I’m wondering how long Pamela Paul will last as a NYT op-ed columnist if she keeps producing columns like this. (She used to be the Sunday Book Review editor.) The point of the column, a bit thin for her, is a good one: the woke (she calls them “politically correct”, and perhaps we should re-adopt that term) have no sense of humor about themselves. Is she right, given that there are indeed quite a few places where you can find humorous mockery of wokeness, e.g., The Babbling Beaver or The Babbling Bear. But yes, it’s not as easy to come across that humor as it used to be. As Paul says in her column:
A world without making fun is a world with a lot less fun in it. It also misses out on the relief humor provides. The whole point of comedy is to poke us where it’s most uncomfortable, to get us to laugh at our foibles and excesses, and the self-seriousness alone of contemporary political correctness practically begs for satire. Today we seem to mistake humorlessness for seriousness.
Read by clicking on the screenshot, and I found the column archived here.
The first thing to ask is whether Paul’s claim is correct: do the woke refrain from engaging in self-mockery and comedy? And the answer is “well, but not entirely”. The truly militant woke, like Ibram Kendi, aren’t expected to mock themselves, as they are deeply engaged in trying to reform society according to their program, but there are several sites, as I noted, that , but sites that mock wokeness. And I’ve found that those sites don’t usually come from the Right (the Right lacks a sense of humor, though The Babylon Bee, said to be a conservative Christian Site, is an exception), but from the Center Left. Who’s the most famous person to satirize wokeness? Bill Maher, and he’s on the Center Left. Paul even mentions him below. No, he’s not on ABC any more, but he’s as popular as ever.
But Paul’s correct in saying that things have changed. Mockery may be sparser, but what has really changed is that you are now automatically demonized as the enemy (i.e. someone on the Right) for mocking “politicial correctness”:
Yet there was a time, says Paul, when it was done, and taken in a good spirit. She recalls the 1992 book The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (still available), which was a bestseller to everyone. Even I had a copy, for “political correctness” was neither as pervasive nor as serious as wokeness is now. (“Political correctness”, unless “wokeness”, started out as a pejorative word, while “wokeness” has morphed into one, perhaps because its exponents are so dead serious. Paul notes the different atmosphere thirty years ago:
In 1992, two Harvard Lampoon alums, Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, published “The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook,” which mixed together actual terms of P.C. orthodoxy with fictional ones in a way that left you unsure which was which. Real or fake: assimilationism, carbocentricism, chemically inconvenienced, heterosexually celibate, humyn, chair?
Thirty years later, on Amazon, a customer gave the book a worried one-star review, noting, “You’ll get in more trouble using this book than you were before.” These sensitivities are no longer a laughing matter. They are the stuff of moralizing retribution.
But back in benighted 1993, the year I graduated from college, we couldn’t fathom such censoriousness. That was the year Comedy Central introduced the political talk show “Politically Incorrect,” hosted by Bill Maher. Four years later, the show crossed over to network television — network television! — where ABC aired it until advertisers balked over comments Maher made about Sept. 11. The concern? Insufficient patriotism.
Expressing the opposite sentiment today — when merely referring to yourself as “American” is enough to be deemed “imperialist” — is what might get you in trouble.
People have clearly lost their sense of humor.
I think she’s right here, for if you mock extreme forms of wokeness, such as the opposition to “Kimono Wednesdays” at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts—a palpably ridiculous attempt to quash “cultural appropriation” (itself something ripe for mockery)—your are immediately placed in the opposition.
It’s an interesting question, and one Paul needs to ponder, why those on the Left used to mock political correctness so easily and get away with it, but can no longer do so with wokeness, even though the latter is just an updated version of the former.
Here’s my own twofold explanation, which is mine:
1.) Wokeness is more intimately connected with race and gender than was “political correctness”, and these issues are touchy and often taken dead seriously. If you mock them, you become the enemy, as happened to Dave Chapelle when he dealt with transsexuality in one of his Neflix comedy shows. Things have become so bad that comedians like Jerry Seinfeld will no longer perform on college campuses, as all that brings is heartache. This, of course, creates self-censorship if you want to make fun of wokeness. For nobody on the Left ever wants to be called a racist or a sexist.
