A little while ago, Winds quoted a piece by liberal journalist Michael Wolff in Vanity Fair, and tied it to structural problems in that liberal media and the phenomenon of "South Park Conservatives."
Now Ed Driscoll plusses up the critique with a stream of links to thoughtful pieces that expand on this topic... including Wolff's treatment at the the hands of liberal brethren and a truly classic quote from the late economist Julian Simon about leftism as a church.
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From the Orrin Judd article:
There's an exception to this, which is Satire.
Unfortunately, Satire is a very low form of humor, just above Ridicule and Ethnic Jokes. It appeals to a mean sort of self-righteousness and to "superiority laughter", but not much else. This is why Jonathan Swift is entertaining, but not very funny. Lewis Carroll, on the other hand, is funnier than hell. Aristophanes is kind of funny, in a nasty sort of way.
A while ago I saw an interview with John Cleese (who is funny) in which he complained that he always wanted Monty Python to do more satire. But I think the whole genius of Python was that it was almost entirely free of the kind of self-conscious and self-righteous attempts at "relevance" which ruins most comedy.
We'll agree to disagree on satire.
There is, however, a certain tragic dimension to all humour that is best exemplified by the infamous "Caveman Comedian" scene in Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part I".
Besides, whats so funny about self hate, throwing mud at the decent and slime at the good ?
Whats funny about the zulu birds of impending doom unless we learn horse craft and move into mud Huts ?
The left are demanding we accept the results of,, and live in a state of the aftermath of doom,, in order to avoid doom.
But that dont mean politics cant be funny, because all you need to do is look at the left, when they are not evil or dangerous or pathetic. they are quite funny.
I remember the rather large yukfest I had when the moonbats of Kos/DU was blaming the asian earthquake on the earths broken bones.
Unfortunately this topic must be discussed solely in generalizations.
While the liberals try futilely to claim to be a "reality-based community", I've long thought that Conservatives' intellectual life is more "of the world" than as I see it, liberals' "above the world".
Robin
And if you look at the Christian ethic/perspective .....
Does it not seem strange that the American right are pragmatist and earthbound, and the left are the ;eftist-faith based utopians in blind denial of their demostrated failures and their murder mountain ?
"Example, Quoting myself":
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006966.php#c17
And its not the refusal to tag Mao as evil,, No. for that leftist creature, Evil dont exist, it dont register, morality is a blank zone. the only vestiges thay have is the utility of fake outrage as a political tool, otherwise ... they are cold fish.
Which,,,, explains why their murder mountain does not bother them ... individuals are expendable, its the leftist cause that matters ..
Mass grave of kids ? who cares, good enough for Bagdad McDermot to stand on in support of the butcher that filled it. still plenty left for props in M Moores propaganda ...
Udays pet tigers wont go hungry. Wont detract from the BusHitler theme ... thats what counts ...
lots of confusion here between liberal, leftist, communist, etc. Liberal, leftists, social democrat, socialist, communist, etc are NOT interchangeable terms. No more so than conservative, rightist, libertarian, Randist, fascist, etc.
Glen, Swift was conservative to the point of reactionary, so I don't think it's really accurate to say that satire is intrinsically liberal, but you have a point. Most famous satirists do or did come from the left: Voltaire, Twain, Moliere, Vonnegut, Heller etc. And I think Swift was hilarious.