Funniest polemics?

[HEAD ICE]

I was reading some Plekhanov and came across this which had me laughing:


In Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the “Contract” (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!)

what are some other polemics that rank high in the humor department?

[mikelepore]

I have always thought this was humorous.

From Daniel De Leon, "Reform or Revolution" (public address delivered in Boston, Massachusetts), 1896


Reform means a change of externals; revolution -- peaceful or bloody, the peacefulness or the bloodiness of it cuts no figure whatever in the essence of the question -- means a change from within.

Take, for instance, a poodle. You can reform him in a lot of ways. You can shave his whole body and leave a tassel at the tip of his tail; you may bore a hole through each ear, and tie a blue bow on one and a red bow on the other; you may put a brass collar around his neck with your initials on, and a trim little blanket on his back; yet, throughout, a poodle he was and a poodle he remains. Each of these changes probably wrought a corresponding change in the poodle's life. When shorn of all his hair except a tassel at the tail's tip he was owned by a wag who probably cared only for the fun he could get out of his pet; when he appears gaily decked in bows, probably his young mistress' attachment is of tenderer sort; when later we see him in the fancier's outfit, the treatment he receives and the uses he is put to may be yet again and probably are, different. Each of these transformations or stages may mark a veritable epoch in the poodle's existence. And yet, essentially, a poodle he was, a poodle he is and a poodle he will remain.

That is reform.

But when we look back myriads of years, or project ourselves into far-future physical cataclysms, and trace the development of animal life from the invertebrate to the vertebrate, from the lizard to the bird, from the quadruped and mammal till we come to the prototype of the poodle, and finally reach the poodle himself, and so forward -- then do we find radical changes at each step, changes from within that alter the very essence of his being, and that put, or will put, upon him each time a stamp that alters the very system of his existence.

That is revolution.

So with society. Whenever a change leaves the internal mechanism untouched, we have reform; whenever the internal mechanism is changed, we have revolution.

[¿Que?]

I like how Marx refers to all of his adversaries as Saint i.e. Saint Bruno, Saint Max etc.

[blake 3:17]

The Left in general is so lacking in humour. I can think of a zillion episodes that are quite comic, but the amount of context necessary to get the joke is so massive, it's a total buzzkill.

Thanks for the Deleon quote -- it is funny.

The only funny thing I can think of the far Left is the Socialist Party of England and Wales aka SPEW.

I can think of particularly funny actions -- throwing doughnuts at anti-police violence demonstrations.

Left polemics seem to orient themselves towards tragedy rather than comedy or humour.

Conservatives are generally funnier. The funniest writers I know are Swift, William Burroughs, Jane Bowles, and Stephen Leacock. Leacock is maybe the only author I'll read and get a genuine belly laugh from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Leacock#Academic_and_political_life

Are there any funny Leftists?

[La Comédie Noire]

When Nietzsche shit on Schopenhauer for playing the flute after dinner. :lol:

[Os Cangaceiros]

Kevin Carson isn't really a "leftist", but I think that some of his rants against Austrian economists/anarcho-capitalists are funny:

(On Lew Rockwell's comment that workers should be grateful to their boss for employment)


If the employment contract is–ahem–a CONTRACT between two equal parties for mutual benefit, why should be workers be any more “grateful” to the boss than vice versa? Can you imagine Rockwell’s reaction if some “commie” commenting on a layoff story argued that the workers were the boss’s benefactor, and that he owed them gratitude as well as good pay?

Rockwell’s attitude reminds me of Paul Graham’s quip that the contractual employment relation, in practice, contains a lot of recycled master-servant DNA. It’s certainly odd that a libertarian, who professes to celebrate the supercession of status by contract, should such nostalgia for the baggage of the age of status. It’s almost Burkean: squires in powdered wigs sipping mint juleps on the verandah, and grateful laborers in the field singing old English spirituals.


They [the anarcho-capitalists] seem to favor the free market because they believe it will eliminate the state as a constraint on the kinds of local authoritarianism they enjoy, and give them a free hand in playing with the powerless victims in their little killing jars without any outside interference. A “free society,” for them, is a society in which the local petty authority figure is free to brutalize those under his power without hindrance. It’s the freedom of the squire to enclose the land and rackrent his tenants, of the pointy-haired boss to make life hell for Dilbert. You know, the way things were in the good old days, when men were men and sheep were nervous, and people who didn’t look and act like us kept in their place and didn’t whine about their “rights.” I vaguely recall that the Book of the Subgenius included a listing for someone who called himself an anarcho-monarchist, or something of the sort; his slogan was “Every backyard a kingdom, every child and dog a serf.” I can imagine him fitting in well in certain paleolibertarian circles.

[graymouser]

The Spartacists, proving that they're not totally humorless, named one of their polemics against the External Tendency (now the Bolshevik Tendency) "From Cream Puffs to Food Poisoning."

And this thread would not be complete without a mention of the Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off) (http://www.angelfire.com/ca/gentrotsky/).

[Zeus the Moose]

The Spartacists, proving that they're not totally humorless, named one of their polemics against the External Tendency (now the Bolshevik Tendency) "From Cream Puffs to Food Poisoning."

And this thread would not be complete without a mention of the Generic Trotskyist League (40% Off) (http://www.angelfire.com/ca/gentrotsky/).

"Who is this roadkill? What group did this roadkill once lead?" Another Spartacist favourite of mine.

[blake 3:17]

The Sparts can be accidentally funny. The IBT write less but more beautifully. And the local Socialist Action is funny in the grimmest of ways. No offense meant to SA folks in the US.