But that brings up the question of WHY, even if you’re a liberal or Leftist, do you suffer more now than you used to? The answer, I think, may involve this:
2.) The extreme Left is more extreme than it used to be, and that’s led to more emotional fragility. Its members thus tend to strike out at those who oppose them, demonizing them even though they’re on the same half of the political spectrum. (It may not be irrelevant that surveys show that mental illness is more pervasive on the extreme Left than on the extreme Right). Emotional fragility leads to extreme behavior—remember how Nicholas Christakis was attacked by unhinged Yale students simply because his wife sent an email to the students in their “house” saying that adults could choose their own Halloween costumes? This is emotional fragility in action (on the part of some students, not Christakis):
I’m not the first to make the point: it is in fact a major aspect of Haidt and Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind. And regardless of whether emotional fragility is a cause or a consequence of being on the extreme left, it has produced a polarization and animus that didn’t used to exist.
Let it not be said, though, that Paul lets the Right off the hook. Here’s what she says about them:
What weak laughter is left? Nowadays, critics of P.C.’s pedantic excesses can be even more strident than its advocates. Making fun of political correctness (efforts not to offend) is one thing; telling outright offensive jokes (efforts intended to offend) is quite another. On right-wing outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller, the tone is more rage and sneer than ridicule and smirk — they’re attacking the enemy rather than recognizing their own foolishness.
Yes, but the tone of all opponents of wokeness is at anger or criticism, and not often mockery. The Right sees themselves in a battle, and, while Rightists themselves seem to lack sense of humor, the Left, which in general does have more humor, has been cowed by the extreme wing from mocking its own excesses. But I’m not sure what Paul’s last sentence above means, especially the word “foolishness.” All I can say is that the Right doesn’t go after the extreme right with nearly the vitriol that the Left goes after the extreme Left. This may be connected with the reduced emotional fragility of the extreme right—if what the surveys show is correct.
So Paul is correct that it’s not as easy to satirize political correctness as it used to be, but incorrect in implying that there is hardly any mockery of wokeness from the Left. And I think she missed a valuable chance to analyze why this change in attitudes has occurred in the last few decades.
It’s true that there don’t seem to be a lot of conservative comedians (or maybe they’re just not given stages). Perhaps it’s because conservatives are not, generally, given to social commentary, that being the most trenchant form of humor, and, when they are, it is politically incorrect. At the same time, though, you can’t mention the Babylon Bee and then say the right doesn’t have a sense of humor.
I think the issue with wokeness and humor is that the Woke are fanatics (and are trying to produce more fanatics). Fanaticism doesn’t laugh at itself and considers anything that doesn’t advance the cause as frivolous. I really need to dig out Hoffer’s The True Believer. . . .
You’re right–the Babylon Bee is a Conservative Christian site. But it’s funny,
Wokesters and wokerati alike are indeed moralizing zealots and anti-rational fanatics, often, with reason, called woke-Jacobins and woke-jihadis, and there seems to be little, if any, evidence of their influence on the culture or their desire to proselytize diminishing. Hoffer’s fine book merits re-reading now more than ever before; it is, without question, the finest work of popular political philosophy ever written by a longshoreman.
Or, very possibly, by anyone. It is truly astounding.
Can you imagine trying to sell the networks the very funny “In Living Color,” today? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Living_Color]
I’d like to see it running back-to-back with “All In the Family” reruns. There is no way the perpetually outraged would understand that Archie Bunker is satire.
I don’t know if that series is played anywhere. I haven’t seen it, and that is not surprising.
Some years ago I tried to watch an episode of MASH, which used to be huge, and was used in re-runs on a regular basis. But the use of misogyny and racism to get a laugh was rather over-whelming to me even though I used to watch it a lot. I don’t recall seeing it listed anywhere now, so perhaps it too has been binned.
I have changed. We have changed.
It’s still on in my neck of the woods—on MeTV.
“I don’t know if that series is played anywhere.”
That’s why a good wife I know bought her husband the complete series on DVD.
Let me suggest another reason… totalitarian states (religious or political) rarely tolerate satire or comedy about themselves because they believe their grip on the population is precarious.
Perhaps the deeply woke also realise their grip on public opinion is precarious too?
Here’s a nice article about Thomas Nast, the political cartoonist who helped bring down Boss Tweed. Tweed was known to complain about “those damn pictures”.
