I admit I’m always fascinated by political cartoonists. Their ability to encapsulate a thought in a single drawing relies on succinct analogies, making them to me among the most creative people on the planet, and I’m not bothered that they mock both Left and Right. Today, I discovered the work of A. F. Banco.
One of Banco’s recent cartoons draws on the nature of black holes to mock woke holes. In his cartoon, a black spot draws in the following:
Humor
Common sense
US Legal System
US Military
Religious freedom
Women’s sports
US Economy
Hollywood
And
Freedom of speech. *
What Would You Add to the List?
If I were asked about adding to the list, I would respond with “higher education” because university curricula during the past half century have gravitated toward self-propagating majors like specific ethnic studies, race studies, gender studies, and age studies. The graduates of these programs have few lucrative job avenues, among them: Becoming well paid professors in their discipline to perpetuate the discipline. An online perusal of gender studies jobs, for example, revealed “jobs” in education, health and social services, public service, philanthropy, business and industry (How? In human resources to handle complaints about pronoun use?), media, and law (of course: Look at the opportunities to sue people for using the wrong pronouns, for refusing to yield their beliefs to the whims of others, or for objecting to multi-sex public bathrooms).
That those components of American culture and other American entities are vanishing down the “woke hole” seems undeniable. Some, however, are just approaching the event horizon. Among the first to be driven into the woke hole is humor. Apparently, comedians can no longer “offend.” Where’s Carlin when you need him? Where are the remnants of offensive jokes all told “in good fun” to open minds with a sense of self-deprecating humility? Now humor is nothing if not targeted at conservatives. Is it really possible that comedians can find nothing humorous about a cackling inane Vice President or a seemingly corrupt President steeped in a mythical past of jobs he never held and false claims of academic accomplishments, a guy who has trouble speaking off the cuff and walking up stairs? A guy who has to have note cards to tell him to “enter the room” and “sit down”? Comedy—humor—has definitely disappeared in the woke hole.
Black holes are inescapable gravity wells that differ dramatically from the gravity of our daily concerns. They are unforgiving in warping space-time, but they could be considered just “more of the same” in that our own paltry gravitational field is also unforgiving when we trip. Born with the ability to withstand the crushing of One Earth Gravity, or One G, we can maintain our shape. Near a black hole we would be flattened and spaghettified, lengthened upon approaching and entering the hole (crossing the event horizon), and ripped apart. There’s no survival. And into the hole everything goes: Including, as the physicists like to say, information (for all is information: structure, process, and the words I now write).
So what of the list from the Banco cartoon? Will any of those on the list survive the spaghettification in the ever-consuming woke hole?
The Future of the Woke Hole
Will woke holes undergo the same kind of “evaporation” that Hawking predicted for black holes? Maybe. Typically a next generation rejects and spits out the culture of a past generation though such rejection can succumb to a rebirth of a previous era’s values. At this time, however, it’s hard to imagine that humor will escape the destructive power of the woke hole. Surveys of college age Americans indicate that many are already too close to the hole of wokeness to survive as independent entities. Certainly, there are already adults who have committed their very social being to wokeness; thus, the acquiescence of Disney to almost every woke value. And that seems to include the Seven Dwarfs. ** According to Insider, a remake of the Snow White tale is steeped in a controversy over the inclusion of actual dwarfs. I can envision a new title for the remake of the 1871 story: Snow White and the Grocery Store Top Shelf Challenged Humans. ***
Just as black holes are indiscriminate in swallowing the components of the Cosmos, so woke holes are equally indiscriminate: Wokeness will eventually disappear from the universe because no woke person can anticipate the demands of further wokeness. Physicists speak of “information” that is “lost” in a black hole. Once in, the information of the universe—which is everything—stays in. That means the loss of structure, process, and meaning. The woke hole is in the process of swallowing all it can.
Want to postpone spaghettification? Tell a joke, and tell those who object to it that you don't care. "It's just a joke, and ultimately, like all the Cosmos, it will eventually disappear into a hole so deep that it can never escape. In the meantime have some fun for a change, and for your own sake and the sake of a free culture, get a sense of humor."
*https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow#d97b2acd-1b40-53e0-a6f7-d60690312c74
**https://www.insider.com/disney-snow-white-set-photos-stir-controversy-about-seven-dwarfs-2023-7
***Wokeness can solve the problem by eliminating shelves completely: Note that after a removal of all overlying shelves, the bottom shelf becomes the offensive “top shelf.
