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the phenomenology of finding someone's joke funny is very interesting. I have paid close attention to it in myself and I find that I usually can't laugh at someone's joke without granting them a kind of equal social status / fundamental dignity getting someone's joke is humbling https://t.co/BAftpS9Cb1
what's trippy is that if I for whatever reason (usually some kind of status fear myself) am blocked from seeing someone as a full person, then it's easy to find their jokes kind of land flat but once or twice I've been able to WATCH myself inhibit the sense of humor
part of what it means to get someone's joke is to deeply accept their meaning-making, letting it into your own, and allowing them to play with meaning it's a kind of trust or something, I think letting one's guard down, letting someone fool you
huh!!! this would also explain why dictators become humorless and unable to laugh at anybody else's jokes! (and why sane kings keep jesters around, so that they aren't 100% on top of the status hierarchy) https://t.co/5rbcdN8O7S