Crossing Nebraska

The very public murder of Charlie Kirk earlier this month as he engaged in debate on a college campus has shocked our nation’s conscience and thrust us into a meta-debate of sorts over the nature of free speech and our responsibility to be both truthful and civil. One popular late-night television host was suspended for allegedly inaccurate and irresponsible musings as to the motives of the shooter. Others have reportedly already lost their jobs for making comments deemed either too celebratory or too dismissive of Kirk’s fate. Even members of the military are being suspended for the content of their social media posts. Suddenly, a great deal rides on the subtle tone of our words, which is odd given that truthfulness and civility have been so absent from public discourse over the course of this past decade. No. YOU'RE the violent one! Yes, if only the debate over truthfulness and civility were an honest one. It used to be that folks on the right of the political spectrum decried ...

We don’t stop loving a family member who falls ill with a life-threatening disease. No, we show our love even more in their time of need, even though we may loathe the disease which has beset them. Such is how I feel about our country at the present time. Even as I love it, I must recognize that it is sick with a culture of ignorance, delusion, cruelty, and violence. Rather than being a populace guided by shared values and principles, we’ve become a writhing snake pit of views with widely varying degrees of connection to reality. Are vaccines good or bad? We can’t agree. Are our elections fair or not? We can’t agree. Should gun control laws be strengthened or thrown out altogether? Should we have separation of church and state? We can’t agree. Should we have meaningful checks and balances amongst our three branches of government, or does the executive branch wield overarching power? Should people in positions of power be chosen for their subject matter expertise or for their ideologi...

I thought I might touch on the power of politically oriented humor in my previous post. “Laugh!” I wrote in an early draft of Maintaining Peace and Joy Under Authoritarianism . “Laugh at the goons, buffoons, and loons propping up this destructive regime.” There’s no denying the power of humor to buoy our spirits in even the darkest times. And yet I still had reservations as I wrote that line. It occurred to me that our ability to laugh, and what we hope might result from our laughter, very much depends on our privilege. It was then I realized I’d need to delve more deeply into the nature of humor in order to do it justice. Satirical image of Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan, and Tucker Carlson  laying hands on Governor Newsom Yeruchem Eilfort states that humor has been an important part of Judaism since Biblical times, whether for the sake of preparing the mind for Talmudic study or otherwise coping with the vicissitudes of existence. This appreciation for humor would later play a role in h...