​Laughter and sin

During one of my recent ritual runs on Facebook, I came across a question that required, if not a categorically unambiguous answer, then at least an enthusiastic discussion. The question was: “Can the Holocaust be the object of jokes, anecdotes and humor?”

These or similar questions have become quite common in our time. I didn’t find anything new for myself in this either, but for some reason I gave an answer that inevitably grew into a side thread of the general conversation.

I wrote that, in my opinion, yes, it can. But not in every case, of course. That the circumstances of the context and convention come into force here. Yes, you can, but only among your own people, if by “your own” you mean all those who find the same things funny or not funny as you, and whose trust in the stability of your basic moral beliefs you do not doubt.

I personally, I wrote, know a number of rather harsh anecdotes on these topics, and they do not scratch my sensitivity at all.

I think, I wrote, that this is not at all what violates the boundaries of our moral ideas, but rather what creates a reliable framework for them, which makes them stronger and more stable.

It seemed to me that what I said sounded quite convincing. But no, I shouldn’t have thought so, because they immediately began to object to me temperamentally. The objection, of course, is in the sense that not everything can be the butt of a joke. That there are things that...

At some point, it began to seem to me that those objecting to me were not objecting to me at all. That misunderstanding, as often happens, stems from confusion in terms and concepts.

I say that there are no forbidden objects for laughter, but only inappropriate situations, but they will still excitedly tell me that “not everything can be laughed at.” I agree, not over everything.

The construction “laugh at...” sounds to many like “to mock, mock at...”

For many, laughter only means ridicule, ridicule, ridicule.

Everything related to laughter, unfortunately, is associated by many with disrespect, and even with insult.

Many people believe that a caricature, for example, or even a comic book, is certainly funny. And if it's funny, then it's mockery. And if it's mockery, then it's offensive. And therefore, some - and there are many of them - are heartily outraged by the appearance of comics on topics similar to the one being discussed.

Many people believe that the “unrealistic”, conventional depiction of victims and suffering is offensive because, in their opinion, it passes through the department of “giggling and hemming and hawing.”

At first I somehow answered this too. Joking about evil, I answered, for example, is not at all the same as justifying evil.

Or it reminded of the existence of such an already academically legitimized cultural phenomenon as “black humor.”

My personal experience of communicating with different people, I answered, convinces me that the social behavior of people for whom black humor is quite acceptable and consumed, for whom this humor is not “oh, what horror, how can you!”, but quite The legitimate area of ​​communicative behavior, as a rule, is much more consistent with my ideas about “highly moral.”

And I won’t even say that in some cases there is no more reliable anesthetic than laughter. Including the most “cynical” one. Including on the most “sick” topics.

There is cynicism and cynicism. And there is a playful imitation of cynicism, a game of cynicism. Confusing one with the other is the same as confusing an author with his character. This is a very old and very persistent misconception.

“Imitation of cynicism is a game with the Devil,” a certain stern interlocutor answered me, “which is permission for the Devil to come to our World again! It is better not to imitate or multiply entities beyond measure at all.” Just like that.

“You can, of course, say so,” I replied. “And we can also say that ridiculing the devil (sorry, with a small letter) is a sensitive blow to his power ambitions.”

To summarize the not very productive discussion, I will give a very short answer like this. Everything - any statement, any gesture or facial expression, any picture, any musical phrase - everything that is possible for me - not for anyone else, but for me with all my social, sensory, intellectual experience, with all my established to this day, moral and aesthetic ideas about good and evil, beautiful and ugly, funny and unfunny - everything that can make me smile has an unconditional and indisputable right to exist. You can argue on these topics endlessly, but these disputes will bring nothing but mutual irritation. Because here such a purely personal factor as taste comes into force - aesthetic taste, moral taste, behavioral taste. And, in general, we cannot be guided by anything other than this factor in our statements, actions or assessments of what is happening around us without the risk of drowning headlong in bad infinity.

Yes, I'm sure people joked in the ghetto. I'm sure people joked around in the camp barracks. I am sure and even know for sure from eyewitnesses that people joked and told jokes in besieged Leningrad.

