In college, I wrote a mildly controversial satire piece for the school paper, and ended up receiving a few emails objecting to it. The problem: many of the criticisms I got were along the lines of "You're no Swift." Of course I'm not. So what? Sure, he was good, but he isn't the standard all satires have to be judged by. Namechecking "A Modest Proposal" whenever satire comes up is a cliche. Don't do it.

Some of the other reactions I got involved death threats, though. That was honestly more pleasant.

When people ask Ben and I what the point is of our comic, I think strips like this one are excellent evidence that we are fundamentally concerned with developing a better understanding of the relationship between artist, artwork, and audience. For instance, you might think we are just writing off some of these debates about textual interpretation as silly, but really, Ben and I are holding these views up to the harsh light of inquiry, so we can tell if they are suitable bases for groundwork in a theory of aesthetic normativity.

Stay tuned next week for when we examine the philosophy of friendship.