— by Polydamas
This is a great and thoughtful interview in the Daily Caller with conservative comedian Evan Sayet. (http://bit.ly/VAksnu).
Comedian: Liberal comics ‘don’t want to make fun of Obama because they feel that it will weaken him’
Conservative stand-up comedian Evan Sayet says there is “no doubt” his fellow comics have taken it easy on President Barack Obama.
“They’ve even admitted it themselves,” he told The Daily Caller.
“Liberals don’t want to make fun of Obama because they feel that it will weaken him if they honestly point out his foibles and his shortcomings. The narrative is that Obama is sort of a god (in fact, Evan Thomas of Newsweek said exactly that.) Gods don’t have any flaws. Thus, if they point out a single flaw, they are entirely destroying the narrative.”
Sayet, who has written for shows like “Politically Correct with Bill Maher” and “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” argues that conservatives are not as sensitive about their leaders.
“Conservatives don’t think of their leaders as ‘messiahs’ (or mythical knights in the fictional kingdom of Camelot) and thus, poking fun at them is not sacrilegious,” he said. “To the modern liberal who looks to their leaders the way small children look to their parents, making fun of Obama is simply beyond them.”
In his new book, “The KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks And Why He’s Convinced That Ignorance Is Bliss,” Sayet strays from the humorous to explore why what he calls “Modern Liberals” support the policies they do.
“Modern Liberalism is a utopian ideology that is predicated on the notion that, since mankind lost paradise when Adam and Eve ate from the apple of knowledge, then mankind can return to paradise if only we’d all just ‘regurgitate the apple’ and give up all knowledge of right and wrong,” Sayet told TheDC.
“The notion is that, if we can eliminate the quest for what I call ‘the better,’ then there’d be nothing for people to disagree about. If people didn’t disagree about things, then they wouldn’t fight and, if they didn’t fight, then of course they’d never go to war. Peace on Earth — in fact, paradise — can be achieved, they’re convinced, if only they could eliminate the quest for the better.”
“This is the environment that is found in kindergarten, where every child’s finger painting is declared ‘beautiful,’ and every child is declared special (but none more special than any other), and where every child gets a cookie, but no child gets two,” he said. “Modern liberalism is predicated on the notion that, if we could just retard the child’s moral and intellectual growth at a level prior to his having begun to learn about the better, then paradise will reign.”
Why did you decide to write the book?
The vast majority of books that discuss the Left mostly chronicle the wrongs they commit. Very, very few make a serious effort to explain why they do the things they do and support the policies they support. The most oft-heard explanations — that they’re “Marxists” or that they’re evil or that they’re just plain stupid — may apply to some, but it doesn’t apply to my favorite cousin or my kind-hearted neighbor or my extremely clever colleagues in Hollywood. So why do these people support the policies they support and, just as importantly, why are they so filled with vitriol for those who disagree with them?
Explain the title,“The KinderGarden of Eden.”
Modern Liberalism is a utopian ideology that is predicated on the notion that, since mankind lost paradise when Adam and Eve ate from the apple of knowledge, then mankind can return to paradise if only we’d all just “regurgitate the apple” and give up all knowledge of right and wrong. The notion is that, if we can eliminate the quest for what I call “the better,” then there’d be nothing for people to disagree about. If people didn’t disagree about things, then they wouldn’t fight; and, if they didn’t fight, then of course they’d never go to war. Peace on Earth — in fact, paradise — can be achieved, they’re convinced, if only they could eliminate the quest for the better. This is the environment that is found in kindergarten, where every child’s finger painting is declared “beautiful,” and every child is declared special (but none more special than any other), and where every child gets a cookie, but no child gets two. Modern liberalism is predicated on the notion that, if we could just retard the child’s moral and intellectual growth at a level prior to his having begun to learn about the better, then paradise will reign.
Your book is an attack on what you term the “Modern Liberal?” How do you define “Modern Liberal?” And if this ideology is a new phenomenon, as you suggest, where do we find its intellectual foundations?
It is essential that one understand that the “Modern Liberal” is not simply a liberal who happens to be alive today. I call them “Liberals” only because they typically call themselves Liberals, and I felt that any other word would fail to make clear just how prevalent the ideology is. I inserted the modifier “Modern” to make clear that they are not who they say they are, nor are they what “Liberals” used to be. In fact, the Modern Liberal is as much at war against “classical” liberal values as he is against conservative ones, for mature values are not found in the kindergarten classroom, and they can be the stuff about which people might disagree, fight and even war.
