Laughter
- Talks of some of the benefits of laughter.
- "cast away your ... excess of laughter far from you"
- "cease ... from all laughter"
- "not with much laughter, for this is sin"
- "What’s Wrong with “Loud Laughter”?", Gospel Living, 16 Aug 2020
Notes
The scriptures talk about loud laughter being something to avoid. I would like to know what is meant by this.
None of what I have found seems to clarify this much and some of it seems contradictory.
Rude and derisive laughter, surely, seems like it could reasonably be a solid definition of this spirit offending laughter, but I lack any linguistic evidence that this is a reasonable interpretation of the term during Joseph Smith's time. I don't have any other confirming evidence either.
I have also seen commentators suggest that loud laughter refers to joking about things that should be taken seriously. A definition like this feels like a fuzzy definition indeed considering that the best definition of humor that I have ever heard is that it is the creation and resolution of a kind of mentally threatening idea; a kind of mental challenge. (I even hypothesize that this is why people can enjoy horror; the safe confrontation of fear; or enjoy solving puzzles.) Slaying sacred cows has been one of humor's most important functions, and even within the church, sacred cows often need slaying. While I would agree that some things truly are sacred and ought to be, I think the creation of such a rule does more to preserve cultural idols that need slaying, than to protect that which truly is sacred.
Considering my preferred definition of humor, and my hypotheses regarding other connected concepts that seem to take a similar form, I have further hypothesized that humor and similar concepts might be mediated in part by Dopamine, and hence, Upholder personalities might have a naturally less developed appreciation for humor, horror, and problem-solving, since their serotonergic systems dominate over their dopaminergic systems. Hence, Upholders could be expected to develop an antipathy for humor due to having a less developed sense of humor, and their more well-recognized tendency to give pasture to sacred cows.
Do they develop sacred cows, like tumors, due to their less developed sense of humor. It seems like a sense of humor is inoculation against sacred cows. (Like an immune system.) Of course, maybe it also prevents recognition of the truly sacred? Perhaps the real message is balance, but if so, how do we affect our own sense of humor?
The Obliger/Rebel types (Neurotic types who tend to also be leftists) have a modern tendency to create their own personally invented sacred cows, and in modern times, they have become quite antagonistic towards humor. Does humor fight sacred cows as I suspect, but my hypothesis about dopamine is wrong? (But also, comedians all seem to come from this personality space. The ones that nurture sacred cows just seem to kill their sense of humor. What is going on here?)