You know, I couldn’t really figure out what this comic was commenting on until now. It’s rich people. The lions are rich people “educating” the masses on why they should be thankful that the lions exist.
It can be applied to any hegemonic class, really.
But yes, it’s rich people. Public schools may have originally risen out of defiance of the hegemony, at least in some notably locations, but they were quickly captured by it.
Schools over a place where the rich of the past can be aggrandised, and the rich of the present can ensure the workforce gains the basic skills to keep making them money, while also hearing about how it is right, and natural, and inevitable that they get to keep the product of your labour.
“I’ll tell you how I feel about school, Jerry: It’s a waste of time. Bunch of people runnin’ around bumpin’ into each other, got a guy up front says, ‘Two plus two,’ and the people in the back say, ‘Four.’ Then the bell rings and they give you a carton of milk and a piece of paper that says you can go take a dump or somethin’. I mean, it’s not a place for smart people, Jerry. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but that’s my two cents on the issue.” — Rick
Yeah, it is a really good one. But I keep seeing people not getting the metaphor behind it. So normally I’d be like, seriously dude, you had to write that out? But in this case, yes, yes you had to and thank you for that!
This is one of my favorite comics and I’ll say something I’ve said before:
Even the lion who wants to start the school thinks he’s helping the antelope and the other lions think he’s crazy, possibly even a class traitor. He thinks he’s helping, but his entire worldview is from a lion’s perspective, so he’s not equipped to get the antelopes to think outside of the Predator-Prey dynamic. In the real world, it’s very possible for people to think that they’re helping, but if they aren’t prepared to question the underlying foundations of a system they’re a part of, then they may never make any real changes.
Ah, the rare lesser spotted SFW Oglaf.
Ah yes, interspecies ass eating. What a time to be alive
Capitalism in a nutshell.
Not really - the lions actually provide a benefit, unlike capitalism. The comic can be taken completely seriously and it’s true. Predators are very important to an ecosystem.
As a resident of a state where deer kill more people than the mountain lions we eradicated ever did, this rings true.
Along that line, you could argue that capitalists perform a similar function in economic ecosystems, exploiting the poor and swallowing up the weak. But then human society isn’t built to create an efficient profit mechanism. It exists to provide safety, cooperation, discovery, and the betterment of all humankind. Nobody needs to suffer at the hands of the economic predators.
Unlike in nature where you can just rip whatever you want away from whatever has it, under capitalism the only way to “prey” on others is to provide them something they willingly choose to buy.
Right, since the USSR and mid century China are widely known as bastions of academic freedom.
I never understand why people think whataboutism arguments actually mean anything. Do they do this at home too? When their significant other suggests they need to do a better job picking up after themselves, is their first response about how the neighbour across the way is a bit messy so it doesn’t matter?
The point is that this has nothing to do with capitalism. Education has been abused in this manner by every society on the planet, and if anything modern “capitalist” democracies have a historically large amount of academic freedom. If my roommate was like “wow you cishet men sure hate washing dishes” and I say, “but these are Tammy’s dishes” is that really whataboutism?
Someone on Lemmy posts this same comment in every fucking thread. I am far from a fan of predatory capitalism, but it’s just annoying when every thread is call and response: “DAE hate the color green?” “Capitalism in a nutshell.”