Coffee shop discussions #3

Nasser and I had our third meeting today. On a cold, somewhat rainy day there is not a lot of better things to do than hot coffee in a coffee shop while talking with a very interesting person. We did not talk about religion this time, but instead mainly talked about food. The hardest part of the discussion: choosing my favorite restaurant in all of Fort Worth and describing American food.
I ended up choosing Yucatan Taco Stand as my favorite restaurant; I love food that comes from pretty much any place south of the Red River: tex-mex, mexican, latin american, etc... Nasser's favorite restaurant in Fort Worth is Texas de Brazil. That brought us to the topic of meat. We found out we both love fish, and we are both also a little picky when it comes to meat: I don't like the taste of most red meat or pork, and Nasser doesn't like any cold meat, even lunch meat. I learned that in Saudi Arabia, they cannot eat any animal that eats other animals. From that I taught him the words "carnivore" and "herbivore."
It is also interesting how simple things change in various parts of the world. In Saudi Arabia, lamb is one of the most common meats and beef is not eaten very much over there. It is the opposite here; he was surprised when I said I liked lamb and that my mom sometimes uses it in cooking.
Also, we both don't like spicy food, love Indian food, but nothing spicy.
How does one define American food? The stereotype is hamburgers, pizza, and fries, which yes I would consider American food, but in reality American food is a blend of everyone else's food. We are called the "melting pot" and our food definitely fits the name. Nasser asked what my mom normally cooks at home; pasta, casseroles (that needed a definition), meat, other american food? It is just so hard to summarize...

But in the end, assuming I got the description/translation correct: Nasser loves Jello and really wanted to know why it is not served in restaurants. I just didn't have an answer for that.

Coffee with Nasser #2

I met with Nasser again today at the bookstore coffee shop (this time we actually got coffee). The coffee led to some discussion about cultural differences such as the typical hours of waking, dining, and sleeping. Saudi Arabia, according to Nasser, has many similarities with the culture of South America; meals are consumed closer to 9:00pm and typical lights out time is midnight. In America, it is considered rude to call a home past 9:00pm because daily life is winding down by that point and some people, especially with kids, are beginning to turn in for the night.It is a good thing I live in America because my circadian rhythm follows America's daily routine much closer; I would pick a bedtime of 9:30pm over a bedtime of 12-1am any day of the week.

Later he made the bold, but true, statement that Americans are arrogant, or maybe more accurately put, that we like to be different. We were specifically talking about running distances and then the weather, each time running into problems as I always mentioned measurements in the English system and he would mention measurements in the metric system. Why the heck do we use the English system anyway? It makes no sense. 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard... Everything in the metric system is a multiple of ten. Being a science major, everything I do in science is in terms of a metric measurement, yet things such as distances and speed limits I only understand in terms of miles and mph. Switching would be so much more convenient in the end, but the process of switching systems seems like too much of an imposition.

Then we got to my favorite part: religion! I don't know how we always end up there, but we both love talking about the similarities, the differences, and the general beliefs of each other's religions. We talked about Israel; Nasser knows the history of how it became a country and the various claims to the land. We both agree that it is a land claimed by Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and that it should be for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We talked about the Koran and the Bible. I am ashamed to say that I got showed up: I have never read through the whole Bible; Nasser has not only read through the Koran 20-30 times, but he has also read the whole Bible and the Torah and has 10-20% of the Koran memorized. Nasser was amazed that I had not read the Bible, and I explained that Christianity does not place as much of an emphasis on the ritualistic practices such as prayer and reading like Islam does. And that made me wonder if it is because of American culture. America emphasizes freedom of religion, but I believe we have shifted more to a mindset of freedom from religion. We are so concerned with being politically correct that we don't mention religions or talk about beliefs for fear of offending people. Instead, we remain ingnorant, and I believe that is what leads to stereotypes and racism.

We then talked about the similarities between our religions, mainly in what stories are contained in our holy books. Both the Bible and the Koran contain the following stories: Noah and the flood, Moses and the crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, Abraham, King David, Soloman, and even Jesus, and those are the just the stories I could think of quickly off the top of my head. When two religions share so much of the same history, stories, and believe in the same God, how can there be so much hatred and violence between believers of the two? Lastly, we talked about judgement day, Heaven and Hell, and our respective religion's beliefs of the two.

I have never before had such freedom to openly discuss and question the beliefs of Islam or any religion, but it is so enlightening. This is one situation where ignorance is not bliss, but, instead, causes the hatred that plagues our nations and world today. Why can't everyone be a little more open minded and open hearted?

“Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia” and America is hated for it

The 50 Funniest American Writers according to Andy Borowitz includes a news article from The Onion announcing the U.S. deployment of “…more than 75,000 vowels to the war-torn region of Bosnia” (Borowitz 335) to help aid in the spelling of words such as “…Sjlbvdnzv and Grznc…” (336). This is enough to put a smile on the faces of most. The illustrated situation is absurd; can’t you just picture paper letters raining down from C-130s over a babbling, incoherent crowd of Bosnians? We laugh because these things don’t, and shouldn’t go together; therefore, this parable falls under the Incongruity Theory of humor as explained in Morreall’s Comic Relief. The incongruity theory says that we laugh or find a situation humorous when we perceive two things to be incongruous. Incongruity, in most modern theories, is defined as “…some thing or event we perceive or think about [which] violates our normal mental patterns and normal expectations” (Morreall 11). We usually associate deployments with bombs, not A’s, E’s, I’s, O’s, and U’s; the U.S. often generously gives supplies, not vowels, to war-torn countries around the world. But as bizarre and amusing as this fictional situation is, it is being used to make a very bold statement. Though war and vowels are incongruous, the U.S.’s position in this fictional situation is all too true and not absurd at all. Too often, the U.S. has to stick its nose in other people’s business. Even given this absurd example, why do we think we have the right to change the language of a nation because we have trouble pronouncing the words? How self-centered and pompous are we? We are a wealthy nation with a lot of resources and often times we like to extend a helping hand to struggling nations. What we really do in these situations is help these nations to be more like us. In times of war as well, America likes to be the police of the world, sending troops to support a side or keep the peace. Why is that our job? No one appointed us to that position, and most of the world doesn’t like it either. Even Americans do not like the decisions like this that our government makes. So as ridiculous (and humorous) as littering the sky with vowels may seem, it is being used to point out how ridiculous it is that America, though usually through good intentions, attempts to help and convert every nation in the world to our way of existence. To America, it is our way or the highway (or in this case, the incoherent way).

The three most important things in a whole lot of confusing…

In an attempt to explain humor/laughter, something so basic and animalistic, Morreall, the author of Comic Relief, takes many approaches in attempting to explain this broad and vague a topic. Though relatively short, the book contains a lot of material, a lot of confusing material, and a lot of repetitive material, but somewhere in there was some good material. The following are what I consider the three most important take-away messages concerning humor/laughter/amusement/comedy…

1.      Humor depends on a specific time. We all know the phrase, “laughter is universal,” but I think this is only true in the sense that everyone physically laughs. What is deemed funny does not span across generations and across time, but is time specific. Morreall goes into great depth analyzing which form of art is better, comedy or tragedy. In the end, he surmises that, “[h]owever valuable the attitudes fostered by tragedy were in past centuries, they are now largely obsolete, and some of them dangerous to the survival of the species. Comedy fosters a more rational, critical, creative attitude that is more adaptive” (Morreall 81). Our current uptight, highly stressed out, mentally rigid societies need comedy to remind us how to act like humans instead of fast paced machines. Similarly, where comedy was once viewed in a negative light because of the loss of self-control and disengagement that accompanies laughter, we now highly value laughter; not only does laughter allow us to avoid the “fight or flight” emotions in cognitive shifts, but even more basically, laughter is beneficial for one’s health by reducing anxiety, pain, and boosting the immune system (93).

2.      Amusement is more of a state of mind, not an emotion. Emotions are evolutionarily productive; fear and anger send us into “fight or flight mode,” thus contributing to Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, otherwise known as survival of the fittest. “Emotions typically have four components: (1) Beliefs and desires cause (2) physiological changes, which together motivate (3) adaptive actions. The person’s (4) sensations of those physiological changes are the ‘feelings’ in emotions” (28). But in humor, do we really believe the situation of the joke? (Maybe those that see gullible written on the ceiling do). We do physiologically respond in laughter, but in the opposite way that fight or flight emotions cause us to act; emotions engage us and make us more alert, whereas laughter disengages us and renders us unable to act. And how can an inability to act be adaptive? Usually it is not. Because amusement possesses only two of the four characteristics of emotions, amusement is not considered an emotion. “Emotions involve cognitive and practical engagement with what is going on around us....Amusement, by contrast, involves cognitive and practical disengagement from what is going on around us” (32).  