The woke are every bit as humorless as every other authoritarian, from Torquemada and the inquisition, to the Russian politburo of the 1950s, the McCarthyites, and the North Korean
clowndictator. They deserve ridicule, and if there were a Nobel prize for humor, I’d nominate Bill Maher in a heartbeat.I hope I did the strikethrough text correctly…
The irony of the fact many dictators did in private often have a sense of humor.
MAD Magazine did an Onion-style parody sharing a little known side of Adolph Hitler’s personality: his scintillating sense of humour. In the parody, Hitler tells a joke about the Russian Front during a meeting of his senior general staff. Only one or two officers laugh. A little crestfallen, Hitler looks around the table and says, “Well, I guess you had to be there.” The next day he makes sure that all who didn’t laugh really were there.
Concludes the parody, “He was known for little touches like that.”
By all accounts he could be quite funny in a very human way.
Rather unsettling, but to be a monster you must first be human.
Back in or around 2008, I bought a book called “Stuff White People Like.” It was a hilarious spoof of the values and preferences of the liberal white middle class.
It included things like “the Bay Area has acceptable levels of diversity, ranging from white to gay to Asian” and “white people love tea, but don’t remind them of the role of colonialism in tea, it will make them sad” and a hilarious parody of what a stoned white tourist writes in his journal upon visiting Machu Picchu. I loved it! But nowadays it would be considered full of microaggressions and harmful stereotypes and would be condemned by the woke.
Yeah, that book “Stuff White People Like” (2008) was funny. It is not about white people per se, but about youngish upper-middle class white leftists or their twenty-something offspring (who are probably now supplying the shock troops of the woke). The author, Christian Lander followed it up with another book in the same vein: “Whiter shades of pale: the stuff white people like, coast to coast, from Seattle’s sweaters to Maine’s microbrews” (2010).
Both books can be read for free in the Internet Archive (library).
https://archive.org/search?query=Christian+Lander+stuff&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22
Not to sound (too) combative, but my response to “it would be condemned by the woke” is “who cares?” or more often, “who fucking cares?”
It’s been well-documented that wokeness has nothing to do with real justice, and everything to do with virtue-signalling, cultural power-grabbing, and pecksniffery (among other moral defects). The response to them should be “go stand in the corner until you can play nice with others.”
Lagniappe:
Q: How many woke crazies does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I’m offended by this microaggression and feel so triggered. Where’s my kitten and my banky waa waa waa?
The older version was “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” “That’s not funny.”
My version of the joke is this.
“One, because any fool can change a lightbulb.”
Interesting conversation!
With regard to why the woke lash out so strongly to humor even from humorists on the left—who are often sympathetic to their cause—I think that the far left view the near-left as traitors. They are people who *should* be allies, but who have the audacity to poke fun. The woke naturally hate those from the right but they they are both disappointed and feel betrayed when the left pokes fun at them. Hence their venomous reactions.
Back briefly to the term “woke.” I think it’s perfectly fine that the word has morphed into a pejorative. That doesn’t bother me. But lots of people don’t know what the word means at all—even my left-leaning friends. When asked, I tell them that wokeness is “political correctness on steroids.” Even my 87-year-old mother can get it.
The far left woke definitely do not like the left-who-are-not-woke. But I am puzzled about something in that, which is I can’t recall an instance where the far left woke even acknowledge our existence. Now I don’t go trawling thru their web sites or watch their videos, but from what I have seen all of their rebuttals to their opposition are couched as if their opponents are from the right.
Its like we are invisible.
I can think of cases where the woke are critical of Jews on the left (who-are-not-woke) in claiming that Jews are privileged by their (Ashkenazi) “whiteness” and economic success. For those reasons, Jews have been frequently excluded from far-left activist organizations and events. Antisemitism, of course, commonly lies below the surface on both the left and the right.
They paint those who disagree with them, even those who are left or moderate, as far right.
John McWhorter said, “I’m a Liberal Democrat who’s called a Right Winger by some because my views are Liberal and Democratic rather than Radical Left. To some in the Radical Left, if your views are anywhere right of Radical Left you’re quote-unquote a ‘conservative.'”
