Russian-British Comedian Slams 'Climate' Wokeness at Oxford Union Debate

Do yourself a favor and watch this speech by Konstantin Kisin, comedian and cohost of the wonderfully sane podcast Triggernometry.

Kisin was taking part in a debate at the Oxford Union on the topic of Wokeness, and as he felt the general anti-woke position had been well articulated by the speakers who preceded him, he chose to delve into a specific woke critique of the west, that being its contribution to global anthropogenic "climate change." Addressing himself to the woke who are open to rational argument (he added "a small minority, I accept, because one of the tenets of Wokeness is that your feelings matter more than the truth") Kisin offered to accept "for one night only," that is, for the sake of argument, that there is in fact a climate emergency, that we should all "worship at the feet of St. Greta of Climate Change" and "that our stocks of polar bears are running extremely low." He asked "What can we in Britain do?"

This country is responsible for two percent of global carbon emissions. Which means that if Britain was to sink into the sea right now, it would make absolutely no difference to the issue of climate change. You know why? Because the future of the climate is going to be decided in Asia and Latin America: by poor people who couldn’t give a shit about saving the planet. You know why? Because they're poor!

He challenged the privileged students of Oxford University to consider what living in that kind of poverty, in India, in China, in Latin America, the areas of the world which actually pose the worst threats to the environment, is actually like, and assured them that it would be futile to try and convince people in those conditions that they shouldn't aspire to improve their lot.

The only thing that they in Britain can do "is to make scientific and technological breakthroughs that will create clean energy that is not only clean but also cheap.” But does Wokeness contribute to the required technological advancement in any way? Of course not -- instead it lionizes the performative nihilism of climate activists who have chosen to wage war on western civilization. Said Kisin:

The only thing Wokeness has to offer in exchange is to brainwash bright young minds like you to believe that you are victims, to believe that you have no agency, to believe that what you must do to improve the world is to complain, is to protest, is to throw soup on paintings.

He counters that the true "way to improve the world is to work, is to create, is to build." Unfortunately Woke culture is ordered to convincing the very people who should be doing those things, "to forget about that," and (this writer would add) to tear down and destroy instead. It's nihilism and cultural vandalism in the service of a primitive superstition led by an idiot child. Mock it.

'Save the Planet? Are You Effing Kidding Me?

Here's a video that's worth a watch, from back when comedians didn't all read from the same tired script. George Carlin was one of the greatest standup comics of all time and, like so many of the best, he was at heart an anarchic libertarian—which of course today would make him a right-wing nut. Enjoy!

"I'm tired of bleeping Earth day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists. White bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there not enough bicycle paths. Besides, they don't care about the planet... There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are BLEEP! The planet isn't going anywhere. We are."

Send in the Klimate Klowns

Comedy is dead, and if you want proof, well look no further than this:

That's right, the hosts of America's late night comedy shows recently got together and decided that the best way for them to drive away their last remaining viewers would be to dedicate all of their shows to talking about "climate change."

The originator of this bright idea was Steve Bodow, formerly executive producer of The Daily Show, who said that he hopes to "normalize talking and thinking and even joking" about climate change, which I must say is not a problem for us here at The Pipeline. Said Bodow, "Laughing at a problem can help make the problem seem less intimidating — maybe even more solvable."

For a taste of the humor, check out some of the comments from the hosts themselves:

"I'm thrilled to participate in Climate Night," said [Full Frontal's Samantha] Bee. "But maybe we should move it up a few days? Just because, you know, it's urgent?" "I'm proud to dedicate one entire night of my show to the climate, so I can say I wasn't part of the problem, I was 1/365th of the solution," said [Stephen] Colbert.

Those are supposed to be laugh lines.

What an embarrassment! Real comedy is at least mildly subversive, pointing out the absurdities of human life and the political regime with an eye towards making both more bearable, more humane. Read some Aristophanes if you don't believe me.

The original king of comedy.

What these people are doing is the opposite of comedy. They're fishing for affirmative applause when they should be seeking to elicit cathartic laughter. They want to signal to their audience that they have safe, acceptable views. There is a neologism for what they're after: "Clapter."

The recently departed Norm Macdonald described "clapter," and his aversion to it, in an interview several years ago:

When I first began in comedy, I would get people to clap rather than actually laugh. You just say something that has no comedy in it at all, but people agree with it.... So I was getting people to clap, but I reached a point where I never wanted to get people to clap, because it was... pandering. But there's a difference between a clap and a laugh. A laugh is involuntary, but the crowd is in complete control when they're clapping, they're saying, "we agree with what you're saying -- proceed!" But when they're laughing, they're genuinely surprised. And when they're not laughing, they're really surprised. And sometimes I think, in my little head, that that's the best comedy of all.

Macdonald was allergic to clapter, which is what made him such a great comedian. It also cost him a few jobs -- he was supposedly fired from Saturday Night Live because he refused to stop joking about O. J. Simpson's obvious guilt, and you can imagine him getting his own late night show if he hadn't continued to skewer Bill and (especially) Hillary Clinton, who remain so beloved by the glitterati. More recently, he embraced maybe the most verboten perspectives in show business when he described Donald Trump as "enormously funny and entertaining."

But it was notable that when Macdonald died earlier this month, his fellow comedians, including a few who took part in "Climate Night," insisted on describing him using words like "brave," "fearless," "uncompromising," and on and on.  Those comments sound to me like acknowledgements of their own cowardice. Macdonald was brave enough to say things that no one else would say. These clowns are small enough to be bullied by network executives to give air time to (heaven help us) Greta Thunberg.

No one's laughing at that.