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forsythHokay. Now, in theory, since this is sorta about a comic, it could go over in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
snarkoleptics, but it's really not the same kind of thing, and most of it's about politics and language. This is going to be long, and include a comic, so it'll be behind the fold here.
Okay, we'll start with the comic.
Okay, the fundamental problem with this comic? It's not funny. There's two main reasons for this. First is, of course, I'm not the target audience for this comic. To quote the description on the site... "A small town in the American Southwest... everything in the desert is designed to prick you, wound you or eat you. What better metaphor for 21st century Earth? PRICKLY CITY is a comic strip about the friendship between Winslow, a coyote pup, and Carmen, a straight and narrow kind of kid. PRICKLY CITY offers a conservative perspective on political and social events within an ongoing storyline. As Carmen might say, "We may not be correct but we will always be right.""
The first time I saw Prickly City, when The Washington Post picked it up, the girl was doing a report on "admirable women" about Ann Coulter. Ann Coulter. And there was an obligatory Hillary Clinton and "evil school liberals" joke too. There's been all of...one strip that I've found amusing in the slightest, because the cartoonist really wants to be a political cartoonist, not a comic strip person. So, there's that problem. A lot of the jokes aren't funny unless you find "Dean scream" jokes funny. So that's the first problem.
The second problem, though, is the "joke" only works if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The entire premise of the joke is based around a complete misunderstanding of what tolerance is. It's only funny if you're ignorant or what the joke is about, which is why I call it ignorant humor. Somebody, I think it was Kaja Foglio, on her blog (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
kajablog), talked about this before, when she was watching Jerry Seinfeld, and he made a joke about rhinoplasties, and are they trying to make it worse, by saying your nose looks like a rhino? And she just sat there blinking, because she knew rhino came from the latin? for nose, and so the joke didn't work. I think it was Kaja Foglio, but I don't remember for certain. Anyway.
So, now I will go into my rant about WHY this particular comic is wrong. Okay, to start with, everybody say it with me now. "Tolerance doesn't mean you can't make moral judgments." Seriously. I've been banging on that point for months now, so you're all probably bored of it. But that's the key.
Okay, we're talking language, so let's start from the basics, the dictionary. From Merriam-Webster Online:
Main Entry: tol·er·ance
Pronunciation: 'tä-l&-r&n(t)s, 'täl-r&n(t)s
Function: noun
1 : capacity to endure pain or hardship : ENDURANCE, FORTITUDE, STAMINA
2 a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b : the act of allowing something : TOLERATION
There's 3 and 4, but they're about machining parts and about pesticides and drugs, so they're really not what we're interested in. The one we want is 2a.
And from Dictionary.com:
tol·er·ance Audio pronunciation of "tolerance" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tlr-ns)
n.
1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
2. a. Leeway for variation from a standard.
b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
There's 3, 4, 5, and 6 also, but they're not the ones we want. Again, we want 1, though 2a here has some interesting possibilities too.
But, for starters, neither of these mentions anything about "not making moral judgments" In fact, tolerance REQUIRES a moral judgment, you have to judge that tolerance is a good thing, and morally superior to intolerance. Tolerance doesn't mean you can't say something's wrong. Tolerance doesn't require you to abandon all morals in some kind of "morally relativistic" world where "nothing is true, everything is permitted" or anything like that. What tolerance means is you let other people have and express their opinions, and have their own beliefs, rituals, and whatever else, as long as they're not hurting anybody else.
Tolerance means you let other people be, it doesn't mean you have to agree with them. You can disagree. And you should, if you do! That's part of the whole point. Tolerance isn't just an end, it's a means. It's a built-in part of democracy, otherwise democracy doesn't work. Tolerance in a democracy means that you let other people have their beliefs, and you work out your differences through the political process, the legal system, and the free press. It means I tolerate that yes, Grover Norquist can believe what he likes about taxes, and even can try and get his nutsy supply side theories made law, it doesn't mean I don't disagree, oppose him, or thing his theories are nutsy, morally unsound, and all around bad ideas. It means I don't go around whining that other people have different holidays than I do, or that they speak different languages at home, eat different food, or what have you. Tolerance is what makes democracy work and not turn into a bunch of splintered armed camps with inquisitions.
It doesn't even mean you have to LIKE somebody. It's a public thing, really. You can not like gays, or Muslims, or black people, or left handed people, or poodles, or whatever, and it doesn't matter, as long as you treat them civilly in public. You can bitch about them all you want in private, or even in public, just don't expect these habits to make you popular with other people.
Tolerance is just the art of getting along with other people well enough for society to function. It's about accepting people's right to not be exactly like you, and still be able to deal with them. Tolerance is something you develop when you make the sudden realization there's a lot more of "THEM" then there are of "ME".
And tolerance is one of the key principles of the Democratic party, yes, but hardly the only one. And maybe, just maybe, they were calling themselves the "Party of Tolerance" because they're the party that's not actively preaching bigotry toward gays, demonizing poor people, or providing cover for old segregationists. Just a thought.
