Comedians as our moral compass
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a former comedian. Watching his leadership I cannot help but reflect upon how often I have found comedians to be the ones with the strongest moral spines.
In medieval Europe, the jester was really the only one who could tell the king the truth without losing his head. And thus there is a long lineage up to the present day where our comedians are the the truth tellers in difficult times. Charlie Chaplin is famous for his movie The Great Dictator, where he mocked Hitler, Nazism and Fascism. Tyrants tend to not have much humor. In all tyrannies humor has played an important role. I remember a Polish boss tell me about how they would create plays during communist times which mocked the ones in power. The trick was to find a way to not make it obvious to the rulers that they were being made fun of.
While following American politics over many years whether dealing with Presidents like George W. Bush or Donald Trump, I have found that comedians such as John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Trevor Noah have been lights in a…