The proximate cause is most likely the atmosphere of grievance studies mock subjects in academia. On the other hand, Haidt and Lukianoff trace the change to the character of the students, so there may be a preceding psychosocial factor. They point to something called helicopter parenting in the 80s-90s. A more basic change in family dynamics is the reduction in family size from 1960 (average 3.67) to the period from the late 1980s to the present (under 3.2). This means more single children, and fewer children with the experience of siblings. It is easy to draw a line from this to narcissism and lack of humor. See:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a-family-in-the-us/#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.,18%20living%20in%20the%20household .
Testable hypotheses: Children who never had to share a bedroom are more likely to be politically correct assholes when adults. Those who also never had to share a bathroom will be more apt to attack the evils of capitalism. Those who lived in gated communities that are overwhelmingly white will generally assume that all the rest of us also lock black and brown people out of our daily lives.
Those who grew up like this will probably also support “Defund the Police” – when you grow up in a gated community or in a low-crime neighborhood you may have trouble seeing why we need a police force.
As has been mentioned before in this forum, immaturity on both the Left and the Right is a fundamental factor contributing to our current societal malaise. I quote Ethel Barrymore: “You grow up the day you have your first real laugh–at yourself.”
I would add that the conservative Bulwark regularly mocks the extremists on the Right.
Forgive the over-commenting, but this subject triggers my curiosity. If humorlessness is a component of narcissism, then the latter syndrome is running amok in contemporary society independent of politics. On the Right, we have a classic narcissist as the nominal leader of the GOP. The Left is obsessed with endless complaint revolving around personal identities. On both sides, self-deprecating humor is inconceivable, and so
is the sense of the absurd that underlies all kinds of humor—there is no absurd for
individuals concentrating 100% on self.
Quite aside from politics, we are inundated by therapeutic language all the time, particularly in the groves of academe: all the stuff about trigger warnings, and safe spaces, and “belonging”, and the “harm” perpetually suffered by hypothetical students. For the faculty, we now have Associate Deans for Faculty Well-Being. Today’s bulletin from my university contains this item: “RIGHT AS RAIN Am I a highly sensitive person? Here’s how to tell”. Every bulletin from the university contains something like it.
Something in the air has engendered (is that word permitted?) a general sociology of whimpering hypochondria. My guess is that some aspect of family dynamics led to this syndrome. Ceiling cat only knows where it will lead…..
“Quite aside from politics, we are inundated by therapeutic language all the time, . . .”
Jon, be careful. You are starting to sound like you have read Philip Rieff’s “The Triumph of the Therapeutic” (1966). (Shh, I won’t tell anyone!)
The humorlessness of (certain parts of) the far right (noted by Jerry) and the woke makes total sense, given that both advance a form of identity politics. This is humorously shown in this now classic video: https://youtu.be/Ev373c7wSRg
“When wokes and racists actually agree on everything.”
I’ve long argued, mostly here at WEIT, but also at The Weekly Dish, that identity politics is orthogonal to the traditional left-right political axis. Some of the sharpest and most astute critics of wokeism are real Marxists, well to the left of, say, Bernie Sanders
GCM
Agreed. This is funny.
How about these sketches (all but one from Saturday Night Life)?
SNL – Actors’ least favorite game (produced by Twitter): Can I Play That? 2019 (w Idris Elba)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYSbk_tTsjk
SNL – Levi’s Wokes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adPXDTvADD0
SNL – The Bubble (“It’s Brooklyn, with a bubble on it.”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKOb-kmOgpI
SNL – Star Trek Spinoff (snow flakery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZps0fR5TE4
SNL – Pepboys [“or girls or that third kind where you’re both”]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNvEWxbLSEAThe
The Onion – Trump Voter Feels Betrayed By President After Reading 800 Pages Of Queer Feminist Theory. 2017, 2 mins
These are hilarious. Many thanks for posting them
Regarding:
You could not be more right about this, Greg.
See also here:
Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty: How politics became a contest dominated by two kinds of elite. 2021
Studying hundreds of elections, we found that political parties increasingly cater to only the well educated and the rich
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/05/around-the-world-the-disadvantaged-have-been-left-behind-by-politicians-of-all-hues
Eric Kaufmann: How the Trans Pledge Damaged the [British] Labour Party. Feb 27, 2020
https://quillette.com/2020/02/27/how-the-trans-pledge-damaged-the-labour-party/
Consider PC’s effect on the electoral fortunes of the mainstream Left. Centre-left parties are struggling across the West, and one reason is their “cultural turn” away from economic issues toward the politics of identity. Yet their inability to adapt to electoral realities is not just ideological, but exacerbated by a political correctness which hands radical activists the ability to silence dissent. This stymies efforts to move to the centre on cultural issues, leads to a doubling down on progressive stances, and powers ideological purity spirals. The result, as we shall see, leaves swing voters feeling cold.
