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May 26, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
09:01
Why Dark Humour is Important
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Evan.
Evan, nice about you, Evan.
Right, I'm here for a couple of reasons.
Mainly, I'm here to represent some people who didn't have the chance to come down here today, so I've got a couple of questions that they wanted to know.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
First thing is, naturally.
Oh, sorry.
God, I'm a media student.
I should know these things.
A lot of people, naturally, they're constantly going on about your tweet, your joke, essentially.
I actually wanted to have a word with you about this, specifically when it comes to humor and the censorship of people with what couldn't best be described as darker humor.
And that's racist.
Is it?
The thing is, I've had a lot of people have a go at me, say, I'm a white supremacist.
I'm a racist.
I'm an alt-writer simply because of the jokes I make.
And then I come out and say, hi, I'm an Irish immigrant who raised by a single mother who recently dated a transgender man.
And they just, like, they blue screen.
They have no idea what they're talking about.
They're just like, wait, but you're meant to be one of us.
But I'm not.
No.
That's the point.
Well, that's the problem with identity politics.
I can't claim you.
Yeah, I have the audacity to want to have a conversation with people.
Just the gall of me.
You absolute rebel.
And one of the main things I wanted to talk to you about is simply because I suffer quite badly from depression.
And this isn't self-diagnosed depression like so many people are.
The only reason I'm standing here today is because I am up to my eyeballs on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.
And essentially, I wanted to just say that in the times before I moved on and actually got onto my antidepressants to help me, my way of dealing with it was dark jokes, was dark comedy.
And I've had so many people, like I remember one time when I was in college, I cracked a joke with some of my friends in the middle of a canteen and this girl about 20 feet away gets up, storms over and just starts yelling at me, how dare you say that?
How dare you talk about people who grew up in a single parent household?
Yeah, I'm one of them.
If I can't poke fun of myself, who can I laugh at?
What can I laugh at?
I think that's an amazingly good way of phrasing this.
Because one of the things that I've had pointed out to me by several people actually is like, who is actually harmed by a joke that's a negative, say a racist joke?
Who's actually harmed by that?
And it always comes back to the person who tells it.
And it's always a joke at your own expense when you're telling a dark joke.
Because the implicit assumption in any kind of dark humor is that it's unacceptable.
That's the point.
That's why you're doing it.
In fact, that's what makes it shocking and funny.
You know, that's what makes it surprising.
Humor always comes from surprise.
So that's what makes it shocking and funny.
And the recipient of the negative energy that is generated by this joke is always the person who tells it.
It's always the person who tells it.
And that's a way of dealing with it is just to get these issues out.
And it's actually to, because then now you have a discussion with that lady who comes, how dare you, sir?
We can say, well, look, this is actually something that is personal to me, is a part of me.
And I'm going to deal with it and accept it.
And then, you know, make it normal by talking about it.
And one of the ways to handle that is by humor.
Yeah.
Just, it's normalizing something that a lot of people would be, they'd never want to talk about it.
But nowadays, it's just like, yeah, crack it.
It's a joke.
Have fun.
Enjoy yourself.
Yeah, it's not that bad, you know.
Yeah, to be honest, it's like, when I started making a lot of the friends I had in college back when they didn't know me too well, I was constantly cracking jokes about, oh yeah, my dad left, still waiting for that Mars bar, stuff like that.
It's like, yeah, I've been waiting 20 bloody years for it.
He's still not back.
line at shops must be mental and they'd always thank you you've got a career ahead of you man It's the fact that they're constantly like, when I was first kind of just starting to become friends with them, they would always be giving me crazy side glances.
Just like, are you sure you're meant to be going right?
Like, well, he hasn't.
It's a joke about me.
Yes.
It's like, this is the point.
Yes.
No, no, you've nailed it.
You've absolutely nailed it.
That's exactly how I feel about it.
Another thing I wanted to talk about is how so many people, specifically on the left, love to target people who don't agree with them as you are the far right, you're the old right.
