I respect John Donegan’s acuity with the English language. In fact, he sometimes expresses himself with such dexterity that one can almost lose track of the fact that the substance of his postulate is, essentially, claptrap.
Exhibit A (ahem, because he’s an attorney) is his recent New Times column, “Humor and the left” (Jan. 13). He holds forth at length with his alleged “evidence” that “the left” has no sense of humor and that’s why so many people have maligned Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special, The Closer, in which Chappelle attempts to mine humor from blindsides against transgender people. He extends his premise to point out that “comedy is supposed to challenge” and claims that liberal thinking is now the “establishment” against which comedians must “rail.”
It is true that America is a center-left country. Take a top 10 list of favorite liberal concepts (single-payer health care; a progressive income tax; a woman’s right to privacy in her body; sensible gun-control legislation) and our citizens support them all, some by overwhelming majorities. However, does that popularity mean that liberal principles are establishment? If so, then why, with both houses of Congress virtually split down the middle, do Democrats represent 44 million more Americans than do Republicans?
My belief is that political humor is effective and funny when it skewers people and concepts that deserve to be skewered. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, when they exhibit self-serving hypocrisy, ought to be called to task for their brazenness. And, if an individual transgender person acts in a similar way, they are fair game. However, when you lampoon a group simply because they are members of that group, then you’ve stopped being observational and entered the dark chasm of discrimination.
Jokes about Donald Trump land repeatedly because he deserves them: He’s a bankrupt, philandering, business-failing liar, and little effort is needed not only to prove those labels but to mine hilarity from their elucidation. Trump’s calling card is hypocrisy, and he deserves to be heckled. By way of contrast, no trans individual deserves to be made fun of just because they are different from the majority.
There’s a steady liberal arc to history, and the neanderthal musings of the likes of Donegan will eventually fade away, just as the arguments in favor of blackface “humor” have. To which I say, good riddance.
Will Powers
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Jan 20-30, 2022.
I appreciate Mr. Powers’ praise for my writing, and only regret that my persuasive powers have still proved insufficient to beguile him away from his dogma and into embracing my “claptrap”. It is back to the drawing board for me to polish and weaponize my prose.
Readers will notice that I didn’t mock or ridicule those who suffer from gender dysmorphia. That would be mean, and they deserve sympathy, as I am sure it makes life far more difficult. Who I did mock were those people who are trying to bully the rest of us into disregarding physical reality, and buying into their contrived new world view. Their awkward and mandated distortion of our language is positively Orwellian, and it is well within the parameters of legitimate commentary to note the bizarre results of their efforts. As in many of the left’s causes, conservative reaction is more of a reaction to the shrill and hysterical advocates, and their bitter attacks on anyone who dares to not unquestioningly adopt their cause, than to the substance of the cause itself. If liberals wish for their concerns to be taken more seriously, they might want to take some of their louder and more extreme partisans and,even though their angry rhetoric may fires up the lefties at their pep rallies, throw them into an active volcano.
What the heck is “gender dysmorphia?” Now you’re just making stuff up, Mr. Donegan.
@Michael Smith: Check Google or a dictionary. It is often used interchangeably with “gender dysphoria”, which might have been the better term, as it is more widely used. But my advice on the volcano still stands.
It’s apparent that Donegan has no problem joking about sexual abuse and victums of violence. He wrote this snide reaction to a Shredder column about the concern of the Cal Poly community for better police protection after the rapes of two women on campus last summer. One woman was assaulted on a hiking trail and the other was assaulted walking to her dorm after dinner.
“How, exactly, does the Shredder propose to stop campus rape? Locking steel jockstraps and chasity belts? Surgical castration of all adult males? A ban on the alcohol and drugs which seem to accompany many rapes? A campus wide lockdown? Constantly monitored video cameras EVERYWHERE? Take a cue from the stricter Muslim countries, and require that women always be accompanied by a large and possibly armed male relative? Somehow, I don’t see any of the effective techniques being enthusiastically received by the students.
So, I guess getting upset about rape is hysteria?
@Jill Stegman: Your comments demonstrate a point I made in another column: While conservatives focus on the pragmatic considerations of actually solving a problem, liberals just wail in alarm without actually proposing a workable solution. The comments I made were pointing out the difficulty in actually preventing sexual assault in the hyper-sexualized, hard-partying environment of a college campus occupied by free-spirited students who resist restrictions and structure. And while liberals have constantly offered their emotional reactions to the problem, I have yet to hear any proposals from the left which would actual solve it. Your hysterics may provide you with emotional catharsis, but they provide nothing tangible.
Liberals are the worst
I think I found the cancel culture John is so worried about:
MIAMI A Florida school district canceled a professors civil rights history seminar for teachers, citing in part concerns over critical race theory even though his lecture had nothing to do with the topic.
J. Michael Butler, a history professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, was scheduled to give a presentation Saturday to Osceola County School District teachers called The Long Civil Rights Movement, which postulates that the civil rights movement preceded and post-dated Martin Luther King Jr. by decades.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-…
But I get it. This is “the pragmatic considerations of actually solving the problem” of the civil rights movement actually succeeding. Now this liberal professor is simply “wailing in alarm,” which is something different than what John does here every week.
@Neighborhood: Ah, rebranding! “If we just drop the label ‘CRT’, and call it something else, nobody can object! That’ll solve the issue!”. Still, I wonder why it is necessary to indoctrinate teachers with ” revised” history? This looks like a continuing education course which teachers are forced to attend to maintain their credential, and wonder if it is reasonable to force them to “relearn” history in a form that you approve of in order for them to be allowed to work. Imagine if YOU were forced to attend “training” on the joys of Trumpism in order to keep your job, especially if it required you to participate in self-criticism for your faIlure to live up to the lofty aspirations of Trumpist living?
It’s a course about the history of the civil rights movement, John! It’s not “revised history”!
Yeah, you’re right, imagine if you were forced to attend a class about the joys of the civil rights movement! What if we labelled as “CRT” everything that might teach an analysis of racial history in the US! Then everything that isn’t explicitly labelled “CRT” must clearly be dangerous “CRT” in hiding!
You brilliant man! You beautiful mental contortionist! Thanks for proving my point!
Are exclamation points too “emotional” for you, John!? I want to be sure I don’t upset you! I know you’re sensitive about the emotions of the people disagreeing with you because it might mean you don’t have to engage with the criticism!
@neighborhood: Your reckless use of inflammatory punctuation left me shrieking, twitching and rending my hair! Even the re-education camps that you want to force us all into would be a welcome refuge from that sort of torment. I beseech you, please spare me!