{"id":55808,"date":"2021-07-16T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=55808"},"modified":"2021-07-16T11:10:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T15:10:40","slug":"the-war-against-satire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/07\/the-war-against-satire\/","title":{"rendered":"The War Against Satire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a> When we lived in Wisconsin, I would often pick up a free newspaper from Madison called The Onion<\/em><\/a>, a satirical publication whose deadpan headlines were often funnier than the stories, funny as those also were.\u00a0 Back then, The Onion<\/em> was pretty much an equal opportunity offender, but now that it\u2019s gone national online<\/a>, it seems to favor the Left, as well as not being as funny as it used to be.<\/p>\n

But in 2016, a Christian version of The Onion <\/em>came into existence online:\u00a0 The Babylon Bee<\/a>.\u00a0 Its satire was mostly aimed at Christian targets:\u00a0 the prosperity gospel, celebrity preachers, evangelical fashions, etc.\u00a0 But, though that focus continues, the Bee also started stinging worldly targets and has become a prime supplier of conservative political and social satire. Here are some of the headlines from today\u2019s\u00a0edition of The Babylon Bee<\/a>, with links to the full piece:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\u2018You Just Don\u2019t Understand Socialism Like I Do,\u2019 Says College Freshman To Man Who Escaped Socialism On A Raft<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Democrat Governors Afraid Cuban Desire For Freedom Could Spread To The U.S.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
Bernie Sanders Heads To Cuba To Tell Protesters To Be More Grateful For Their Excellent Social Programs<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018Vaccines Should Be Mandatory,\u2019 Says Woman Wearing My Body, My Choice T-Shirt<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now some people just do not understand irony.\u00a0 They think Bernie Sanders really did go to Cuba.\u00a0 And progressives in general don\u2019t like to be made fun of.\u00a0 So an effort is under way to cancel the Bee by claiming that it is printing \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/p>\n

To take one example<\/a>, the Bee put up a piece saying that CNN is using an industrial-sized washing machine to \u201cspin\u201d the news.\u00a0 So the fact-checking site Snopes brought up the story, researched it, and\u2013since there is no evidence that CNN used a washing machine for this purpose\u2013declared it \u201cfalse\u201d!<\/p>\n

Because of many such reports from other literal-minded fact checkers and people who can\u2019t take a joke, the Bee has been branded as a \u201cright wing disinformation site.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, it is being kicked off of Facebook and other social media. That hurts, since advertisers pay websites (including Patheos) according to the number of page views, and people forwarding favorite links to their friends on social media is the major way that the word gets out.\u00a0 So the goal is to put The Babylonian Bee<\/em> out of business.<\/p>\n

Seth Dillon<\/a>, who leads the Bee, has been battling these false charges and willful misunderstandings, with some success.\u00a0 When the New York Times<\/em> described the site as \u201ca right-leaning site\u201d that \u201csometimes trafficked in misinformation under the guise of satire,\u201d he filed a lawsuit for defamation, whereupon the Times<\/em> deleted the slur.\u00a0 Snopes now offers a new kind of verdict: \u201clabeled satire.\u201d\u00a0 Facebook has backed down from some of its censorship.<\/p>\n

But some progressives who do recognize that the Bee is publishing satire are pushing for a new criterion.\u00a0 Satire, they say, is supposed to \u201cpunch up,\u201d attacking those in power.\u00a0 But it should not be allowed to \u201cpunch down,\u201d making fun of the oppressed. So Facebook is saying that it will moderate satire that \u201cpunches down,\u201d possibly classifying it as \u201chate speech.\u201d To that, Dillon says<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cConservatives have been on the ropes in the culture war for a long time. We\u2019re in a defensive posture, fighting back against the top-down tyranny of the left\u2019s progressive agenda that destroys everything it touches. That agenda is fueled and furthered by all the nation\u2019s most powerful people, corporations, and institutions. If that\u2019s not punching up, I don\u2019t know what is,\u201d Dillon wrote. . . Having failed in their effort to lump us in with fake news, the media and Big Tech are looking for new ways to work together to deplatform us. They now hope to discredit us by saying we\u2019re spreading hatred\u2014rather than misinformation\u2014under the guise of satire,\u201d Dillon wrote. \u201cBut we\u2019re not punching down.\u2019 We\u2019re punching back.\u201d Dillon feels \u201cthe left\u2019s new prohibition of \u2018punching down\u2019 is speech suppression in disguise\u201d and blasted anyone who plays along. \u201cIt\u2019s people in positions of power protecting their interests by telling you what you can and cannot joke about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It has been said that satire is the most conservative of literary forms, since ridiculing evils requires objective moral standards to judge them by.\u00a0 Certainly, the greatest of our satirists, the conservative clergyman Jonathan Swift, bears that out. As another conservative satirist, Thomas More<\/a>, said, \u201cThe devil. . .the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked.\u201d\u00a0 And on this, More\u2019s nemesis, another conservative satirist, Martin Luther<\/a> agreed:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.\u201d So being a satirist is a valid Christian vocation, so I salute the writers for The Babylon Bee.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Illustration:\u00a0\u00a0By Source, Fair use, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=50780174<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Satire has a long pedigree as a conservative literary form. But social media sites are trying to cancel the Christian and conservative satire site “The Babylon Bee,” branding its cutting humor as “right wing disinformation.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":55990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,28,35,36],"tags":[10949,9772,10952,1962,2039],"class_list":["post-55808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-literature","category-philosophy-2","category-politics","tag-babylon-bee","tag-cancel-culture","tag-internet-censorship","tag-satire","tag-social-media"],"yoast_head":"\nThe War Against Satire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Satire has a long pedigree as a conservative literary form. 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