Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked-meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act One, scene 2

Recently the topic of discussion on a Twitter thread veered off to the fact that “the Left can’t meme.” And what does that mean?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was raised by anti-racism leftists who worked in 1949 (!) to integrate the lunch counters in downtown St. Louis. Successfully I might add. I am an “anarchist from the traditions of the libertarian left” which means being against war, being against racism, being against the drug war, being against mass incarceration. You know, all the things conservative politicians seem not to find funny. So, I am not entirely unsympathetic to left-leaning ideologies, as I’ve encountered them many times since my youth.

But see here, you cannot show me a long series of funny leftist memes. There aren’t that many. In fact, if you find ten, by all means, hit me up on Twitter @planetaryjim and let’s look them over. If you find two, be sure they’re really funny. I think Ted Rall might have done a few funny ones over the last thirty years that I’ve known him. (We went to college together.)

What are memes? Memes are ideas, Richard Dawkins asserted, that move around like genes. Memes carry information, genes carry information. Memes are passed from one person to another. But on Twitter and Facebook, as well as some other more recent social media platforms (Diaspora has become Mammoth, didja hear? I only heard recently) a meme is text on a graphic conveying an idea. I leave it to our excellent editor to insert a meme here or there for fun and profit.

[I am fresh out!—Editor]

The left of today has gotten itself into a mess. It used to be against war. Now it is only against war if a Republican is in the White House. It used to be against violent confrontations at the borders. Now it is only against border policies if a Republican is in the White House. It used to be against institutional racism. Rinse, repeat. There are even leftists who remember when the left was committed to truth (Watergate, Pentagon Papers) but now they have to be embarrassed by how Obama treated Assange and Snowden. Today the left is mainly against offending anyone.

Which means they take very seriously (VERY!) the gender pronouns that some people think matter. They take very seriously (VERY!!) the proof that Elizabeth Warren is something like 1/1024th part Native American (or Native Peruvian?) and it matters. So, naturally, they cannot be seen distributing cartoons or slogans that might be regarded as mean, or cynical, or hurtful.

But the truth is, telling a good joke takes courage. It takes courage for Hamlet to talk to his school chum Horatio about how his father’s grave was not yet cold when his mother re-married. It takes courage to joke about difficult subjects. And the left of today has no courage. It has given up on taking a stand about anything, and it just whines and moans about everything.

Lenny Bruce was courageous. He was even arrested for some of the things he said. Yes, Virginia used to have obscenity laws. So did many other states, ffs

George Carlin was courageous. He was present at one of Lenny Bruce’s obscenity arrests, was asked for his identity papers by the police, told them he didn’t believe in government issued identity papers, and was promptly arrested.

John Belushi was courageous. Although the time when he performed was somewhat less uptight about obscenity, he took risks with his comedy. Look at some of the skits he developed that were never run on Saturday Night because they were too outre.

One could go on and on. But it is more than just courage on the part of the performer. Enjoying edgy humour also takes courage. You have to have the courage to see another point of view. You have to have courage to understand that the joke isn’t about you, even if it is on you. You have to, in a moment of comedy, choose not to be personally offended. Because it isn’t about offending you, it is either about making a point, or making someone laugh.

The current crop of leftists makes me wonder what they have done with their spines. Edgy humour used to be part of the fun of their parties.

As Hannibal Lecter says, “Not anymore.”

 

Jim Davidson is an actor, writer, storyteller, and chief financial officer of three start-ups. He is also vision director of HoustonSpaceSociety.net again. Still.