I am also sure that evil never jokes. Evil is usually very serious. It walks among us, and is easy to recognize by its clenched jaws and knitted eyebrows. And if it suddenly decides to joke, then these jokes are easily recognized by their increased gloomy stupidity.

For example, I remember such a sparkling joke. And literally on the topic indicated at the beginning.

Once I heard and saw how literally under my window a company of drunken red-faced bastards bawled to the tune of the cheerful dance “Seven-Forty”: “Oswiecim is a wonderful camp! Oswiecim is a wonderful camp! Summer is coming - let's go there!”

No one will ask me if I like this kind of humor? Isn't it true?

But if any of the participants in the discussion want to ask, using this example, whether I still consider all laughter to be legitimate, then I will answer something like this.

Yes, I'm still sure that laughter is never criminal. He can be angry and stupid sometimes. It's true. So let's consider such laughter stupid and evil, and its bearers as fools and scum.

Let me remind you that the question concerned specifically the topic of the Holocaust. This is understandable - this topic, of course, occupies a special and separate place among other painful topics in the entire history of the past century. Because none of the other numerous and large-scale atrocities and crimes of the 20th century set itself the task of completely exterminating a huge number of people, men, women and children, selected only on one basis - on the basis of blood, the circumstances of kinship and birth.

This is understandable, and this “specialness” does not raise any doubts, at least for me.

But I also understand something else. By establishing, even if not external, but only internal prohibitions on reflection on anything, by deciding to identify taboo topics, we will never stop there. The virus of prohibition is omnipotent and insidious. And we see this with extraordinary clarity these days, when a literal epidemic of “offended feelings” forces normal people to fearfully look around: is there someone offended and insulted lurking around the corner, is he now going to whistle with two fingers, calling for help to his abused people? feelings, a squad of gloomy men in hats and trousers with stripes.

Is it illegal to joke about the Holocaust? Well, let's say. Is it permissible for everything else? Have you noticed how, over the years, various other topics, words, names have been and are being given sacred status?

I can’t forget how, in one of the late Soviet years, I quarreled to death with a young lady who once admitted to me that she was “hurt” (that’s what she said) by my jokes about Lenin, that she couldn’t bear to hear me disrespectfully calling him “Lukich.” ", well, in general. “Understand,” she said with a feeling, the sincerity of which I did not doubt, “understand that a person must have at least something sacred in his life!”

No, she was not a particularly fiery and stubborn Komsomol communist. And in general, before that conversation, she seemed to me to be a completely adequate person. But here you go! She chose “something sacred” for herself...

I don’t remember what I answered her that time, but I do remember that after this conversation we never saw each other again.

The question I quoted at the very beginning had what seemed to the author an essential clarification: “The question is not about legal entities. prohibitions (in no case), but a question of appropriateness, internal restrictions and moral right.”

The fact of the matter is that “internal restrictions” rarely remain internal. Having established internal restrictions, a person, by virtue of his powers, seeks to limit others. And there already before the “legal. prohibitions are just around the corner.

This topic inevitably merges with the odious topic of “insulting feelings”, swelling to indefinite proportions, which, practically bypassing the stage of public discussion, has become the topic of judicial punitive measures.

Therefore, let us be guided only by our own ideas about tact and taste, about appropriateness or inappropriateness. Let's not be guided by the stupid conviction that something funny can, in principle, be offensive to a person with normal moral reflexes. It can't!

I have long noticed that restless debaters very often begin their objections with the words “well, what if... well, what if your child is... well, what if in your entrance... what if suddenly...”

When I come across this “if,” I literally cringe, and I absolutely don’t want to find out what’s next.

Once, I remember, I wrote that, in my deep conviction, at a wake, even if it is a wake for a person very close to you, you should not make boring faces, you should not speak in a low voice and avoid even the semblance of a smile. On the contrary, I am sure, you should definitely remember something funny and cheerful, you should laugh if it’s funny, because laughter and unforced gaiety, and even death itself, can sometimes make you doubt your own omnipotence.

If not the first, then certainly the second comment began, of course, with the words “well, what if.” And I, without even bothering to read what happened next, decided to answer anyway.

"Yes! - I answered. - And in this case too. And in this case - even especially!