The Epstein Files aren’t funny
Systemic abuse by the power elite is no laughing matter.
Imagine you and your tribal brethren, cowering in fear at a shaking bush in the savanna containing a tiger ready to pounce and tear your flesh apart. You hold each other tight, preparing for your demise… only to see a small critter the size of a capybara emerge. You and your friends let out a harrowed sigh, look each other in the eyes, and out bursts uproarious laughter at how ridiculous the situation turned out to be.
Humor evolved as a stress mechanism for troubled times.The Benign Violation Theory suggests humor serves as a release of emotion derived from heightened awareness around societal context and collective trauma, relieved by an unexpected moment of safety from left-field.
There are many types of humor of course, but the type that tends to emerge during the bleakest of times is Gallows Humor, the tendency to poke light at unfathomably dark circumstances.When things are really bad, sometimes humor truly is all we have.
The dark smoky room behind the dark smoky room
With the release of yet another trove of Epstein Files, we have learned much about the bleakness that drives what seems to be an increasingly encompassing amount of the upper echelons of power.
