5 ms·

You probably wouldn't enjoy his "Foreigners Around The World" in National Lampoon from 1976 either.

• ghaff 5y ago
  I haven't looked at a National Lampoon in many years. But I'm guessing that a lot of modern audiences would find a lot to object to during the magazine's heyday. Of course, a lot of its humor was always pretty sophomoric but in its heyday it was probably a lot more acceptable to say "I probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's really funny anyway."
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    > "I probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's really funny anyway." Part of me feels fairly uncomfortable with this idea. Humor is such a complicated emotion, but lately we seem to try to distill it to a single interpretation, shallow, derisive, and then proclaim what it's okay to laugh about or not.
    • ghaff 5y ago
      There's also a strong component of enforcing the right not to be offended. That's always existed to some degree but lately there's a much stronger sense of it.
      • jacobr1 5y ago
        The enlightenment position holding: «Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire» isn't celebrated by the mainstream culture anymore. It always was a bit hypocritical, there were historical boundaries for whatever the contemporary view of obscenity might be, but free speech was still valued. Nor is the simple child's rhyme "Sticks and stones may break my bones But words shall never hurt me" held to be true. We really need to figure out a middle way that preserves some of the older enlightenment virtues with more modern understandings of verbal harms. There has to be social norms that discourage assholes without the instant-banishment, or fear-of-mispeaking that has edged its way forward. Or the boorish result of the backlash involving those saying any inane thing without a filter.