Dispatches from the Asylum

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. We know, when reading Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal, that he is not really advocating requisitioning babies for food. That knowledge licenses our laughter. A “young healthy Child well nurs’d,” Swift earnestly tells us, “is, at a Year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome Food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a Fricassée, or a Ragoust.”