I mean their style of humor often touched on tropes and used verbage that would now be considered...problematic. Case in point, I once got into an argument with someone over Hunter S Thompsons use of the word "queer"...I couldn't get the person to understand that 1) HST wrote and came from a different era, and even for that era, that 2) his use of the word was itself peculiar and intentionally used towards the outsized persona he broadcast through "gonzo journalism" and you had to read it in context to remotely follow along.

They simply wouldn't buy into the idea that people from "the past" would have different views and that you can't try to understand them absent that context. Otherwise everything since before 2005 is likely "wrong" somehow (I'm being horribly simplistic, but you get the idea).

It's like when I hear a lot of views right now about the CIS region, from people who have no recollection of the Cold War, or think the Cold War "was stupid". As someone who lived through the Cold War, I might even agree it was stupid, but I also understand that when I was 10-15 I was living IN it realtime, not pondering it decades after the fact.

> I think it's the opposite actually.

Do a web search for O'Rourke's "Foreigners around the world" and report back.

> Humor that suggests that the people with different political views may have feelings and brains is completely unacceptable.

I think this may be a case of politically polarization widening as the range of allowable humor narrows. What would be an example of a joke that would have been career ending for an edgy American comedian or satirist 40 years ago, but not now?

"What would be an example of a joke that would have been career ending for an edgy American comedian or satirist 40 years ago, but not now? "

The SNL sketch between Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase is emblematic.

This is probably the most famous example:

http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/obscenity-case-files/pe...

That looks to be a lot more than 40 years ago though.