John Cleese on Political Correctness

Don't click on the video yet... Thoughts? Predictions? Misgivings? Straight, male, British white guy talking about political correctness...

I find it funny/ironic that more often than not when people are making the argument that political correctness has gone too far it comes from white, straight, male, Anglo, dominant culture, "right' side of history... need I go on?

Check out a few comments I found attached to some different internet sites where the video appears:
  • "Seems to me that people are very easily offended, they should learn to grow up and ignore it if they don't like it
  • Leave it to one of the greatest comedians of all time to state the truth about BS political correctness and its inevitability to drive us to an Orwellian 1984 society!!! Bravo John, Bravo!!!
  • Very well said Mr John Cleese how could anyone call this great man a racist he was and still is one of the funniest men in the world he is a living LEGEND
  • ...political correctness " is a dogmatism of self-righteous hypocrites.
I haven't attached names to the these comments, but -- would you be surprised to know? -- most of them are (you guessed it) male, white and... (see list above).

Comments like these ones, on the other hand... not so much:
  • very easy for a white, hetero, wealthy man to call out the end of political correctness, oh please...
  • He makes some good points about overly-sensitive people. But the reason why PC exists is because of the overtly racist climate that preceded this era. To say it ruins a comedian's act, further trivializes how this PC movement came to be. 
In fairness, there were some Anglo sounding names that were in the latter category of comments. There were, however, very few names of ethnic minority origins attached to the category of former sentiments. 

One final point. Humour. Cleese says, "...the whole point about comedy... all comedy is critical. ..... All humor is critical. If you start to say we mustn't, we mustn't criticize or offend them then humor is gone. With humor goes a sense of proportion."

I agree that humour is essentially critical, but as I learned in my undergrad study -- and later teaching -- of humour, it's far more nuanced than this. 

A quote from Stephen Leacock's "Humour and Humanity:" "Humour in its highest reach mingles with pathos: it voices sorrow for our human lot and reconciliation with it."

Elsewhere, Leacock defends satire and says that, yes, humour is always at the expense of others, but that it must be "kindly". Hence the nuance. If humour merely or primarily tears down, then -- pardon the pun -- it's not funny.  For it to be at its truest and noblest, humour must contain something redemptive -- or to use Leacock's word -- reconciliatory at its heart. 

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