It really amazes me to even say it but I've always seen comedy guiding morality for as long as I've been alive.
I noticed during the Iraq War how much INSANELY quicker the comedians turned against the war compared to the mainstream and self-proclaimed moral authorities like journos. Institutionalized stupidity tends to be really funny to make fun of and really lame to defend.
It seems like a stupid idea for comedians to be moral arbiters when comedians themselves hardly seem like particularly moral people and comedy is such an informal thing. Yet there is this skeptical contarian spirit so fundamentally baked into the medium. Which consistently leads to Comedians being one step ahead of their moral betters.
Reminds me about the role of the Court Jester in monarchies; to speak the truth when no one else will.
Tho I wonder how much of this actually translates to modern times, as in: How much impact do these "political comedians" actually have?
Case in point: German political satire has a very long tradition, but when looked at it bluntly it's pretty much just "comedians" telling people about the roots of problems, and all kinds of corruption, and people mostly just laugh at it, while nothing actually changes, it's all kind of absurd.
In that context, it often feels much more like an "overpressure steam valve", giving people at least the impression of awareness, while nothing is actually done about the issues themselves.
Comedians are not remotely arbiters of morality - they are antagonists.
What they do is spend most of their time thinking about society, and then pointing out hypocrisy.
So it's no surprise that they're quick to point out failings.
But 99% of civil society is not mired in moral controversy, and the daily grind of regular people, public servants, bureaucrats, functionaries and workers is where the material artifacts of morality play out. And of course legally.
It's hard to make a career in comedy, like it's hard to have a career being a movie critic - but to any thinking person, being an antagonist or critic is easy. Heck, we do it all day on HN.
Comedians are not moral arbiters. They are just outside opinions.
I'd agree except that the popular comedians tend to have the same points of view as major multinational corporations and billionaires.
Want to lambaste the rich? You and Buffett both. Make fun of racist white people? Who doesn't? Healthcare is a mess? A long line of CEOs parrot that line, too.
Nobody is sitting around making fun of overreach for a good cause. Nobody is making fun of the absurd political mathematics thrown around by favored political movements.
To be fair, it's more work to actually push against the grain of the culture you live in. It's easier to be make the millionth dig at the orange skinned jackass.
Are you saying that Warren Buffett's opinions are typical of the super-rich? I'd like to see a source on that.
Lots of people from every walk of life lambast the US health care system, because the US health care system is objectively terrible, in terms of positive outcomes vs. money spent.
Making these out to be rich-people opinions is really reaching.
I was just saying it's not particularly brave to side with Zuckerberg and Gates on immigration or Buffett on tax reform. I wasn't commenting on the merits of the positions.
The big comedians backed by the big networks in the prime time slots I don't watch. It's not really the Jay Lenos of the world I'm talking about when I say this stuff. It's the sort of comedians which have picket lines outside their shows and get kicked out of town.
> Want to lambaste the rich? You and Buffett both. Make fun of racist white people? Who doesn't? Healthcare is a mess? A long line of CEOs parrot that line, too.
These are popular positions (at least in the US) only among the Left.
The Republican party - including its poorest members - lauds the most greedy billionaires as "job creators" and the pinnacle of achievement for Americans.
Conservatives believe that straight, Christian whites are just as discriminated against - if not more so - than racial, religious, or gender/sexual minorities.
Republicans decry almost any attempt to provide affordable health care to the American masses as "socialism."
The positions you describe are most definitely "against the grain" for half of the US. And they are important positions to take, for the future health and wealth of the country. And I'm not sure why you're focusing on the difficulty/popularity of espousing certain positions on social issues, rather than the correctness of the positions taken.
Good point. Clearly comedians should be carefully considering which jokes are "correct" before making people laugh.
But my real point is that the bubble of most forms of comedy includes powerful people like academics, politicians, executives, and even corporate policies of multinational megacorps.
It's mostly a myth that comedians mostly contrarians making digs at the powerful. On the contrary, they're living in the same bubbles.
I'd actual settle for some aggressive criticism of the fairly ludicrous tribalism going on these days. Perhaps the biggest problems these days are a lack of grace and humility, and it should be really easy to make fun of all the small hearted people wrapped up in the modern social moment.
Is there a myth comedians are contrarians? I don't think so. Rebellious at times, perhaps, but not contrarians since most of the audience that goes to see them already agree with them and the audience seems pretty aware of that to me.
Also you're really creating a weird situation for yourself if your idea of contrarian is that there can be no overlap with the wealthy or powerful.
Powerful people with no direct influence over their day to day. The Republican party and conservatives broadly defined aren't censoring comedy shows, picking up sitcom pilots, commissioning Netflix specials, etc.
The people nixing comedians' and other speakers' university events have real power, in contrast.
> Perhaps the biggest problems these days are a lack of grace and humility
I haven't been alive for all that long and mostly came into political awareness when W. Bush was in office, but my impression of the times before based on the political art and documentation that survives is that... it was never really nice and graceful, that's just a rose tinted view of the past.
I didn't mean to imply that the 1960's were full of grace. I was just saying we especially lack those things now.
And it is true that certain parts of culture at certain times did have a live and let live attitude. Or at least a there-are-more-important-things one.
I think one major element is absurdity, which is a big part of humour and of logic... Reductio ad absurdum is a logical negation, and it comes up a lot in sober politcal arguments/rhetoric.
Another element is taboo. Comedy is edgy, which pretty much means bringing up things you're not supposed to bring up.
Yet another part is what laughter actually is. We tend to assume it's about humour, but when researchers measure, it turns out that <10% of laughter is directly humour related. Think of how many awkward laughs you get in a board meeting or diplomatic negotiation. Laughter expresses solidarity, subservience, esprrit de corps.. The implications go deep.
I think humor has an advantage of not needing to be correct. A joke can be blatantly wrong, but with that freedom it can point out a kernel of truth that would otherwise be rejected.
Every system of reasoning has intrinsic blindspots, while internally seeming consistent and all-knowing. Corrupting fallacies sneak in, each only off by a little bit, but self-consistent.
Attempting to directly argue any one conclusion looks wrong, as it disagrees with all the surrounding/supporting points. Only by completely shrugging off that strict logical-progression paradigm can the absurd conclusions be called out.
I noticed during the Iraq War how much INSANELY quicker the comedians turned against the war compared to the mainstream and self-proclaimed moral authorities like journos. Institutionalized stupidity tends to be really funny to make fun of and really lame to defend.
It seems like a stupid idea for comedians to be moral arbiters when comedians themselves hardly seem like particularly moral people and comedy is such an informal thing. Yet there is this skeptical contarian spirit so fundamentally baked into the medium. Which consistently leads to Comedians being one step ahead of their moral betters.