Mad Magazine: You Never Can Win with a Bigot!

[alicemacher]

Although published in the early '70s, this "not meant to be ha-ha funny" piece (of the kind Mad has done on occasion) is unfortunately all too relevant today.

Warning, obviously, for bigotry of various kinds, including but not limited to racism, sexism/misogyny and anti-Semitism.


From Mad #157 (Mar. 1973). Two of two pages.

Comments

[mazway_75]

Wow, MAD saw the typical Internet comments section coming 30 years early.

[elilla]

We feel like this kind of behaviour only developed with the Internet, but here's Sartre on anti-semitic discourse in 1945:

How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse.

[…] Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.

Bigots don't argue, they play to the audience and try to normalize bigotry. That's why debates are pointless and deplatforming works.

[lizard_of_aus]

The trouble is that deplatforming is generally breeding ground for First-Amendment flavoured backlash, with the bigots continuing to play to the crowd by accusing the other side of trying to silence them. Try and refute that, and you're right back where you started.

[janegray]

Yep. Sea-lioning and goalpost-moving have always been their weapons. "The Wolf and the Lamb" is a fable of Aesop, from Ancient Greece.

[deh_tommy]

Sweet mercy, $7.00 for a car? I know inflation makes prices rise, but $7.00?

[alicemacher]

This was several months before the OPEC oil embargo which ended an over decade-long period of American prosperity. Prices weren't just lower before that event; they were a lot lower.

[zenfrodo]

Or MAD made the price ridiculously low to emphasize the bigotry even more. Even for the early '70s, $7 for a car repair is way too low.

[elilla]

For the record, 7USD in 1970 was equivalent to about $46 today. So it was very cheap for sake of the joke, but maybe not absurdly cheap.

[super_fly]

Wow, I remember reading this one a while back, but I sure didn't remember it using the N-word.

[kamino_neko]

I'm only moderately less surprised by coon and wop being used.

[kamino_neko]

German refugees in the 70s?

Were there something I'm forgetting about at the time, or were they trying to avoid poking at a specific refugee situation?

[minervasolo]

I'd assume people escaping communist East Germany?

[kamino_neko]

They would normally be called defectors, not refugees, though. (And I don't think many went to the US, rather than sticking in West Germany.)

[steverequin]

Well, I suppose they would normally be called defectors... By non-bigots.

I have bigots in my family, old men repeating the same nonsense for the last 60 years. They don't let insignificant details like "logic" get in their way.

[remial]

seeing these makes me sad.

not because of the messages in them, but because I remember when Mad Magazine (from the usual gang of idiots) not only had a message, but was funny.

not a sad imitation of its former self

[penguinzero]

It still has its moments occasionally. (q.v. the 'Ghastlygun Tinies' from the most recent issue.) And some of the good artists and writers are still with them, like Aragones. But in general, I'll agree it's lost something over the past few decades.