‘There’s Nothing, After All, They’ll Respect More Than Your Traditions’

“We are two days into the great Onion Oscar Tweet Controversy,” James Lileks writes:

This is what I love the most: all of a sudden, there’s a boundary! A useful and important one, at that. You spend your whole life erasing boundaries in the name of Satire, pride yourself on your untrammeled tongue, and shazam it turns out that your work and the work of so many others has coarsened the culture in a way that was just so brave and absolutely delightful riiiight up until the moment when you were appalled.

It may be a kid who’s injured now, but you’ll get used to it.

If not, and you complain, please tell all the people laughing at your old outmoded values how you used to be edgy too. It’ll mean so much. There’s nothing, after all, they’ll respect more than your traditions.

Read the whole thing.