3.      Humor is character building. Morreall spends a whole chapter explaining previous views which say that humor is negative because of the lack of action and disengagement that it causes. All of the negative views that he expands upon, and then refutes, are negative only in certain situations and are not true of humor itself. Then, he switches to discuss the positives of humor, where he focuses on intellectual and moral virtues. On an intellectual level, he says that humor promotes open-mindedness, divergent or creative thinking, and critical thinking (112-113). On a moral level, humor also contributes to self-transcendence, defined as the ability to “[rise] above personal concern to appreciate the interests of others” (115). Other important outcomes of humor are self-knowledge, integrity, mental health, patience, acceptance of people’s shortcomings, graciousness, perseverance, and courage. Don’t all of these virtues seem beneficial to possess? Aren’t they things that we as a society value? Yes, and all you have to do to acquire these character traits is laugh a little more. Attend a comedy show or two, learn how to drop a few puns in normal conversation, learn a few good jokes for certain occasions and you are on your way to possessing many highly desirable moral qualities.  

 Confusing and unstructured writing boiled down to three main points: can’t all literature be like this?

Coffee shop discussions... #1

Today, I met with my conversation partner, Nasser Almousa, for the first time in the TCU bookstore coffee shop. It was, by far, the most enlightening converstaion I have had with someone in a long time. After introductions, I explained that my father is from England, which led to a conversation about accents and dialects. From this, he proceeded to ask me certain phrases and ways of pronouncing things in Texas; I proudly taught him how to say "y'all" and "fixin' to."

When he asked me to explain the Honors College here at TCU, this class came up. I explained that we are studying humor around the world and across cultures and that, coincidently, the topic for my Humor Around the World project is humor from the Middle East. Immediately, (well, between laughs and mental translations) he told me what the funniest thing is to him: Egyptians. At first I was a little puzzled by this, but I think what he was ultimately trying to get across (some of the stories he was telling me of his experiences in Cairo were too difficult to translate) was that Egyptians are generally wittier. Nonetheless, he provided a good basis for the start of our research.

We then started talking about stereotypes and, ultimately, religions. We got into a lengthy, and very enlightening discussion, about the beliefs of Islam. Here are some of the things I learned or common myths that were debunked:

Twenty-one nations speak Arabic.

Saudi Arabians (the citizens) consider Americans (the citizens) very intelligent. On the other hand, Saudis hate the American government. (but really, what country doesn't)

Saudi Arabia is not a theocracy run by its religious leaders, but a monarchy with a king.

Islam is a peaceful religion; to kill anyone, believer or not, is a huge sin. All people are considered part of a brotherhood.

Muslims do not consider Osama bin Laden a Muslim because of his actions eleven years ago today. That act of violence does not agree with the beliefs of Islam.

The Koran does not say that women have to wear a head covering; it is entirely a personal choice. Although the Saudi Arabian government tries to enforce this, they have no right to.

I stated that the stereotype of Muslims by Americans is that they are all terrorists. He laughed a little at its absurdity. I asked him what his country's stereotype of Americans is: we are all cowboys.

At the very end, he told me the most shocking and saddening thing: In his english intensive class, they are partnered up with people to talk and practice speaking english. The first things he was asked when he got with his partner were the following questions: "Did your mom teach you how to make a bomb? Were you taught how to kill someone?" What does this say about mankind?

Is fake humor as beneficial as real humor?

Can humor that has been mustered up, but not necessarily felt, have the same disengaging effects as true humor? Morreall has established that humor is a way for us to experience our environments in a less emotional way; instead of feeling the “fight or flight” emotions in a surprising or incongruous situation, humor is a mindset that allows us to assess our situations and respond rationally instead of emotionally. As he phrases it in Comic Relief, “Humor is an excellent way to disengage ourselves from negative emotions” (Morreall 67). But what if we do not find our particular situation amusing? What if we are hurting, angry, depressed, or forlorn? Do we have the ability to fake humor to the extent that we can achieve the disengaged state that accompanies it? In psychological terms, can humor, just like denial or rationalization, be a defense mechanism? I believe it can. In my experience, choosing fake humor is much easier than expressing suppressed emotions. Consider my recent/current situation: I have had five orthopedic surgeries in the last 4 years, each with a lengthy recovery and an even more extensive list of “do-not-do’s.” Being an active person, this one injury after another situation has been frustrating to say the least. But feeling anger and frustration is exhausting, so instead, I fake humor. I joke about the size of my file at the doctor’s office, and tell people things such as, “I am done hoping there are no more surgeries; I am just waiting until the next one comes along,” or “If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I do not usually actually find my situation amusing or humorous, but by expressing this humorous attitude, I am able to continue to repress the negative emotions and disengage from them. Whether this artificial humor is the cause of the disengagement from negative emotions or whether it is the human instinct to avoid pain, I do not know. What I do know is this: humor, even if it is fake, is easier than feeling emotions.