make doggies dead?
Heck, I’ve heard that some people right here in Minnesota like to kill deer for fun!
And they feast on the remains in a sort of ritualized, inter-species cannibalism.
Well, it would be empathy if she were laughing about it too, wouldn’t it? I mean, you’re right in that I’m probably not feeling precisely what she was feeling, but I can imagine how I’d feel if I were in that situation: and in that situation, I’d be laughing at myself. That may not be the precise definition of empathy, but I think it’s close enough for government work.
That’s a really good point, actually.
I can propose an answer. My theory of humor is that humor is by and large the pointing out of what is true. To be more precise, it’s the pointing out discrepancies, the differences between what is and what should be, what we believe and what we do, and what we expect versus what actually happens, to name a few.
Let’s apply this theory to two situations that both involve injury. The first, injury in a professional sporting event, is not funny because such events are expected. It’s routine for injuries to happen in sports like this. Injuries in sports only become funny if they happen in an unusual situation. Compare a routine sports injury to the image of a girl hitting her face while jumping off a diving board or a man falling off a ladder. That is not what’s expected. It’s a difference between expectations and reality, and that is what makes it funny.
Some situations can be funny and not funny at the same time. I hurt myself jogging earlier today. I’m 24 years old, and I hurt myself jogging. I jumped diagonally to avoid some debris and somehow twisted my middle-right abdomen so painfully that I ended up going to the ER to doublecheck to make sure it wasn’t appendicitis or a kidney problem. The injury and pain itself weren’t very funny, but the fact that my young, fit self hurt myself jogging and had to walk one mile back to my house while hobbling like an old man, well it made me chuckle at least.
For the puppy, I think it’s almost meta-humor. Nobody expects jokes to be made about something so dreadful, so the jokes become funny, at least to some. This brings us to the use of humor as a coping mechanism.
Lastly, let’s also not forget what’s been said before, that compassion and humor are in no ways incompatible.
People can be injured or killed in funny ways. It just is so. You might even be upset with yourself for laughing, while you laugh. It might be the person, or the situation, or both but it happens. A lot.
I lost a fingertip in college. I laughed then, and I still laugh now. It just had the right comical elements. To be fair, I’m the only one I know with a funny amputation story.
Actually, I think puppy skeet would be a bit more challenging.
PULL!
Yipe!
There is a large gap between the ethical implications of euthanizing a doggie humanely, for example by administering an overdose of anesthetic, and tossing said doggie off a cliff. Shooting deer, although intermediate on the humaneness scale, is still different from tossing puppies over cliffs.
I can’t bring myself to watch the video, but if these idiots did indeed throw a live animal to its death, they need psychiatric help and a few swift kicks to the head. If it was faked, they still need the psychiatric help.
JRB
Great analysis. The last part doesn’t really ring true for me, though. What happened to the diver is what I fear every time I watch that event. Every time I see it, I get a tiny dose of fear. I know that if I ever tried that, I would so crack my head open. It’s very expected for me.
Many times when we laugh, it’s not really because something is funny. Sometimes we laugh because it releases tension. I think that’s what it may have been with me.
Hmm, I don’t know. That’s some pretty sick humor, and I don’t get the point of it, but a movie is just a movie. If we judged the sanity of movie makers by their work, then George Romero should be locked away for good.
Don’t make assumptions. This is not like WWII. Last I heard only something like 10-15% of troops that have been in Iraq have been involved in actual combat. Do to the nature of the conflict there is always the threat no matter where you are in the country but for most it doesn’t happen that way. The Marines in the video may have been in combat, they may not have seen any. No way to know right now.
One thing that may desensitize them is not killing a few humans, it may be killing dogs. There is a feral dog problem at many of the Forward Operating Bases. There is a rabies problem and their fleas are known disease vectors. Feral dogs are routinely killed and disposed of.
Why did the Marine throw the puppy?
Because it was too old to drown.
What did I claim to prove by that anecdote?
Imprinting is essentially operant conditioning. Such behavior can be modified. You claimed that you could not change because of some genetic imperative. The difference between the two may well seem worthy of only a “whatever” to you, but I assure you it is far greater than that. It seems to me that you have been caught talking out of your ass and are trying to weasel out of it.
My involuntary response was to make fun if him, you cretinous pedant.
It was funny, and you laughed, but you took no pleasure in it. Right.
Can you show me where I have said that?
If laughing at an oopsie is, as you say, involuntary, why didn’t they laugh? You claim to be unable to help yourself. How did they?
And therefore not genetically compelled.
Wait a sec, it just occured to me: What do Muslims think of this? They’ve been known to express disapproval over various incidents from time to time.
How susceptible you are to society’s influence is genetic. It’s pretty irrelevant to my post, though, as I wasn’t arguing that point, I was addressing your post asking how some people can refrain while others can’t.
Sexuality is a combination of genetics and environment, yet we don’t ask homosexuals to simply change who they are because of the role environment had on their development. You wouldn’t demand a sufferer of PTSD just “get over it” like other people did; yet here you are, banging the drum and arguing down anyone who reacts to the situation differently from you. They must be inhuman.
Look, empathy is largely a performance for social acceptance. There’s no moral superiority in laughing or not. Back down.
I know Page 5 is a little late for this, but as someone who’s handled a huge number of puppies, and has a little experience with film mechanics, I’m 100% sure it’s real.
Could you elaborate on why you’re sure?
Because the stiffness that the puppy displays, which is what most of the it’s-fake crowd is using as evidence, is exactly the stiff posture a puppy holds when you pick it up by the scruff of the neck. And why would anyone make such a lifelike plush dog in that posture? It also clearly has solid weight, the way it moves when the guy swings his arm; like a real puppy, not a plush.
But what about after the puppy is out of view for half a second? It seems possible that the soldier pulled a switch.
Watch the video while looking at his left shoulder and upper arm. It looks to me like he’s holding something in his left hand that he wants to keep down (and out of view.)
I’m not 100% sure of anything, but my guess is that it’s a fake.
Well, at that point it’s a judgment call. Considering all the possible relevancies–how? and especially why?–as well as the actual visual artifact, I vote real.
lissener - considering the puppy didn’t flail at all once it was thrown, would you guess it was dead or near death to begin with? That’s what it’s looking more like to me at this point.