There is an interesting story out this week of how comedians are avoiding college campuses due to the increasing levels of speech regulations and complaints over speech deemed insulting to any group. We have been discussing the rapid expansion of speech controls on campuses and the loss of core principles of free speech that once defined American academia. The rule today appears to be to laugh less and protest more on campus.
An example occurred last December when Bill Maher was the subject of a petition drive at the University of California Berkeley by activists opposed to his speaking at winter commencement because of his past remarks criticizing Muslims.
Other comedians reportedly shunning colleges and universities are Jerry Seinfeld, Larry the Cable Guy and Chris Rock. Seinfeld is quoted as saying “[Young people] just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice.’ … They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
I am more concerned about the loss of student than comedian speech. However, both reflect a growing trend toward speech regulation. Ironically, baby boomers who once renowned for free speech on campuses are now rallying to the cause of censorship and speech regulation in the name of pluralism. This includes faculty and students who have supported a California professor who not only destroyed a pro-life display but assaulted those voicing an opposing view to her own. Now that I think about it, there really is nothing funny about what is happening on campuses.
Tragic.
For life is quite absurd,
And death’s the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin — give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it’s the last chance anyhow!
Are there 2 Isaac’s?? I encourage all to read his comment here @ 8:55am and then read his Confederate comment @ 9:05am. WTF??
There’s a good piece in The Atlantic on this topic titled, THAT’S NO FUNNY!” Comedians are our last line of defense when it comes to free speech. I saw the PC Queen, Gloria Steinem on the Phil Donahue show back in the 80’s. She was instructing people not to laugh @ any joke about women. That was a warning 30 years ago of the coming war on the 1st Amendment.
Movies that you can’t make today http://www.culturebrats.com/2011/05/top-15-politically-incorrect-movies.html That were big hits and even cult type movies for those of us who grew up before political correctness strangled the humor out of life.
Airplane
Blazing Saddles
Life of Brian
Young Frankenstein
Practically anything ever made by Mel Brooks or Monty Python (Hey…I didn’t say they were great movies….just funny) Seriously, if you can’t laugh at yourself or see the irony of life you might as well just go shoot yourself……you are harshing our mellow 😉
Shoot, you can’t even sing Zip a Dee Doo Dah without causing a conniption fit of people fainting from your racism. I love that Tar Baby they fall for it every time. The whole Sound of the South is racist…..racist you hear me!!! It is from the South, patooey….and has black people in it who aren’t mad at the world and it doesn’t attack White Privilege or the Patriarchy. How dare a movie just entertain? It must lecture and browbeat the audience into the correct political mindset.
The “Left” has turned into a bunch of uptight pursed lipped sourpuss Church Lady’s who can’t find any humor in anything and who are always on the lookout to suppress anyone anywhere having a thought that they might find triggering or offensive. They would suck the fun out of Christmas….OH wait…..already done since we can’t have “Christmas” carols in public places, schools or any other celebration that reminds them of their own sterile sad cosseted childhoods. Worse than the Soup Nazi….NO fun for YOU. NO laughing.!!!!!
These sheltered wilting violets that inhabit the cocooned campuses and who were raised by doting helicopter parents and encouraged by sourpuss leftists who are still cowering in their campus ivory towers, are the worst.
I can’t wait until they get out into the real world where no one gives a rip about their sensitive delicate feelings and some big burly redneck auto mechanic or plumber tells them so. What a shock that will be. I hope they make some Youtube videos of the resulting meltdowns. I would really enjoy it 😀
Dog
In the Fall and Winter of 67 I and a couple of pals were in Paris. It was heating up. We wanted to visit the Sorbonne and walk the halls, sit in the ancient classrooms, etc. However, students and professors had formed groups to keep non students and non professors out. We were politely told that we could not come in. They were serious and organized. But most of all they did not want rabble confusing their movement.
When we arrived in Paris there were no social programs in France as there are today. We passed a woman in the subway missing a leg, laying on the ground, holding a child, begging. The scene was shocking to three youths from British Columbia, the land of plenty. There were beggars everywhere and the air was rancid with car exhaust. It was Paris and had all the charm but along with the charm came the need for obvious social reforms.
The students, the professors, and the workers brought down the Fourth Republic the following Spring. When I returned to France and Paris nine years later, it was not the same. There were no beggars as I remembered. The air was clean as emissions controls had been enacted. The survival of the fittest routine had been tempered with social programs that are the pride of every citizen-free medical, the best education controlled by the central government, etc. The pendulum swings both ways and some social programs are amended from time to time due to austerity but the revolution of 68 was orchestrated by the students, the thinkers.
