[lit-ideas] Re: anecdote of the authoritarian professor
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 22:04:01 -0800 (PST)
--- Scribe1865@xxxxxxx wrote:
> In a message dated 3/24/2004 8:17:04 PM Eastern
> Standard Time,
> omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
> The students generally treat the teachers with
> respect and
> bursting out laughing at something the teacher said
> in
> class would be considered impolite.
> Authority always tries to put a lid on laughter. But
> sooner or later, the
> beard, the ritualized clothing, and other authority
> props become targets of
> laughter. The history of increasing individual
> freedom may be written in steadily
> enlarging targets of ridicule.
> Of course it is also impolite.
How is it that beard or hijab inevitably become
targets of laughter, while a suit and a tie do not ?
Is there something intrinsic to the beard that
warrants laughting? Do the beard and the kippa of the
orthodox Jew also call for being laughed at ? (I doubt
that Eric had the orthodox Jews, or for that matter
the Greek Orthodox priests, in mind when he made the
above remarks.)
I would think that laughing at someone's physical
appearance is in rather bad taste. I had a beard to in
some periods, and a pony-tail in others, neither of
which is very common in China. Yet my students and
colleagues had a good sense not to make fun of that.
Neither was I simply laughed off when I was expressing
ideas unfamiliar to them. Apparently, one could not
expect the same courtesy in a university administered
according to Eric's notions.
O.K.
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