A few thoughts - all depressing
It occured to me that perhaps the reason that men like sports and other competitive things such as hunting and fighting (as in computer games) is perhaps as a maladaptive evolutionary desire for “the thrill of the hunt” (natural for a hunter).
Similarly too, perhaps the reason that women like shopping is as a maladaptive evolutionary desire for “the thrill of the find” (natural for a gatherer).
And thus we see how “hunter/gatherer” lives on even in today’s day and age.
It also struck me that joking reinforces socialization or “common sense”. Why? Joking is the testing part of normalization of behavior. When a person knows and engages in norm-compliant behavior, they are not testing the boundaries of it. When a person does go outside the norm, there are two possible reactions: (1) “Surely you’re joking!” and (2) anger, indignation, and otherwise a sense of indicating that the other is outside the norm and should go back in.
(2) is clearly the sort of normative behavior that we expect with the socialization process.
In the case of (1), two responses are possible: (A) “Ha ha - of course I am.” or (B) “No, I’m not!” In the case of (B), it is implicit and expected that (2) will likely follow. Thus, a person who wishes to avoid confrontation will go with (A), even if they had sincerly gone outside the norm for good reason.
Thus, since all norming behavior discourages truly unconventional thinking, clearly joking does too - since it educates people that when they begin to engage in non-normative behavior, that they can/should laugh and claim it as a joke in order to make their lives better.
Thus, the situation requires that only those that desire confrontation will dare to engage in non-normative behavior and not consider it a joke.
Tying this in with the earlier remarks, it would suggest that only those that have that maladaptive competitive drive would be those that desire confrontation, and hence those that engage in non-normative behavior and cause “progress”. Of course, lest this come across as being misogynistic, I want to point out that the above-mentioned hypothesized tendencies are only tendencies, not absolute proven correlations. It would, however, provide a rather different answer for why western civilization has been predominantly lead and given movement and progress by males as opposed to the traditional answer of systemic oppression against women (which is not something that I in any way wish to indicate does not exist - on the contrary, I know it does exist - but, perhaps we may have found one of the many contributing causes to it?).
The fact that even something so seemingly innocent as a joke is, in fact, a norming process that reinforces socialization and thus possibly systemic oppression is, in fact, perhaps an argument against joking? Of course, I’m not being fair here - I should also cite all the arguments for joking, including those often-cited ones about it (or rather, the consequences of it, namely laughter) being good for your health.
This does, however, indicate just how deeply ingrained the socialization process is. Questioning is shunned.
This suggests to me that maybe the dysfunctional standard of codependency and non-awakeness is really what we’re designed for as humans. We naturally form societies and they naturally form a socialization process that prohibits the gathering of wisdom that is outside of the social norms. Both hunting and finding/gathering are processing of “seeking more” and of presuming that we lack enough - and yet they are both instinctive. The idea that we need to seek more - enough to make us “enough” - is not too far distant from the idea that we need to “complete” ourselves in order to be truly happy - an idea that easily leads to the beginnings of codependency.
The more “wisdom” like this that I gain, the less I like this sort of “wisdom”.
I hereby disavow any convinction in beliefs about any of the ideas set forth in this post. They’re merely provided as food for thought. Take them or leave them as you see fit.