This is more of an essay than a post. To anyone more fluent in social issues than me, let me know if Ive made any egregious or unduly offensive mistakes. Its often difficult to disentangle immediate rage at social injustice from the cold calculus that achieves the most significant results. What I want to talk about here is laughter as a weapon. Mockery can crack façades are immune to any rational argument, and I argue that this imposes a comedic burden on all those who claim to care about the welfare of their fellow creatures: if you really want to make a difference, a good standup special will accomplish far more than a tirade. In participating in and observing many debates on issues surrounding the Ferguson and Staten Island crimes, Ive found over and over again that there is a class of people who are immune to philosophy and dismiss any inconvenient argument as sophistry (not that they know the word). But the one thing they cant shake off is mockery and derision; were all genetically programmed to care about our social standing, and even the most ignorant or willfully stupid among us has an intuitive understanding of when were being mocked, and we dont like it. It wasnt only the women who came forward accusing Cosby of rape who brought him down. They had been vocal, but no one was listening until Hannibal Buress made it into the blackest of black humor. It was Buress who cracked Cosbys armor of respectability. All this being said, Im quite aware that its the privilege of the secure to make jokes about issues that are life-and-death to others. But this shouldnt be shied away from. This is a chance for the lucky to leverage their privilege for a good purpose. If, like me, you are socially, legally, and economically secure, gifted arbitrarily with vast advantages, I implore you to use your unassailable perch to launch the social ICBMs of poignant and incisive humor. Rage is infinitely understandable from those who are suffering oppression. I am not suffering oppression. I can afford murderous comedy. I have the social padding necessary to carefully construct dismissive condescensions perfectly engineered to castrate bigots. This is power, used well. Join me, ye privileged, ye educated, ye lucky. Join your socially empowered voices to mine in divine mockery.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:10:20 +0000
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