"An online publication that few people read recently published an article headlined “These 13 Jokes From ‘Seinfeld’ Are Super Offensive Now.” It predictably follows the latest fashion of taking something from the past and finding reasons to be outraged at it—evidently, these voracious outrage whores have run out of targets for their rage in the present.
"One of the striking qualities of the article is how lazy it is. Discussing a joke in which Jerry asks how he can be racist to Chinese women if he “likes their race,” the aggrieved author says, “hopefully the issues with that exchange don’t require further explanation for anyone in 2018.” Responding to another joke in which Kramer mistakes a “fat little mental patient” as a “pig man,” the author simply writes “yikes.”"These types of responses are all too typical in such “think pieces.” Authors of such pieces often entirely gloss over what exactly they find offensive. They simply assume that all good people will agree with them. They do not even attempt to engage with readers who may differ or who may be bewildered at their moral outrage. Instead, they assume that these people are beneath reason and beyond the pale. Be that as it may, it is by no means clear whether they themselves have a good explanation for why the joke they’ve attacked is offensive.
"The intellectual laziness demonstrated by these think pieces frees the professionally outraged from having actually to examine the joke or understand the nuances of what makes it funny." . . .
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