Consider this heart a sad smiley.
Would be nice to keep the Daily Mail trash out of the forum, honestly. Maybe there is a story here, but use some reputable sources for it.
What actually happened is that Lee Enterprises stopped printing all cartoons in their papers.
My bad. Extra text to make it to 20.
That’s hugely insulting to trash to associate it with the Daily Mail. 
What actually-actually happened is that Adams got more complaints than usual for a political joke, and soon afterwards, Lee Enterprises cancelled all comic strips. They did not notify comic producers that they were discontinuing all comics, just their comic.
Adams assumed correlation = causation and called his press agent.
Some people just don’t have a sense of humor.
“It was just a joke, bro.”
Perhaps there are some people out there that genuinely have no sense of humour about anything at all (which is likely some sort of condition that shouldn’t be used as a tool to poke fun of others), but why be so willing to paint a large group of people you don’t know under such an umbrella? Is it not more likely they do have a sense of humour, as almost all of us do, but that they have a raw spot about this one “joke” that keeps getting rubbed in, and they’ve finally had enough? And if that is the more likely scenario, shouldn’t that give one pause, rather than leaping to defend the sources of what has pushed others to the point of speaking out?
As I said, if one finds themselves defending someone who has caused others discomfort (neither of which you personally know), it is better to pause and introspect upon why you have this reaction. It is interesting to me that your nearly immediate response was to hunt down a writer that has the same reaction, instead. You chose to reinforce your mindset, instead of question it, which is in and of itself another reason to pause and introspect.
I disagree. I demonstrated the phenomena that there are humorless people of a particular mind set who can not take a joke.
All right, I asked for a little introspection but you seem to be hung up on the topic rather than the motive. I don’t expect this to go any further, but am eager to be surprised.
I have also had person experience with this phenomena.
Just wanted to chime in and report that I did as you requested (I suffer from the same reaction). It wasn’t a long pause, but a honest introspection nevertheless. Here’s what I found:
I grew up in a dictorship. Doesn’t matter which one, as they (don’t) “work” all the same way: You cause others discomfort, e.g. by telling a joke that’s mildly challenging the prescribed ideology (or even, in good faith, criticising it’s abuse by bad guys) — you get cancelled.
In all shapes and forms, ranging from getting bad grades in school (yours or that of your children) to imprinsonment, torture and… what was it, oh right: death.
And now I witness it starting all over again. For instance right here in this very forum.
No one has banned you here, though both AmberV and I are moderators and could easily do so. There’s quite a bit of difference between vigorous disagreement in a free society and squelching of the opposition in a dictatorship. If you find yourself conflating the two, perhaps a bit more introspection would be appropriate.
It might also be appropriate to consider how your perspective might differ from that of people who disagree with you. What may be, for you, a matter of academic debate, may for someone else be a direct attack on their basic humanity.
Thanks for giving it some thought.
I feel a need to rephrase what I am getting at here. My question was why one would use a frame of thinking that ascribes a complete lack of humour on a nebulous group of people that didn’t appreciate a specific joke, along with the necessary assumption that making their discontent heard about that specific joke means they don’t see the humour in it. Both of these seem like a massive leap to me, which is why my alarm bells went off.
Of my understanding: tactically speaking, it is a derogatory blanket statement being made to support the source of discomfort whilst simultaneously diminishing the validity of the voices of those discomforted. The overt statement being made is that the victim’s point of view isn’t as valid: because they have a flaw, they can’t take a good joshing, and therefore by implication the expression of their suffering is less worthy of being spoken of than the joker’s worth in making fun of them.
Please note, I am questioning that logic in and of itself, I am not proposing a counter state that is equally out of balance.
As noted above by other posters, the publishing company stopped publishing comics to these papers, so this event does not fit either of the stated reactions. The argument you are making here is toward a fictional cause that does not exist in this particular effect. I don’t say that in an attempt to invalidate your reaction, to be very clear—again I appreciate you taking the time to figure that out within yourself and post it—what I am getting at is not a criticism and more a clarification: that my comments and questions are not made in the context of “freedom of speech” or “cancelling”, because those concepts are not relevant to what I am saying.
Where I am less sure of my own opinion is the actual topic at hand: the machinery of publication, and its dissemination of media, narrowing discourse through economic stress (among other reasons, but that is the most salient cause here). That is a complex problem, but one that I find singularly unaddressed by both of the individuals in this thread who seem to be pushing very hard for this to be about something it is not.
I mean, to my mind this has a lot more to do with the failings of Capitalism than anything else, but I wouldn’t push too hard on that myself; as I said, it’s complex. There are other factors in the mix, such as the decline of newspaper subscriptions causing said stress, which can occur outside of a Capitalist framework and even be a largely benign form of stress that results from the same sort of factors that caused wax cylinder media to give way to vinyl platters.
While you’re at it you could also easily restore Orpheus’ post(s) containing that link to a certain YouTube video. Or mine. Will be easy to find.
There isn’t. You know who’s your worst enemy in such a state? The secret police? Oh no, you spot those guys from a mile away. The party? Just keep waving the right flag and sing the correct song, by and large. It’s your neighbor. Your spouse or child. Your friend, your colleague…
People like you and me, who will leverage the power of the state against you, either under pressure or to gain a personal advantage or you managed to piss them off.
Why is this a one-way street? Who decides who’s rightfully enough offended to silence a different opinion and who’s not?
I’m putting this thread into slow mode, as I feel a more measured cadence is warranted.
