Dispatches From the Asylum: On Satire in the Age of Political Correctness

Dispatches From the Asylum: On Satire in the Age of Political Correctness
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam speaks during a news conference in Richmond, Va., on June 4, 2020. Zach Gibson/Getty Images
Roger Kimball
Updated:
Commentary

We have often had occasion to remark on the melancholy state of affairs that the advance of political correctness has precipitated for the practice of satire. Satire depends for its effect on a certain distance between reality and the joke. That distance describes the space in which both humor and moral recognition may congregate. When that space collapses, satire is impossible.

Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball
Author
Roger Kimball is the editor and publisher of The New Criterion and publisher of Encounter Books. His most recent book is “Where Next? Western Civilization at the Crossroads.”
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