“Unless you are concerned about class issues, pushing working-class people up, social mobility, economic inequality and trying to redress that, if you’re not interested in those things I don’t think you’re left-wing in any meaningful sense. So the whole identitarian movement, the whole LGBTQIA nonsense, the critical race theory nonsense, all of this stuff is essentially an upper-middle class pursuit. It has got nothing to do with being left-wing at all. I would argue it’s more right-wing actually because it’s concerned with posh people and their interests.”
Andrew Doyle, comedian, broadcaster, &
author of “Titania McGrath’s Woke: A Guide to Social Justice” (2019), “Titania McGrath’s: My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism” (2020), “Free Speech and Why It Matters” (2021), “The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World”(2022)
The quote is from: Andrew Doyle & TRIGGERnometry DESTROY 2022. Dec 2022, @ 25:05
Jerry wrote:
I like Paul’s columns too, but I’m not worried that she will lose her job as NYT columnist. Remember that the woke are a small minority both in the US electorate and within the Democratic Party:
In other words, it is certainly not in the commercial interest of the New York Times to be woke. Now the Times undeniably became very woke after the death of George Floyd, but has since then significantly pulled back from wokeness – and I think this has happened in part because the higher ups at the Times have realized that wokeness is not good for the paper.
For example, the Times columnist and transwoman Jennifer Finney Boylan, who, in one of her Time’s columns [see here: https://archive.is/bMNNj%5D, defamed JK Rowling over here stance in the “gender wars,” did not have her contract renewed. And the Times added Pamela Paul and David French to its stable of columnists.
Every time a Times article or column is about some aspect of wokeness and that article has a comment section, the most liked comments are always anti-woke. When you sort the comments by number of “Likes,” this is crystal clear. (To sort the comments, click on “Reader picks” right above the first comment in the list.)
The reality is that the woke are widely despised. I despise them too. If the Democrats lose the presidential election in 2024 it will be either because of the state of the economy or because the Democrats are judged by centrist voters as too woke, or a combination of these two reasons.
See here for details (all articles are ungated):
Ruy Teixeira: A Three Point Plan To Fix the Democrats and Their Coalition. Oct 13, 2022
It Can Be Done But It Won’t Be Easy
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/a-three-point-plan-to-fix-the-democrats
Ruy Teixeira: Revisiting the Three Point Plan to Fix the Democrats and Their Coalition. Feb 16, 2023
The Culture Problem
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/revisiting-the-three-point-plan-to
Ruy Teixeira: The Democrats’ Abundance Problem. Feb 23, 2023
Voters Aren’t Convinced They Can Deliver It
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-abundance-problem
Ruy Teixeira: The Democrats’ Patriotism Problem. March 2, 2023
They Need a Lot More of It
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-patriotism-problem
Ruy Teixeira: Five Reasons Why Biden Might Lose in 2024. April 27, 2023
Even If His Opponent Is Donald Trump
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/five-reasons-why-biden-might-lose
Ruy Teixeira: Where Is the Electoral Payoff to Progressivism? May 18, 2023
Where Indeed?
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/where-is-the-electoral-payoff-to
Ruy Teixeira is the Democrats’ prophet of doom. All the articles you cite essentially say the same thing: the Democrats need to move to the center or they are up the creek. Considering that the Democrats far exceeded expectations in the 2022 election, his jeremiads have yet to come to pass. After the 2024 election he will be viewed either as a person whose analysis the Democrats should not have ignored (if they do that and do poorly) or else one that needs to go into early retirement if they do well by not moving to the center, but if they do well by following his advice, he will become the go-to guru. We’ll see.
Great comment, Peter. It actually gives me a shred of hope. But it appears elected and media-class Democrats have no spine to fight back against this institutionally. Rather, they proliferate it or provide cover for it. Joy Reid, The View, etc. Their toxic views on race and poor coverage of gender issues aren’t going to change anytime soon, and that feeds into their “wokeness,” so I have no interest in helping the Democratic party until and unless they disavow it and find a middle ground. Until then, I actually want the right to “expand the tent” in some basic ways to catch people that will affirmatively and boldly tackle black issues from a conservative perspective, secularize with a tolerance for conservative religious communities, and embrace factual reality by letting the intellectuals lead the way, not the demogauges. Yes, it’s a long shot, but it’s necessary to keep the parties competitive. A better Republican party means a better Democratic party.