Tags: Politics, Language, Comics, Mindscribbles
snarkoleptics, but it's really not the same kind of thing, and most of it's about politics and language. This is going to be long, and include a comic, so it'll be behind the fold here.Okay, we'll start with the comic.
Okay, the fundamental problem with this comic? It's not funny. There's two main reasons for this. First is, of course, I'm not the target audience for this comic. To quote the description on the site... "A small town in the American Southwest... everything in the desert is designed to prick you, wound you or eat you. What better metaphor for 21st century Earth? PRICKLY CITY is a comic strip about the friendship between Winslow, a coyote pup, and Carmen, a straight and narrow kind of kid. PRICKLY CITY offers a conservative perspective on political and social events within an ongoing storyline. As Carmen might say, "We may not be correct but we will always be right.""
The first time I saw Prickly City, when The Washington Post picked it up, the girl was doing a report on "admirable women" about Ann Coulter. Ann Coulter. And there was an obligatory Hillary Clinton and "evil school liberals" joke too. There's been all of...one strip that I've found amusing in the slightest, because the cartoonist really wants to be a political cartoonist, not a comic strip person. So, there's that problem. A lot of the jokes aren't funny unless you find "Dean scream" jokes funny. So that's the first problem.
The second problem, though, is the "joke" only works if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The entire premise of the joke is based around a complete misunderstanding of what tolerance is. It's only funny if you're ignorant or what the joke is about, which is why I call it ignorant humor. Somebody, I think it was Kaja Foglio, on her blog (
kajablog), talked about this before, when she was watching Jerry Seinfeld, and he made a joke about rhinoplasties, and are they trying to make it worse, by saying your nose looks like a rhino? And she just sat there blinking, because she knew rhino came from the latin? for nose, and so the joke didn't work. I think it was Kaja Foglio, but I don't remember for certain. Anyway.So, now I will go into my rant about WHY this particular comic is wrong. Okay, to start with, everybody say it with me now. "Tolerance doesn't mean you can't make moral judgments." Seriously. I've been banging on that point for months now, so you're all probably bored of it. But that's the key.
Okay, we're talking language, so let's start from the basics, the dictionary. From Merriam-Webster Online:
Main Entry: tol·er·ance
Pronunciation: 'tä-l&-r&n(t)s, 'täl-r&n(t)s
Function: noun
1 : capacity to endure pain or hardship : ENDURANCE, FORTITUDE, STAMINA
2 a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b : the act of allowing something : TOLERATION
There's 3 and 4, but they're about machining parts and about pesticides and drugs, so they're really not what we're interested in. The one we want is 2a.
And from Dictionary.com:
tol·er·ance Audio pronunciation of "tolerance" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tlr-ns)
n.
1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
2. a. Leeway for variation from a standard.
b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
There's 3, 4, 5, and 6 also, but they're not the ones we want. Again, we want 1, though 2a here has some interesting possibilities too.
But, for starters, neither of these mentions anything about "not making moral judgments" In fact, tolerance REQUIRES a moral judgment, you have to judge that tolerance is a good thing, and morally superior to intolerance. Tolerance doesn't mean you can't say something's wrong. Tolerance doesn't require you to abandon all morals in some kind of "morally relativistic" world where "nothing is true, everything is permitted" or anything like that. What tolerance means is you let other people have and express their opinions, and have their own beliefs, rituals, and whatever else, as long as they're not hurting anybody else.
Tolerance means you let other people be, it doesn't mean you have to agree with them. You can disagree. And you should, if you do! That's part of the whole point. Tolerance isn't just an end, it's a means. It's a built-in part of democracy, otherwise democracy doesn't work. Tolerance in a democracy means that you let other people have their beliefs, and you work out your differences through the political process, the legal system, and the free press. It means I tolerate that yes, Grover Norquist can believe what he likes about taxes, and even can try and get his nutsy supply side theories made law, it doesn't mean I don't disagree, oppose him, or thing his theories are nutsy, morally unsound, and all around bad ideas. It means I don't go around whining that other people have different holidays than I do, or that they speak different languages at home, eat different food, or what have you. Tolerance is what makes democracy work and not turn into a bunch of splintered armed camps with inquisitions.
It doesn't even mean you have to LIKE somebody. It's a public thing, really. You can not like gays, or Muslims, or black people, or left handed people, or poodles, or whatever, and it doesn't matter, as long as you treat them civilly in public. You can bitch about them all you want in private, or even in public, just don't expect these habits to make you popular with other people.
Tolerance is just the art of getting along with other people well enough for society to function. It's about accepting people's right to not be exactly like you, and still be able to deal with them. Tolerance is something you develop when you make the sudden realization there's a lot more of "THEM" then there are of "ME".
And tolerance is one of the key principles of the Democratic party, yes, but hardly the only one. And maybe, just maybe, they were calling themselves the "Party of Tolerance" because they're the party that's not actively preaching bigotry toward gays, demonizing poor people, or providing cover for old segregationists. Just a thought.
Tags: Politics, Language, Comics, Mindscribbles
