[martok2112]

Originally Posted by horatio

Self-irony is indeed important. I think another purpose of seemingly insultive humour is to really connect:

About then years ago I met a guy during work, we drove together during the early shift and each morning we greeted each other with a weird insult we picked up during work. When I meet my best friend we sometimes do something similar, greet each other with some kind of half-insult.

The purpose is to signal that one is beyond this distanced politeness, that we can insult each other because we are buddies. When you have fallen in love and not realized it yet consciously something similar can happen, you tease or insult your beloved precisely in order to get out of this deadlock of distanced politeness.

I think your ethnic jokes about West Virginia work similarly. We insult each other or ourselves to signal that we are beyond political correctness (which is precisely why I cannot stand it, it is officially about tolerance but actually quite intolerant: don't come too close, get away from me, I do not really wanna connect with you unless you are a sterilized version of yourself).

Indeed. There is politeness, and then there is political correctness.

Politeness is understanding the sensitivity of the person you are speaking to, but knowing where the boundaries are with your joking, occasionally testing them, and when it's gone far enough, you'll know without any ado.

Political correctness? Well, that can be described several ways.
My way is: Political correctness is the politically correct term for the kissing of *** of people who in no way, shape, or form deserve it. And the last time I checked....nobody deserves it.

Another way, as paraphrased from a quote by a military commander:
It is the mistaken belief that one can indeed pick up a turd from the clean end.

[Roysten]

Going back to South Park.. ah they have the answers. The 'Cartoon Wars' episode explores this topic well, in that everything is fair game.

[martok2112]

I really need to catch up on my South Park.

[LCARS 24]

Not really so tasteless, but my own joke about the cancellation of TOS is that it was the result of a typo, where in a memo reading, "It is the decsion of the board not to cancel Star Trek" some airhead secretary typed "now" instead of "not."

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by LCARS 24

Not really so tasteless, but my own joke about the cancellation of TOS is that it was the result of a typo, where in a memo reading, "It is the decsion of the board not to cancel Star Trek" some airhead secretary typed "now" instead of "not."

Good one!

Reminds me of the joke about the monks who of course are celibate, and found a sacred text beneath their monastery, and in the text it said : "Celebrate!"

[LCARS 24]

Well, you know the Japanese have trouble distinquishing between 'R' and 'L." And when General Douglas MacArthur was administrator of Japan after WWII and was considering a run for the U.S. presidency citizens of Tokyo erected a large sign "We pray for MacArthur's erection."

[horatio]

Originally Posted by martok2112

Indeed. There is politeness, and then there is political correctness.

Politeness is understanding the sensitivity of the person you are speaking to, but knowing where the boundaries are with your joking, occasionally testing them, and when it's gone far enough, you'll know without any ado.

Political correctness? Well, that can be described several ways.
My way is: Political correctness is the politically correct term for the kissing of *** of people who in no way, shape, or form deserve it. And the last time I checked....nobody deserves it.

Another way, as paraphrased from a quote by a military commander:
It is the mistaken belief that one can indeed pick up a turd from the clean end.

The problem of political correctness is that it is too blunt and direct. Ordinary politeness often works indirectly. Take the example of apologizing, the usual response is something like "no harm done, you have nothing to apologize for". Obviously this isn't literally true, of course there was something to apologize for, but the pretense serves to protect the relationship.
"How are you?" is also such a sincere lie. If you took it literally an appropriate response would be "that's none of your business" but the point is again to insert some form of excess friendliness into it. Even tough everybody knows that it is not a sincere question it does the trick, it works better as a greeting phase than a mere hello.

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by horatio

The problem of political correctness is that it is too blunt and direct. Ordinary politeness often works indirectly. Take the example of apologizing, the usual response is something like "no harm done, you have nothing to apologize for". Obviously this isn't literally true, of course there was something to apologize for, but the pretense serves to protect the relationship.
"How are you?" is also such a sincere lie. If you took it literally an appropriate response would be "that's none of your business" but the point is again to insert some form of excess friendliness into it. Even tough everybody knows that it is not a sincere question it does the trick, it works better as a greeting phase than a mere hello.

Adequate: Hello
Polite: Good morning/afternoon/evening
Sincere lie: How are you?
Politically correct: Mello greetings (full name)