One of Banco’s recent cartoons draws on the nature of black holes to mock woke holes. In his cartoon, a black spot draws in the following:
Humor
Common sense
US Legal System
US Military
Religious freedom
Women’s sports
US Economy
Hollywood
And
Freedom of speech. *
What Would You Add to the List?
If I were asked about adding to the list, I would respond with “higher education” because university curricula during the past half century have gravitated toward self-propagating majors like specific ethnic studies, race studies, gender studies, and age studies. The graduates of these programs have few lucrative job avenues, among them: Becoming well paid professors in their discipline to perpetuate the discipline. An online perusal of gender studies jobs, for example, revealed “jobs” in education, health and social services, public service, philanthropy, business and industry (How? In human resources to handle complaints about pronoun use?), media, and law (of course: Look at the opportunities to sue people for using the wrong pronouns, for refusing to yield their beliefs to the whims of others, or for objecting to multi-sex public bathrooms).
That those components of American culture and other American entities are vanishing down the “woke hole” seems undeniable. Some, however, are just approaching the event horizon. Among the first to be driven into the woke hole is humor. Apparently, comedians can no longer “offend.” Where’s Carlin when you need him? Where are the remnants of offensive jokes all told “in good fun” to open minds with a sense of self-deprecating humility? Now humor is nothing if not targeted at conservatives. Is it really possible that comedians can find nothing humorous about a cackling inane Vice President or a seemingly corrupt President steeped in a mythical past of jobs he never held and false claims of academic accomplishments, a guy who has trouble speaking off the cuff and walking up stairs? A guy who has to have note cards to tell him to “enter the room” and “sit down”? Comedy—humor—has definitely disappeared in the woke hole.
Black holes are inescapable gravity wells that differ dramatically from the gravity of our daily concerns. They are unforgiving in warping space-time, but they could be considered just “more of the same” in that our own paltry gravitational field is also unforgiving when we trip. Born with the ability to withstand the crushing of One Earth Gravity, or One G, we can maintain our shape. Near a black hole we would be flattened and spaghettified, lengthened upon approaching and entering the hole (crossing the event horizon), and ripped apart. There’s no survival. And into the hole everything goes: Including, as the physicists like to say, information (for all is information: structure, process, and the words I now write).
So what of the list from the Banco cartoon? Will any of those on the list survive the spaghettification in the ever-consuming woke hole?
The Future of the Woke Hole
Will woke holes undergo the same kind of “evaporation” that Hawking predicted for black holes? Maybe. Typically a next generation rejects and spits out the culture of a past generation though such rejection can succumb to a rebirth of a previous era’s values. At this time, however, it’s hard to imagine that humor will escape the destructive power of the woke hole. Surveys of college age Americans indicate that many are already too close to the hole of wokeness to survive as independent entities. Certainly, there are already adults who have committed their very social being to wokeness; thus, the acquiescence of Disney to almost every woke value. And that seems to include the Seven Dwarfs. ** According to Insider, a remake of the Snow White tale is steeped in a controversy over the inclusion of actual dwarfs. I can envision a new title for the remake of the 1871 story: Snow White and the Grocery Store Top Shelf Challenged Humans. ***
Just as black holes are indiscriminate in swallowing the components of the Cosmos, so woke holes are equally indiscriminate: Wokeness will eventually disappear from the universe because no woke person can anticipate the demands of further wokeness. Physicists speak of “information” that is “lost” in a black hole. Once in, the information of the universe—which is everything—stays in. That means the loss of structure, process, and meaning. The woke hole is in the process of swallowing all it can.
Want to postpone spaghettification? Tell a joke, and tell those who object to it that you don't care. "It's just a joke, and ultimately, like all the Cosmos, it will eventually disappear into a hole so deep that it can never escape. In the meantime have some fun for a change, and for your own sake and the sake of a free culture, get a sense of humor."
*https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow#d97b2acd-1b40-53e0-a6f7-d60690312c74
**https://www.insider.com/disney-snow-white-set-photos-stir-controversy-about-seven-dwarfs-2023-7
***Wokeness can solve the problem by eliminating shelves completely: Note that after a removal of all overlying shelves, the bottom shelf becomes the offensive “top shelf.
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