Punching Out: On the Right’s Reactionary Comedy

One of my favorite podcasts is this psychoanalysis and film podcast called “Why Theory.” The show is hosted by professors Todd McGowan and Ryan Engley and they break down different psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts using film, tv and other cultural phenomena.

In the latest episode “Hegel and Feminism,” Ryan said “It is in the position of the Right to never, ever, be in the critique they are making…They’re never included in the problems they are trying to solve.” I thought that was one of the most spot-on summations I’ve ever heard. Though the following essay may seem tangential, that insight gave me language to articulate some things I’ve thought about the Right, particularly towards how reactionaries view comedy.

Each ideology has strengths and weaknesses, but I think we also need to understand ideologies from a more dialect perspective: each ideology has strengths that undercut itself (I also think each ideology holds a bit of the other one in it, but that’s an essay for another time).

The Left sees the enemy as an “Us” issue. The enemy is in the (collective) self, the Other is Us. This is great in some ways, as it holds solidarity as a prime directive, and, ostensibly, makes the “Us” malleable enough for former enemies to become friends. The issue is the Left has so many coalitions warring within itself that it can be hard to present a cohesive front. It can become like a body with weak immune system; become so bent on upholding “liberal” values that it doesn’t expel people or coalitions that are actually enemies within it. The Left often pays too much attention to causes and not enough to effects. And like every Lefty can testify, the Left’s self-criticism and self-loathing often goes overboard.

The Right sees the enemy outside of itself. The Other is Them. This certainly helps it in culture wars — it will always be easier to fight a simplified, distinct, external enemy than a complicated, nebulous, internal one. Where it hurts itself (and I would contend, hurts us all) is the Right generally refuses to see itself in any of the negative states of the world. It sees itself as defenders, never aggressors. It’s a body with its immune system in overdrive, eating itself. The Right often pays too much attention to effects and not enough to causes. You rarely…