The same thing went on in the US during the Civil Rights and Vietnam era. During those days the world was changed by the students. In Canada I protested with thousands of students to close the border when the US tested nukes in volcanoes in Alaska. Perhaps we live in a more evolved time. However, there doesn’t seem to be a place in the universities where expression is unfettered.
Kudos to Issac and his comment. Those last two sentences are great. The reference to Orwell has a another aspect to it. He wrote the book titled “1984”. These practices in colleges began around the year 1984.
Ironically in the 60s and 70s on campus was where anyone could say anything and scream at each other. Comedians like Lenny Bruce were arrested on stage downtown for saying f*#k or something. Traditionally the universities of the world were where the criticism started. The students of the Sorbonne organized the workers in 68 and brought down the government. France went from a socially backward country to one of the greatest defenders of civil rights in the world. Students like ‘Danny the Red’ went on to take positions in the governments of Germany etc. No wonder America is run by oligarchs. The students are too stupid to see past the coins tossed on the ground. Orwell is smiling knowingly.
A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into the quad, and are met with protest signs.
I guess the jokes on the comedian’s.
The fact is that it’s the protest era–everyone’s protesting something. It’s also the shout down era, when people interrupt, shout out, and disrupt a speaker or comedian’s schtick (spelling?). Everyone wants to be heard when they need to just listen and comment afterwards.
If I were a speaker or comedian, I’d probably stop performing at campuses also, since some of today’s audience’s are rude and disrespectful.
Darren,
Kids can’t read Shakespeare anymore, he’s part of the male cis hierarchy that oppressed women and minorities dontcha know. And it’s triggering. He also uses words that challenge my preconceived worldview. And that’s like violence and stuff.
“Madam, how you like this comedian?”
“The student doth protest too much, methinks.”
Suppressing humor on college campuses? Why, that’s no joke, old-school-style. Funny, but comedy is what makes living worthwhile. Without it, life is just . . . dead. (Puns intended.)
TY Tyger! I,m finishing the night by watching a masterpiece that couldn’t be made today: “The Wild Bunch”. Peace out.
Yep, must be the young’uns…
This is really about the ‘so called’ adults running the show, in their vain attempt to accommodate all who protest, they end up shutting everyone out. Or at least, that’s the way I see it. I mean, it’s fine to protest. And on campus, too. That should always be a safe place to express one’s selves when speaking up for your perceived Rights. The problem comes in when people aren’t given proper guidance from the adults running the institution/campus on how to be effective in messaging and coached as to their ability to address their concerns or, are even if their concerns actually valid at all. Just because one group has a gripe it should not automatically mean that the gripe is valid. And a campus environment should be that place to explore. However, where is the adult supervision to help guide them in their decision making process within this institution of learning?
So a group of activists protest Maher on campus. Let them, I say. However, doing so should not relegate Maher to some corner for being perceived as racist. And it’s when the administration of a collage/university acts ‘proactively’ and begins to ‘ban’ expressions through dialogue, performance, or in some cases; protest, they begin to set aflame a bone fire for the future to throw books on… so to speak. Either way, it’s oppressive.
I once read a report about trends in changing political ideologies through generational shifts and how children who are raised under conservative ideals tend to bloom as liberal thinkers and how children born/raised in liberal homes tend to settle later in life as more conservative. So yep, a keen observation. The flower child has grown into a turd… The cycle of life (usually the turd produces the flower).
Well, that’s not very funny. That’s not funny at all.
I know it’s fun to blame baby boomers for everything but I don’t think it really applies here. The comedians mentioned are all far older than the current students. Every generation find ways to rebel against their elders, and for me this is just kids trying to outdo the political correctness of their elders. The problem is when you take it too far, you’re no longer protecting the oppressed so much as censoring everyone. The new generation of protest is very short on offering solutions or pursuing goals with a strategy as we saw in previous civil rights and anti-war movements. Now it’s all about everyone claiming victim status and trying to out-radical one another. The example that comes to mind for me as a gay man is how college “activists” have called Dan Savage every vile name in the book ignoring his contributions, especially the “It’s Get Better” campaign that was so effective in changing attitudes. But let him even try to academically discuss the use of certain words and these people who have accomplished nothing want him burned at the stake.
Plato’s Cave – these kids want fewer words and just the words they want. When I grew up we wanted more and new words.
Reblogged this on pundit from another planet.
The problem is not the students, it is their activist professors.
Reblogged this on Scoop Feed.
What a diverse group of comedians complaining about PC: 2 Jews, 1 Redneck, and 1 Black; and I’m sure there are more. My guess is that Sarah Silverberg feels the same way, and emcees I used to watch at the Baton years ago in Chicago (I’ll let you figure that out). Over and out. P.S. Lenny Bruce would not have a career today. So sad.