Grim humour

Have you heard the one about the Rabbi, the Imam and the fat chick? Me neither. In fact, it’s been so long since I’ve heard a good joke that I almost forgot what it feels like to laugh. It seems this is somewhat of a universal experience, as many of my friends and acquaintances have similar plaints.

But then, what would you expect from a culture that carefully monitors every utterance in search of some hint of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia or whatever the phobia du jour might be. There was a time that we could laugh at each other and ourselves. Regretfully that time has gone the way of the passenger pigeon, as culturally we seem to have devolved into a grim, sovietised, humourless society obsessed with watching other peoples’ Ps and Qs.

Sovietised, humourless society obsessed with watching other peoples’ Ps and Qs

The most obvious contributor to the demise of humour is political correctness, which is the fine art of winning an argument by claiming there is no argument to be made for anything other than the accepted conventional wisdom. Turns out that conventional wisdom is always deemed non-ideological and “practical,” and any other opinion is “right wing drivel”. Consequently the racial disparity in America’s prisons is blamed on our society’s inherent racism, rather than the conditions that incubate a climate of crime in certain communities. I find it mind boggling that a convicted cop killer like Mumia Abu-Jamal is chosen to be the commencement speaker at Goddard College, while someone like Condoleezza Rice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, both women of color, are first invited, then disinvited to college commencement ceremonies because of their “controversial” views. It’s not enough that we accept gay marriage. We must also publicly approve of it; no matter what one’s moral or religious convictions might otherwise dictate. And to ensure that we adhere to the diktat issued through the Ministry of Truth, we have established quasi-judicial bodies under the guise of protecting “human” “rights.”

---

The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

As I understand human rights, there are very few, all of which are also very basic. That is, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But our perpetually offended, litigious society has inculcated a whole slew of rights that no one knew previously existed. I totally agree that one is free to do with one’s genitalia whatever one wishes, so long as it doesn’t impinge on the rights of others. But don’t hold me to account for not marching in a gay pride parade. Personally, I’d prefer to march in a hetero pride parade, but you know, under the currently enforced statutes, that would be considered lewd and offensive, resulting in arrest. Are you beginning to see the dichotomy? Whenever I broach the subject of Islam with many of my acquaintances, I am immediately bombarded with a litany of atrocities committed in the name of Christianity. One can’t deny this fact, given the historical context in which eras such as the Inquisition and The Crusades occurred. But to keep it all in perspective, these events happened a half millennium ago, not yesterday. So why is it that anyone expressing concerns over Islamist terrorism is labeled as an Islamophobe? There is plenty of evidence around us that we should be afraid, given the beheadings, the bombings and all the violence originating from the so-called Dar al-Salam. It’s on Facebook and You Tube, for God’s sake.

Relationship between feminism and Islam

There’s an interesting relationship between feminism and Islam. For some reason western feminists are much more concerned with what they call “the patriarchy” than with the plight of Islamic women. This appears to be one of the most difficult concepts to grasp and likely the keystone to the many contradictions inherent to political correctness. Western feminists seem to be much more concerned with feminizing men than with the oppression of their “sisters” living under tyrannical Islamic regimes. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was disinvited from speaking at Rutgers University, is a prime example. Her life has been in jeopardy for the past 10 years because of her ardent and vocal outrage over the cruelties inflicted on many Muslim women. It’s common practice in her native Somalia for Muslim girls to undergo forced clitoridectomies under the crudest conditions. Where is the outcry from the sisterhood? We reside in a culture where the cognitive dissonance gets ever more obvious, yet ever larger numbers are choosing not to see. It leaves one wondering whether to laugh or cry.