I'm challenged to make a joke. Well, I've been reading some pretty awful stuff in preparing for writing on this topic so I'm not in the joking mood.
I will observe that in the whole promotion of the idea that nothing is sacred and morals are relative (in other words, there aren't any) and that Holocaust jokes can be funny because nothing is sacred... we've paid way too high a price so college philosophy profs and associate instructors can try to get their much younger students to sleep with them. I think that's what most of it boils down to, they want to be able to screw around without any consequences. What almost all of it is based in. I've long suspected that was what motivated the guy with the morals of a cat in heat, Bertrand Russell in all of his philosophical tergiversations to try to come up with a replacement for morality. Only, he was smart enough to realize there were ultimate consequences that would result. He was a logician. Most of his academic and legalistic and journalistic colleagues aren't that bright. And that's not even getting down to the hipster blogger levels.
I will disagree - the point of a Holocaust joke is to mock what is secularly sacred. Otherwise the jokes themselves wouldn't be told. The ones I've heard aren't clever or insightful, just shocking and rude, much like the "Difference between a _____ and a dead baby" variety.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't any jokes about the Armenian genocide, or the killing fields of Cambodia, or Choibalsan's near-extermination of the Buddhists of Mongolia, or any number of atrocities the last century was witness to.
I think this is because 1) most people are taken by the magnitude of the Nazi Holocaust, 2) it has obtained said secular holiness in modern culture as a result and 3) the other groups aren't nearly as represented in American society.
I think it was Chesterton, and I'm paraphrasing here, who said that a person has to have some grasp of morality even if they wish to preach immorality.
ReplyDelete"in the whole promotion of the idea...that Holocaust jokes can be funny because nothing is
sacred... we've paid way too high a price so college philosophy profs
and associate instructors can try to get their much younger students to
sleep with them."
So there you have it. SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER is a gigantic apologia for that gay theater prof of mine who ran off with my first girlfriend in college.
I knew it!!!
Not only a totally stupid comment that doesn't touch anything I wrote but totally clueless. Simps, no one with any prospects would willingly stay with you.
DeleteReally. You don't grok the relevance? Wow.
ReplyDeleteNo, I see the drivel dance. I've seen you do it over and over again. Frankly, I'd rather watch JP grift or DWD having one of his serial breakdowns or any of the several people who obsessively air their family linens over at Duncan's and I don't want to watch those, either.
DeleteYou just said that people make Holocaust jokes because professors want to sleep with their students. And then you don't get the relevance to the fact that a girlfriend of mine ran off with a professor?
ReplyDeleteWhat is your fucking problem? Seriously -- what is your obtuse fucking problem????
:-)
That's your joke?
DeleteI would say you should learn to read but it would be a waste of my time.
I don't see how your girlfriend wanting to run off with someone who might have been an adult as opposed to your eternal 2-year-old could refute my point.
What part of "college philosophy profs and associate instructors" did you miss? There are other reasons that theater instructors sleep with their students, everyone knows that theater majors are needy, insecure and screw around like bonobos. You know, I don't recall anyone in the music department having a boy or girl friend with a theater major. I can't recall a single one. I suspect it's because we knew better. I certainly did.
It's not a joke, you imbecile.
ReplyDeleteCome on -- you really don't get the point? Really???
BTW, my girlfriend was 17. The professor was 32.
ReplyDeleteChild rape, anybody?
Oh, so she was too mature for you.
DeleteHey, Simps, I think teachers who sleep with their students should be fired but, then, there wouldn't be any theater departments. Maybe it would be a good thing, theater is probably best learned through apprenticeship. It's not as if there's much of a chance of them developing into intellectuals.
How do you say "keep digging, you morally obtuse piece of shit" in Yiddish?
ReplyDelete:-)
You keep saying that as if something bad is going to happen to me because I kick your ass. Wishful thinking on your part.
DeleteAny possible residuum of respect I might have had for Duncan and his duffers left when he posted that he thinks the Holocaust can be hilarious. He's a middle-aged, bored, lazy, preppy, Ivy Leaguer frat boy who longs to still be kew-el like a teenager.
Oh, by the way, has he posted one of his many pieces decrying the age of consent putting 15-year-old girls off limits lately?
Delete"Hey, Simps, I think teachers who sleep with their students should be fired but, then, there wouldn't be any theater departments."
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mr. Moral Equivalence.
Oh, I can't wait for you to explain this one. You know, if you ever want to go back into paid scribbling there's a surrealist fortune cookie company in need of your talents. Preferably one where no one speaks English.
DeleteYou know, I'm beginning to suspect you come here to get new lines to use because all the ones you got from movies are all used up.
DeleteDoes anybody seriously think this moron can cop a pose as morally superior to anybody?
ReplyDeleteIf so, e-mail me at ITOTALLYSUCKHIPPOROOT@whogivesashit.com
Anybody here got a line on a mental institution? If so, please help our host....
ReplyDeleteDuncan finally had that break down? Or is it his mid-life crisis?
Delete