The new Jesus and Mo strip, called “tragic,” came with the caption, “It’s okay, they had muesli for breakfast.”
I’m not sure about this one, save that the boys leave their McDonald’s cups and french-fry package on the bench after they leave. Is that the licensed immoral behavior?
Perhaps readers can explain. . .
Littering is the immoral act that they don’t recognize in themselves. (It isn’t The Artist’s greatest work, IMO.)
The email had the Wikipedia entry :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing
An excerpt:
“Washington Post staff writer Michael Rosenwald described the following everyday examples of self-licensing behavior:
“We drink Diet Coke – with Quarter Pounders and fries at McDonald’s. We go to the gym – and ride the elevator to the second floor. We install tankless water heaters – then take longer showers. We drive SUVs to see Al Gore’s speeches on global warming.”[13]
[end excerpt]
… this is particularly troubling, as:
Demoralization is the first stage of Ideological Subversion (paraphrase, Yuri Bezmenov).
So perhaps the comic is not so strongly focused as usual because it hit upon a deep connection to, well, everything, and everything can’t be satirized at once.
… my take, for all the moralizing of these two the gross human behaviour of littering shows they are just that, no better but worse because of that constant moralizing. Then again gods (take your pick) are messy leaving mortals to clean up after they’ve had their fun…Macdonalds. Its alright though they’ve had their muesli.
Back to J & M littering habits, what gets my goat is when there is a rubbish bin just a few steps away.
+1
Agreed
I love Jesus,he’s my favourite Fictional person.
They had muesli for breakfast; a “healthy” meal. So they give themselves permission to eat unhealthy McDonald’s fast food later in the day. Leaving trash behind is the cherry on the sundae.
Ah – that’s it – the morality of indulgence.
gluttony
I think the litter is just the ‘cherry on the sundae’ of religion.
They consider themselves too good and too important to pick up their own trash. I’ve met people like that.
Moral self licensing is everywhere all the time in everyone including me. It is behind the joy of punishment. It is why victimizers want to be seen as victims. It is why Hamas wants you to think only of Gazan children.
Well said – “everything” is what I wrote too!
A quote comes to mind :
“The line dividing good and evil cuts not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through the heart of every human being.”
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago
1958-1968
(I need to confirm this source, but it’s pretty close).
I believe you’re right. Those words seem to make the case for Determinism even stronger.
A million Jews wandered through the desert for forty years, and cleaned up after themselves so well you can’t tell that they were ever there at all.
– Exodus 12, NRSV
Six hundred thousand men, a similar number of children, also, women (not mentioned). We are already getting close to two million. Also “a mixed crowd also went up with them, and livestock in great numbers, both flocks and herds.”
Anyway, even 600k is approximately an order of magnitude more than the population of any city in the Middle East at the time. I’m thinking the story might be fictitious.