NOW — AS IN THE SOVIET UNION — MAKING A JOKE CAN BE A DANGEROUS, LIFE-CHANGING MISTAKE:

Scarcely a week passes without someone suffering a reversal of fortune when it’s discovered they made the wrong sort of joke, even if it was in the distant past. It’s symptomatic of a recent shift in Britain and America, whereby the left has acquired sweeping new powers in the cultural arena, in spite of losing at the ballot box.

What makes Kundera’s book so relevant is that he connects the intolerance of politically incorrect humor to the totalitarian mindset. He points out that we often laugh at inappropriate jokes. Indeed, it’s their tastelessness — the fact that the thoughts and feelings they express are at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy — that makes them so funny. Laughing at these ‘wrong’ jokes is a form of dissent. Little wonder, then, that the Maoist commissars of our era want to punish people for telling them. Milan Kundera’s book may be more than 50 years old, but it could not be more timely.

The Lives of Others: A warning for the rest of us, a nostalgic how-to guide for the left.