Nico Williams wrote on 04/04/2021 21:16:
Let's start with the offensiveness of Swift's "A Modest Proposal". I read it yesterday. It is extremely offensive.
It really isn't: it's clearly satire that was aimed at an inexcusable injustice. The material difference between it and the recent Apr 1 IDs was that that the Apr 1 IDs took aim at a set of measures intended to deal with an injustice.
Anything can be lampooned, but when the subject of derision is the discriminated rather than the people or things doing the discriminating, then that can easily veer into tasteless humour territory, which is often hilarious until it isn't, at which point offense will be taken and terms such as "unprofessional" will be given an airing. Which is where we we seem to have ended up.
Nick
