To laugh or not to laugh

To laugh or not to laugh, that is the question... Apparently no one in America understands this question, let alone knows how to answer it. After reading through Chuck Klosterman's "Eating the Dinosaur" I really thought about all the different misuses of laughter in American society. Although I am a huge fan of laugh-box comedies like Friends, and Seinfeld, I suddenly realize how stupid the idea is. Canned-laughter is simply someone in the back of your head giving you the green light to laugh when something is supposed to be funny. I liked how he talked about Germans being very frank (no pun intended) and generally evasive towards laughter in common conversation. This is strange for Americans to comprehend considering we use laughter as an everyday tool of communication. American laughter is purely conditioned by the entitlement to politely, obligatorily, and reflexively laugh at anything that might seem funny during conversation (Klosterman 187). The whole idea of canned-laughter suggests that Americans are to dumb to know when to laugh, and I really don't know if I can condone that behavior anymore. The world might be a better place with more laughter, but does laughter also make the world a dumber place? I don't know the answer, but I will say that I kinda like the fact that Americans enjoy lots of laughter. It makes us seem a lot more human, and a lot less like those super serious Germans. Besides, German is a dying language anyway.