“expand the tent”? of the Republican party? Sounds delusional since all actions for decades point to the contrary. Their solution to a shrinking electorate is to get rid of democracy and rule from the minority. Haven’t you been paying attention?
It is a pity that humorous skits about wokeness are not put out on comedy shows or talk shows, since it is comedy gold. It would be seen as very funny to the majority and (one hopes) it would help to deflate recruitment.
This has been making the rounds the last few days
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-04463-x
“In Study 1, we investigated the relationship between Left wing Authoritarianism (LWA) and the ego-focused trait of narcissism above and beyond the influence of altruism. In a first step, the results of the data analyses showed that LWA (and all its subfacets) were predicted by neurotic narcissism.”
Right wing authoritarianism similarly associated.
I’ve commented before on the right having a better sense of humour, but perhaps I should explain. The funniest leftist humour I have ever observed was the splendid play The Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, which I saw in London sometime in the 70’s on a cheap student ticket. It was funny, but the humour relied on making fun of quasi-fascistic policemen. Now all humour is based on someone else’s discomfiture or failings. Sad, perhaps, but true. I expect there are rightist humorists who make fun of leftwingers, but I have never heard of one who relies on that. Rightist humorists tend to feel freer to make fun of anyone who can be seen as making a mistake, being wrong, or suffering a misfortune. Maybe I can encapsulate that as that punching up is funny, but so is punching down(!) Humour is pointing out failings. And since it is humour rather than criticism, everything is allowed.
I know, jokes aren’t funny when you explain them. Maybe the mechanisms of humour aren’t either. But if I had to pay money for a ticket to get a laugh, would I even consider spending my cash on an earnest left-wing comedian? Nope: that’s an oxymoron.
The best political humor in the world—simultaneously funny and profound—was the genre of Soviet jokes [Examples below]. We need something analogous today—perhaps, at least in the groves of academe, a genre of DEI jokes.
Soviet Jokes
(1) “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”.
(2) “An American dog, a Polish dog and a Soviet dog sit together. The American dog says “In my country if you bark long enough, you will be heard and given some meat”. The Polish dog replies “What is ‘meat’?” The Soviet dog says “What is ‘bark’?” ”
(3) ” Question: Will there be KGB in communism?
Answer: As you know, under communism, the state will be abolished, together with its means of suppression. People will know how to arrest themselves.”
(4) “An old woman wanted to speak with Gorbachev. She wouldn’t leave the Kremlin for days until finally Gorbachev agreed to meet her. As she walked into his office, they exchanged greeting, and she got to her point: “Sir, was communism created by politicians or scientists?” “Why, politicians of course” he replied. “That explains it,” she said. “Scientists would have tested it on mice first.” “
Thanks! I’d only ever heard the first one. Most of mine are too long for here.
Notwithstanding….
1) A communist is explaining his philosophy to an American.
“Capitalism is about greed, communism is about sharing. If I have two houses, I give you one. If I have two cars, I give you one.”
The American asks, “So if you have two shirts you give me one?”
“No.”
“Why not? I thought communism was about sharing.”
“Because I actually have two shirts.”
2) College term paper: Under capitalism you have Man’s inhumanity to Man. Under communism it’s the other way round.
True, much of the very right wing media is more aggression and attack rather than ridicule or satire.
I’m often just disappointed. At a basic level I may not disagree depending on the context of what the so called “Woke” whine on about, in fact at a basic level they may have a legit point as Bill Maher often did, but when taken to extreme limits it become so pathetic, it can be a joke.
Jerry, I’m troubled by your apparent claim that e.g. the Babbling Beaver is produced by actually left-leaning, almost woke authors. (Otherwise, why mention it as an example of the woke being able to ridicule themselves). What are your sources for this claim?
I can imagine one good reason that the woke would publish a blog like Babbbling Beaver: it would function as a honey-pot, helping them identify opponents to investigate and ultimately pursue and discredit.
Maybe I’ll now stop making favorable comments there!