Modern Liberalism is a new ideology — or rather, one that is new in its prevalence to the Modern Liberal era (post-World War II through today). It traces its call for the rejection of intellect to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who sought to replace thinking with passion and feeling (just like the small child). But whereas Rousseau’s ideology of abject and intentional stupidity was roundly rejected by people who lived in times and places where intelligence was required to avoid and survive real world difficulties like disease, hunger, poverty and physical pain, in post-World War II America — with science and technology having just about eradicated these things — an ideology that was based upon recreating paradise by retarding the moral and intellectual growth of its followers found greater acceptance.
You write that modern liberals reject the intellectual process as a moral imperative and that they always side with evil over good. Do you really believe that?
I do, and, in fact, one follows inevitably from the other. These are what I call the first two Laws of the Unified Field Theory of Liberalism. The first is that thinking is an act of bigotry to be avoided by all moral people and reviled when seen practiced by others. The rationale behind the outlawing of thought is that, anything a person concludes is going to have been so tainted by his personal prejudices – prejudices all people possess as simply part of the human experience based on things like the color of their skin, the nation of their ancestry, their height, weight, sex and so on, that the only way not to be a bigot is to never think at all.
The Second Law is that indiscriminateness of thought does not lead to indiscriminateness of policy, it leads — and, in fact can only lead — to the Modern Liberal siding with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. After all, if no culture, no religion, no form of governance or anything else is better than anything else, then the Modern Liberal has no explanation for success and failure. To those to whom indiscriminateness is a moral imperative (because its opposite is discrimination), success – as proved by nothing other than the fact that it has succeeded is all the proof that’s required for them to conclude that some injustice must have taken place. The same is true with failure. If nothing is better than anything else, then failure – as proved by nothing other than the fact that it has failed – serves as definitive proof that the failure has somehow been victimized. And the same is true of good and evil. If no person, culture, religion and so on is better or worse than any other, then anything society deems to be good can be said to be so only because of society’s bigotries. This led Thomas Sowell to conclude that, to those I call the Modern Liberals, “That which is held in esteem qualifies to be their target; that which is held in disdain qualifies to be their mascot.”
Even if you disagree with many of the policies proposed by the Democrats in Congress, which you say are dominated by “Modern Liberals,” don’t you think they are motivated by altruism in supporting, for instance, universal health care, even if you may think it is unfeasible and perhaps unconstitutional in its current form? How is that supporting evil, instead of perhaps supporting a misguided policy?
I have no doubt and don’t make any other claim that the Modern Liberal’s purpose is altruistic. Their desire is, in fact, the ultimate in altruism: to create heaven on Earth. It’s just not mature, has no relationship to the grown-up, real world and, ultimately, because it doesn’t, it leads them to policies that are invariably destructive. Those who hounded former Harvard President Larry Summers off of campus were doing so out of “altruism” and the desire to end “sexism” by making it virtually illegal to consider differences between the sexes, but they did nothing to advance the cause of science or promote sound policy that can only come from the truth.
By trade you’re a political comedian. What political comics do you admire?
I have seen Dennis Miller be so great that I almost said I’m only the second best conservative comedian out there. I think Chris Rock can be brilliant at times. Jon Stewart is extremely clever, though a great example that there is very little correlation between cleverness and being right. He is at least a) honest (albeit typically wrong) and b) often very funny.
Do you think comedians have taken it easy on President Obama? Why?
There’s no doubt they’ve taken it easy on Obama. They’ve even admitted it themselves. Liberals don’t want to make fun of Obama because they feel that it will weaken him if they honestly point out his foibles and his short-comings. The narrative is that Obama is sort of a god (in fact, Evan Thomas of Newsweek said exactly that.) Gods don’t have any flaws. Thus, if they point out a single flaw, they are entirely destroying the narrative. Conservatives don’t think of their leaders as “messiahs” (or mythical knights in the fictional kingdom of Camelot) and thus, poking fun at them is not sacrilegious. To the Modern Liberal who looks to their leaders the way small children look to their parents, making fun of Obama is simply beyond them.
Any plans yet for your next project?
There is still the rest of this book to edit and, in some places, finish writing. In the remainder of the book I address not just the policies that the permanent retardation of the Modern Liberal leads to, but the pathologies as well. As I continue to work on Volume II of the book, I will also be continuing to give lectures (and am available for hire to do so!) as well as as many of my “Evan Sayet’s Right to Laugh – A Night of Conservative Comedy” as time allows.
