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https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2024/08/but-its-just-a-joke-why-comedys-right-to-offend-doesnt-include-the-right-to-harm/>
"Keeping your epistemological toolkit up to date is vitally important, but
amongst the meticulous intellectual minutiae, a pearl of wisdom from over half
a century ago is frequently forgotten. Thankfully, there’s a song to help you
remember it: in 1968 Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett had a goal to create
a television program to help young children, particularly those in deprived
areas, prepare for school.
That program was Sesame Street and, on the very first episode, the kindergarten
crop was invited to investigate the complex phenomenon of dissimilarity with
the bona fide earworm “One of these things is not like the others”.
Considering the near ubiquitous nature of Sesame Street in the public
consciousness, it’s disappointing that some of the simple lessons easily
learned by children are forgotten by adults when discussing matters of concern.
This may be deliberate in some cases, but not always, I suspect.
So, to facilitate a recap, let’s look for some divergent properties in the
ongoing discourse around so-called ‘cancel culture’ and/or ‘consequence
culture’ in comedy. Particularly relevant at the time of writing as Joe Rogan
has taken a break from platforming pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists on
his podcast to release yet another comedy special on Netflix, where he reminds
us how controversial he is and how many times he has been cancelled."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
