‘Authentic Stupidity’: Ben Elton on how idiotic humans can be 

True when true. But quite often just an excuse for something more harmful and sinister.

Would you defend the rights of Paedophiles to Free Speech?

The era of a Magnum being an ice cream is over. 😢

And Ben clearly pointed out that this is happening on a spectrum. People are not always arbiters of truth and good sense. The over sensitive snowflake is not only more of a myth than is advertised, those dishing out offense very often can't take it themselves.

@@opinion3742 (edit:+1) At 63 years old and being a polyglot with access to lots of words, I find this "Newspeak" (Orwell) uninteresting. Snowflake, wokist, gaslighting etc. are unnecessary additions to the English vocabulary and are often used incorrectly. They're nearly all aggressive punch-down terms and are a reflection of egotistical and narcissistic tendencies in our (so-called) betters and leaders. Just sayin'. Bonne journée, macht's gut, نهاركم سعيد ☮️❤️⛱️ 🌊🇨🇵🇪🇺.

@@andrewrobinson2565 Terms will always be abused. As is the case with all serious conflict truth has been the first victim in the culture wars.

The perpetual “offended” are usually the most abusive

Almost no one thinks that. Where do you and those like you get this rubbish? There is not a great bloc of society lining up to heap abuse on people, which is why so many people are searching high and low to find offence where none is intended. It really is nonsense.

Like the debating differences of opinion, now meeting 'cancel culture'.

When you have clowns arguing that correctly gendering people is 'abuse' or introducing hate speech legislation based on subjective perception in which all forms of 'abuse' are subject to investigation, then you have to narrowly define what you mean by 'abuse'. Words no longer mean to many people what most of us think they mean.

I think he is equivocating there. Who makes the distinction? Is an Emily Howard sketch from 00s Little Britain merely offensive to some people or is it abusive to those people? Opinions on that will differ but they can all agree with Ben Elton's Barnum statement opinion that people should have opportunity to be offended but never abused, and what is the point in saying something that everyone agrees with regardless of where they stand? He is playing it very safe to say there is a difference between the trivial and egregious yet not say what the difference is or whereabout the boundary is. On analysis, that is quite weak sauce.

But there are so many immigrants now, the only way they'd get there is if they are a cunning linguist. Helps with the female vote as well.

It cannot fail

So you're okay supporting a man who supports the terrorist state of Israel?

Hes far more ahead of the game than I am. I'd never heard of the word cis until I read his last novel. It was like beimg informed of a whole new subculture.

Neil ! Your bedroom's on fire !

@@mattvjmeasuresYoung Ones will never date, its imprinted on my psyche since 10 years old😊

Just because something someone says is “up to date”, it doesn’t mean what being said is correct, intelligent, interesting, well thought out, or empathetic. It just means they’ve said something for seals to clap at so they can feel “up to date”

You sound very offended.

Exactly right : he was the one at the forefront to cancel Benny Hill. Whatever one thinks of BH (I was not a fan) he didn’t deserve the cancellation Ben Elton ( and others) were pushing, it broke him.

elton merely expressed his opinion about bernard manning and benny hill; he didn't ask for them to be cancelled. i think, as elton says, there’s a rather large chasm between the two and if you don’t understand that it's probably because you haven't been listening.

@@brianwilson49 “merely expressed his opinion” : smells of shirking one’s responsibility for one’s actions don’t you think ?

@@TarpeianRock if you’re a bit simple, yes.

Which one is the clone of the other?

Well, how much then? Any examples?

​@@homertangler9529 His face

i've never seen them in the same room together

@@gonzo1354 ...and I've never seen either of them eat or drink ANYthing...and it's already 2024. That's a long time. They might be androids. I'm keeping an eye on John Oliver. The OP can keep an eye on Elton.

Why don't you like sitting next to people or are you on the larger side of life.?

Oh, yes. I remember that.

Window seat

best stand-up show i ever saw🤣

That phrase lives rent free in my brain to this day

Brilliantly concise description of the Woke madness.

Nailed it!

@@ChuckWind-Saw 100% - Benny Hill's show ended because the public tired of it, not because Elton criticised it. That show had production costs of more than 1.5 million per episode in todays money and it was unsustainable for ITV.

@@nathangriffiths6218 Ben Elton, like a vulture, saw a weakness and went for it to feather his own nest. Sorry about the mixed metaphors!

he's really not that great

He taught me to put a single sheet of loo roll down before having a poo so I applaud him for that.

Translate to English : - )

Exactly right: Elton was at the vanguard of the repressiveness. A bit like Frankie Boyle, once at the raw rock-face, now a gatekeeper. Funny old world. At least Elton now sees how deranged things have become.

Also missed the point that Elon is one of the few pushing back effectively against cancel culture.

The Benny Hill show was cancelled in 1989 due to declining ratings and large production costs at £450,000 (equivalent to £1,414,100 in 2023

@@Bromley68 The spirit of the point is correct.

@@VictorMaxol Yea...it actually isn't. "nightowl7458" has articulated that Ben Elton "helped get Benny Hill cancelled" when the facts are that falling ratings that didn't justify the costs did. Nothing to do with Ben Elton whatsoever.

@@Bromley68 He was cancelled because Elton and his so called "alternative comedy" were calling out the old comedians and Benny Hill in particular for their misogyny amongst others thing, they started the leftovers comedy, viewing figures might have been falling and I'm not sure about production cost? But he was part of Hills cancellation.

@@nightowl7459 Thames TV could not have cared less about Ben Elton. Everything you've written is incorrect. I'm guessing you're doing this on purpose.

Then don't watch it 👍

Uncanny.... ;o)

yeah.. I remember that....

