The terrible reality of consequences

My former husband and I had a favorite saying, which was "If you buy the premise you buy the joke." We'd often use this expression as a shorthand in conversation. The meaning of the saying is that if you accept the opening assumptions of a joke, no matter how outrageous, then you automatically have bought into the progress and ending of the joke, no matter how contrived and bizarre (or unfunny). In other words, if you accept that "A rabbi, an alien and a cat walked into a bar" as an opening line, you can't complain how wacky the joke progresses and ends (and that is the whole point of a joke after all).

The problem is when the principle underlying this observation about jokes is not understood in life. If you accept a premise in life that is contrived, mean, or untrue, you have bought into the entire journey through the fulfillment of that premise.

False "faiths" such as those who espouse treating real human beings as if they were reincarnated "spirits" that you have a right to manipulate and beef with is an obvious example. If you accept (and worse, teach others) that the every day innocent people you know and interact with are somehow beholden to you for "something that happened in a previous life" you are accepting a false ("bad joke") premise that will have an outcome based on that premise. For example, someday the seeds you plant with this false belief will come back to bite you as people pass on this cruelty back to you and your family. You will have taught people to believe this false view of life, ruined people's lives, and eventually you have to cope in a world where your false beliefs have contaminated healthy reality, and eventually that dirty water will wash back on you, just as in the ironic ending of a joke with a bizarre premise.

This is also true in matters of simple decency. Doctors and nurses who abuse a patient will eventually find their family members, and yes, themselves, abused too. This is not because of "karma" but because if enough people are taught it is "OK" to stick their fingers up private parts of helpless patients, or spread poop and snot around a hospital, that will eventually become the standard of "care" for everyone. If one "health care worker" thinks it is "OK" to abuse or mishandle one person, especially a child, or a person without power or family to protect them, this behavior is emulated and copied and soon becomes the baseline. Is anyone surprised anymore by super germs in hospitals and how hardly anyone washes their hands anymore? Is anyone surprised that people who only think about sex stick their fingers in the orifices of both infant and elderly and everyone in between?

If you buy the premise you buy the joke. The collapse of society goes back to the first few exploitative "trend setters" who think that some punishment, depravity, neglect, or self gratification is somehow justifiable in one circumstance. The collective mentality and downfall of human decency is never far behind as the punchline of a very bad joke about "humanity."