Having Ideas Is Hard

I'm not a fan of South Park, but I do like Jesus and Mo. The two recently intersected:

My problem with South Park doesn't come from it having made fun of something I hold dear. Like the strip linked above makes clear, it's a mark of both intellectual and emotional maturity to face criticism without anger. I probably won't watch the South Park episode in question, but it's because I'll probably have forgotten all about it by the time it airs, not because I refuse to hear any criticism of a position I hold.

So why don't I find the show as hilarious as everyone else? It's because its creators attack everyone from a privileged position: that of having no discernible ideas of their own. It's fine to mock everything up to a point, but even well-crafted mockery starts to wear thin if it never goes beyond merely lashing out. South Park has long since proved that it has nothing to say beyond "Everything's stupid." You can believe that if you want, of course, but it sure seems like a depressing way to live.

Roger Ebert made the point well in his review of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's movie Team America: World Police:

If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I'd be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it...At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously. They may be right that some of us are puppets, but they're wrong that all of us are fools, and dead wrong that it doesn't matter.

You can say that Ebert is oversimplifying or being self-serious, but he has a point. I imagine it's one that will continue to ring true if and when South Park takes on atheism.