Conservative cable commentators often derided Jon Stewart, when forced to acknowledge his effect on the public discourse, for reminding them that he was only a comedian.
I always thought it was a cheap cop out for the former “Daily Show” host to hide behind that label.
It rendered his commentary immediately void. Whenever Stewart deployed that excuse, whatever he said no longer mattered. His musings were suddenly a small part of one big joke.
Still, his and other comedians’ brands of performance have a net-positive effect: to produce a laugh, even if they take a less than politically correct route to land one.
A performance from Milo Yiannopoulos — the alt-right antagonist who spoke last night in the Student Union Theatre — isn’t meant to make people laugh, unless you consider the mere sight of an overweight woman doing yoga funny enough to generate an audible human response.
The purpose of Yiannopoulos’ rhetoric is to upset other people. There’s no punchline — just bruised egos and the type of division a town like Baton Rouge isn’t lacking.
I know Yiannopoulos is a professional troll, and I know he probably doesn’t buy most of what he’s selling. I actually think he’s a smart guy with big ideas.
His art is provocation for the sake of provocation. I get his pitch: by amplifying divisive rhetoric to socially intolerable and upsetting levels, he’s supposedly exposing an unflattering subcurrent of whiny, righteous pomposity that resides somewhere in the progressive left.
But I had a hard time looking out on that packed house last night and believing all those members of the University community, vehemently applauding the public degradation of plus-sized women, were in on the joke.
I value free speech as much as the next college newspaper editor. I never questioned Yiannopoulos’ right to speak on campus, nor Students for Trump’s right to invite him.
But I am beginning to question the standards by which we judge performers who occupy our University’s main stage. How hateful must a performer’s rhetoric be for the University to at least speak out against it?
Until we better define those standards, the University should publicly denounce Yiannopoulos’ performance, as well as the words of political science professor Benjamin Acosta, whose introduction called upon the audience to “resist all the f*cktard liberals.”
Yiannopoulos and Acosta had every right to say what they said, just like I have every right to rebuke them. The administrators of Louisiana’s flagship university have not only a right, but a responsibility to rebuke them as well.