Monday July 14, 2008

BEYOND SATIRE. It's pretty depressing* that some liberals don't get that the New Yorker Obama cover is satire. That conservatives don't even know what satire is would also be depressing, were they not ever and always blind to even the simplest aesthetic concepts.

I mean, Jesus:

IF OBAMA LOSES, THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WILL BE that it was because sleazy rightwingers portrayed him as a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.

When that happens, show 'em this New Yorker cover and remind 'em that The New Yorker is not generally regarded as a right-wing publication.

The Ole Perfesser then follows by sneering, "but it's satire!" as if satire were some ridiculously effete and rarefied concept which he couldn't possibly take seriously, like "conscience" or "humanity." That any piece of communication has value other than as propaganda probably doesn't even compute with him; his robot brain just perceives the images, goes "Beep beep, consistent with Obama TPoint 7A, promote to morons," and moves on.

Jonah Goldberg, as usual, is even worse:

Of course, if we ran the exact same art, the consensus from the liberal establishment could be summarized in words like "Swiftboating!" and, duh, "racist." It's a trite point, but nonetheless true that who says something often matters more than what is said — and, obviously, that satire is in the eye of the beholder.

Goldberg is very fond of categorical imperatives when it comes to nearly everything, yet he imagines satire to be "in the eye of the beholder," rather than the clinical term artists (and, indeed, anyone who graduated from a decent high school) know it to be.

It's understandable that anyone whose sense of humor misfires as often as Goldberg's would be motivated to confuse definitions relating to humor, in hopes that this may provide cover for him next time he really fucks up. What I wonder is: do his, and the Perfesser's, and all the other idiots' readers really think the same way? Do they also look at the New Yorker's frequent joke covers and, instead of laughing or scowling or any other human response, think, how can this be spun for my political candidate?
'Cause if they do, having to sell John McCain is the least of their problems.

*UPDATE. Sigh. Tom Tomorrow just tipped me to this comment from Drum's site, which reads in part, "Is your objective another Crystal Night, and trains of jews, gays, minorities, and other non-Aryans headed for the ovens?... This is not satire. It is race hate, religious hate, and political hate. It is an invitation to violence, lawbreaking, and cultural war." I'd like to think it's a plant, but alas, given what I've been hearing, it may be legit. Can't we let the conservatives be the crazy ones for a little while longer?

UPDATE II. Okay, this is more like it: minutes before defending the Obama cover, Megan McArdle humphs that August Pollak's lampoon of her proves that "the left has no sense of humor" -- at least, that's what her commenters and I think she's saying; it's one of her more mysterious, impenetrable constructions. Commenters, with all the philosophical heft libertarians traditionally bring to such topics, discuss the nature of humor ("Most humor relies on the propagation of general truths with a twist of absurdity thrown in") and Megan McArdle ("Megan knows that waiting for the iPhone and being a refugee are not the same experience"). Thank God someone's working to restore the balance of the universe!