@@ricardolorrio8228 Mr Elton would like to move on.......

Not at all. You just haven't understood the debate.

@@tobleramone The debate has been turned around by Elton to help his wallet grow.I understand that !

@@tobleramone Well please explain to us stupid folk what happened.

@@michaelscales5996 Well I'm not a fanboy, I just don't think it's an either or situation. I can laugh at Benny Hill but I can see the problems with some of his stuff too.

He definitely did mean that. But neither does he want to be an anti-woke culture warrior about the whole thing

I don't think you can commit hate crimes against yourself, even in modern Britain...

no he didn't mean that. he's making fun of people who hate woke culture.

@@rhysperegrine5100 he doesn't like the anti-woke mob, no he didn't mean that

@@biegebythesea6775 He did mean that. You can gently criticize woke culture without becoming a complete anti-woke idiot

It's not difficult to point of the flaws and shortcomings of a worthless place holder like Sunak

@@bertbox69 Well he was sold as a “grown up” coming into fix the mess of his predecessors, little did many know he would actually be a whole lot worse.

@@RS-jb1lfhe’s not worse than Truss. But it’s a cesspool alright.

Doesn't he live in Western Australia now... but yeah the ink fingered little desk clerk as George Galloway calls Sunak.

Surprisingly quiet when the Labour Party were killing children in Iraq, however.

There's no such thing as a "Hate crime"

​@@muttley5958 Well there is, obviously, because "crime" is a legal construct and anything legislators say is a thing is a thing because legislators say it is. You may as well say there is no such thing as a class A drug or there is no such thing as a parking offence. The question is should there be?

And being offended doesn't necessarily mean that you are right.🙂

@@pauldavis3791 true. Also true: free speech doesn't deprive people of the right to be offended, or to say they are offended. And people exercising their right to say they are offended doesn't limit the free speech of others.

Tell that to all the comedians who have been cancelled. Jerry Sadowitz and Graham Linehan - there are plenty of others - are living proof that there are things we can't say anymore unless we are prepared to pay a very high cost. That's not freedom of speech.

@@carltaylor6452 what do you mean by "cancelled"? They haven't been executed for what they've said (as has happened to brave souls in other places or other eras). They aren't in prison. They haven't been convicted of any speech-based crimes. The state has in no way limited their freedom to say controversial or offensive things that fall short of hate crimes. The state has in no way compelled them to say things they don't want. And as a result of their speech, they are not facing any threats to their safety from which the state is failing to offer them protection. All that being so, they have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has never been absolute. Nor has saying things that others think are controversial ever come without cost to someone. That's the nature of things. You seem to be confusing freedom of speech with the non-existent right to demand to be actively given a particular public platform of one's choice by others, or the non-existent right to speak without others speaking back. Take Sadowitz. The only thing that ever seems to have actually happened to him is that a private venue once decided to cancel a planned series of events with him on the grounds that the people running the venue thought the content inconsistent with their values. If a private venue want to do that, then they are free to do so. Otherwise the private venue and its owners are being compelled to actively promote spoken content against their will - something which would be a clear infringement of their free speech. Doing so doesn't rob Sadowitz of free speech. Sadowitz remains free to stage his act at any venue that will have him. And if he can't find an existing venue that wants him, he's free to start a venue of his own or to propose that others do so. If he can't find a live venue, there's the internet. If he still cant secure and maintain a platform for himself, then like 99.9999% of us, he is not currently someone that people are interested in seeing do a comedy routine, in which case he may want to rethink his routine and its relevance. But according to Wikipedia, the cancellation of Sadowitz's Edinburgh fringe show caused increased sales of tickets for his subsequent UK tour, to which an extra performance was added. A person is not "cancelled" if their comedy act is more popular and more successful than ever.

Agreed 😂

It's ironic that in answering that question Ben said something about people not actually listening to what was being said, and you've clearly not listened to what he actually said...

@@bipolarminddroppings Why are you lying about the OP? Never mind. I am sure you will never even attempt to provide evidence. Anyhow, I guess you've managed to live up to your name anyhow.

If that was all trigger warnings were used for, then perhaps. But it isn't. Books written a few decades or more ago are awash with warnings of 'outdated attitudes' - are people too stupid to realise that a writer in 1924 probably had different attitudes to a writer in 2024? If people are too fragile to tolerate out-dated attitudes don't read old books. 'Contains scenes of violence' warnings on crime fiction novels - seriously, isn't it kinda obvious that crime novels will contain violence? It's like putting a warning on a packet of nuts that they may contain nuts. Same with comedy - anyone who objects to bad language must surely know not to watch any stand-up from the last half-century. Treat us as if we are intelligent people capable of exercising judgement.

You British?

Ah ha! So we're about 8 times less idiotic now than we were in the 80s? Great!

@InfernalPasquale eh?

Yes because you live in the social media era of idiocracy and anything goes Aa long as I'm 'expressing myself'. A embarrassment to the human race basically

And should the non crime hate incident be be reported to, and recorded by the police?

Surely there are crimes and not-crimes?

Our world truly is dystopia

Whilst the rest of us call it 🤡🌍

If it’s not a crime it shouldn’t be recorded anywhere. We have the Stasi-adult version of going to teacher when a classmate is rude.

Who decides who the hateful individuals are?

@@kamandi1362 you do.

The looney left thought police. 😳

@@muttley5958 next it'll be who is funny or not, and what books can be read. Can give a warning. I'd like it. How do I know if to read or listen or not? When say ban: I need to know why and judge for myself.

tbf, you can say that about a few other historical world leaders. "You've got to respect him, he knew what he wanted."