There was actually a study done, I believe, a couple of years ago, that they took a poll from 1994 and a poll from 2017 to show how much has the views changed.
People who, like, this was from the University of Missouri, so it's an American one.
Yes.
They took polls and they showed that Republicans had moved very slightly to the right, only about, I think it was like less than 5%.
Whereas people on the Democratic left had moved almost 55%.
So they had moved so much space.
And the way they were describing is the reason they say, oh, you must be far right because you're so far over there.
They don't realize they're the ones moving further and further away.
So they don't realize they're the radicals.
When you're so far to the left, the center looks like the far right to you.
One of the guys who was talking about it, a guy called Tim Poole.
He was just saying, like, if JFK was back in these days, they'd be calling him a Nazi.
Well, this is the thing about Donald Trump.
If you look at Donald Trump's policies, they're essentially Bill Clinton's policies from back in the 90s.
It's just that things have shifted so far to the left that Bill Clinton would now be a Republican, right-winger, build a wall, you know, all this sort of stuff.
I mean, that was everything that he was saying.
So it's madness how the left is, it's really reaching the sort of logical conclusion of its own axioms, I would say.
Yeah.
It's quite terrible.
The question I was meant to ask for someone else is: this is from a lady who she is a like, she's described herself as a lifelong liberal Democrat, but because of the referendum that happened, she feels betrayed by a lot of the people who are meant to be representing her.
And she was just saying that she can't trust anyone.
It feels like she cannot trust anyone that she's meant to be voting for.
And it was that she realizes, like, now she did vote remain, but now she has changed her mind.
She has changed her opinion.
She wants the UK to leave Europe or leave the European Union, I should say.
We're still technically.
Well, let's push ourselves out into the Atlantic a bit.
Maybe get that.
Yeah, cut us off, slowly drift out.
Maybe a little bit south.
So sort of, you know, just get nicer weather.
Yeah, mid-France area, I think, would be good.
But she was just saying, because she's been looking into a lot of the new political parties that have been growing, either been growing or have popped up in the time between the referendum.
And she wanted to know when it comes to getting as much change as possible to actually have the referendum fulfilled.
She wanted to know who would she vote for to more represent her.
Would it be Nigel Farage's new Brexit party or with the UKIP party?
Because she doesn't know.
Well, really, on the issue of Brexit, UKIP and Nigel Farage's party are singing from the same hymn sheet.
And it's not surprising given how he was the leader of UKIP.
We want to get out of the European Union with no deal, no further ties as soon as possible.
So really, I don't think you can actually make your decision on the two between those issues.
I mean, it's similar in a lot of ways.
But the Brexit party hasn't got a manifesto.
I don't think it will produce a manifesto.
And I don't think it's going to do anything other than Brexit.
Whereas UKIP will do that and fight for free speech, fight against identity politics, fight against political correctness, and a whole swathe of other issues.
You know, defend the NHS, reduce immigration.
There are loads of things that UKIP also want to do other than Brexit.
They're not just a one-issue party.
That's why I'm sticking with UKIP, frankly.
Okay.
And my final question, which actually, thanks to someone else who came up before me and asked the question.
I absolutely love the video you made on Starship Troopers.
And I was just wondering, can we expect you to cover Joel Hilderman's The Forever War at any point?
Because it is quite similar.
I haven't read it.
I highly recommend it.
Very good book.
The next one, spoiler, the next one is actually going to be Demolition Man.
Oh, okay, very good.
the society that they live in is very similar to the one we're moving into now and it's uh it's interesting how i'm uh i'm i'm really understanding what edgar friendly was going through i have to say you know So I've got that in the works.
And as soon as the campaign's over, I'll get cracky on it.
I do highly recommend The Forever War because it deals with a lot of the same similar points as the actual book of Starship Troopers.
And it was written by a friend of the author of it, Heinlein.
So because of the fact they both agreed on a lot of points and disagreed on a lot of points, so you can definitely see the similarities.
And I think I think you'd be able to make a very good video out of it.
All right, well, I'll check that out.
Thank you very much.
Really appreciate it.
Cheers.
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