You know, I couldn’t really figure out what this comic was commenting on until now. It’s rich people. The lions are rich people “educating” the masses on why they should be thankful that the lions exist.
This is one of my favorite comics and I’ll say something I’ve said before:
Even the lion who wants to start the school thinks he’s helping the antelope and the other lions think he’s crazy, possibly even a class traitor. He thinks he’s helping, but his entire worldview is from a lion’s perspective, so he’s not equipped to get the antelopes to think outside of the Predator-Prey dynamic. In the real world, it’s very possible for people to think that they’re helping, but if they aren’t prepared to question the underlying foundations of a system they’re a part of, then they may never make any real changes.
Oil companies sponsoring school science fairs
It can be applied to any hegemonic class, really.
But yes, it’s rich people. Public schools may have originally risen out of defiance of the hegemony, at least in some notably locations, but they were quickly captured by it.
Schools over a place where the rich of the past can be aggrandised, and the rich of the present can ensure the workforce gains the basic skills to keep making them money, while also hearing about how it is right, and natural, and inevitable that they get to keep the product of your labour.
A place where your movement and thought is determined by schedules down to the minute and broken up by bells is an industrialist’s wet dream.
“WORK TIME IS NOW”
“REST WHEN THE BELL RINGS”
“LUNCH TODAY WILL BE SLOPPY JOES”
“I’ll tell you how I feel about school, Jerry: It’s a waste of time. Bunch of people runnin’ around bumpin’ into each other, got a guy up front says, ‘Two plus two,’ and the people in the back say, ‘Four.’ Then the bell rings and they give you a carton of milk and a piece of paper that says you can go take a dump or somethin’. I mean, it’s not a place for smart people, Jerry. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but that’s my two cents on the issue.” — Rick
Yeah, he said that, but we all know he was gaslighting Jerry and Beth. I kinda assume Rick is lying whenever he says almost anything at this point.
Until you added the Rick part, I read this in Kramer’s voice
It’s commenting on a scene in The Lion King that explains why the lion king exists, which inadequatedly made it one of the most conservative Disney cartoon ever, only rivaled by blackface and stuff like that.
Ah, the rare lesser spotted SFW Oglaf.
Fun fact: Oglaf is actually two people. Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne. Both Australian. Both, presumably, horny weirdos.
I dont know, that lion is going straight for it on the last pannel.
I still consider some light ass eating to be SFW by Oglaf standards.
Oglaf: putting out cutting social commentary and nicely drawn naked folks for… a long time now
where is the source
A normally very NSFW comic called Oglaf. Brilliantly written, but don’t browse at work.
Oh, I knew that style was familiar to me but couldn’t place it with the total lack of nudity and kinkyness.
Well, I guess it has ass-eating not in the usual Oglaf way.
Capitalism in a nutshell.
Not really - the lions actually provide a benefit, unlike capitalism. The comic can be taken completely seriously and it’s true. Predators are very important to an ecosystem.
As a resident of a state where deer kill more people than the mountain lions we eradicated ever did, this rings true.
Along that line, you could argue that capitalists perform a similar function in economic ecosystems, exploiting the poor and swallowing up the weak. But then human society isn’t built to create an efficient profit mechanism. It exists to provide safety, cooperation, discovery, and the betterment of all humankind. Nobody needs to suffer at the hands of the economic predators.
Unlike in nature where you can just rip whatever you want away from whatever has it, under capitalism the only way to “prey” on others is to provide them something they willingly choose to buy.
Food, water, shelter, and healthcare are not things one chooses to buy, but things one is forced to buy to survive.
To buy these, you need money. To get money, you need a job. You also need enough money saved up to survive after you can no longer work a job.
To get and maintain a job you need to buy some other things. Exactly what other things varies by job and climate, but in general: clothes, transportation, phone, electricity.
That’s a lot of things that you cannot willingly choose not to buy if you want to live.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
I’ve lived in nature before. I appreciate capitalism because I’ve been outside of it.
What’s the most danger you’ve lived in, my tough winter child, that you think getting rich is equivalent to predation?
You’re confusing capitalism with civilization. You don’t need to wrassle bears for your share of the picnic baskets in order to recognize that capitalism feeds the wealthy at the expense of the masses.
Capitalism is the free market system. It’s the one where to get something from someone, you have to get them to agree to give it to or trade it to you.
Private ownership, voluntary exchange. Capitalism. If you consider this to be “civilization”, that’s great. So do I. Trade is civilized. Consent to exchange goods is civilized. It’s also called a free market.
Capitalism is civilization. That’s a great way to put it.
If capitalism happens at the expense of the masses, why are the masses getting wealthier? That doesn’t make any sense.
Capitalism, civilization, whatever you want to call the places where people only work together willingly, those so-called “free markets”, those places produce enormous quantities of wealth, and everyone in them gets wealthier. Those are the places you have your main problems being obesity, addiction to endless entertainment and novelty, boredom. Wealthy people problems.
Civilization is a comfortable place. I’ve been in both places and I’d sooner choose to be fat, addicted to video games and pot, and bored, before I would choose to be malnourished, cold, and scared.
I mean, unless there’s something fun going on in the second one, and I know it’s going to end in finite time
Actually capitalism feeds everyone. If you disagree you are welcome to provide evidence of calorically restricted people living in a capitalist place.
Capitalism feeds everyone better than any other economic system and definitely better than nature.
OK, I’ll bite:
You appreciate civilization because you’ve lived in nature.
What’s the most danger you’ve lived in
People die of starvation in a world that literally has enough food for everyone - because speculating with food is more profitable than feeding them.
People die of diseases that have known cures with low production cost - because the market will only finance medical research if the resulting drug comes with a net gain price tag.
There are literal wars being fought and people being shot for economic gains.
Humanity doesn’t have a resource problem. It has a distribution problem.
And the current method of deciding distribution of goods is capitalism.
that you think getting rich is equivalent to predation?
Genuine question: Where do you believe a millionaire’s millions ultimately come from?
There is only so much net economic gain one can create with their own two hands. Everything beyond that is created by other people’s hands.
People die of starvation in a world that literally has enough food for everyone - because speculating with food is more profitable than feeding them
Give me an example of starvation, past or present, that resulted from something other than uncontrollable weather, or government interfering with the food market?
I’ll take as many examples as you can give me, but one is probably a good place to start.
People die of diseases that have known cures with low production cost
I agree
because the market will only finance medical research if the resulting drug comes with a net gain price tag.
Wouldn’t people dying of diseases with known cures be a problem with the market not producing known drugs, and not a problem of research?
Wal-mart’s recent entry into the insulin market comes to mind. A capitalist endeavor if there ever was one, immediately rushing in to make profits by saving lives the moment they are permitted to do so by the government.
As a result of Wal-Mart’s acting like a profit seeking capitalist endeavor, insulin dropped in price by like 80%.
Not sure if I’m being clear enough here: the opening of free market conditions around insulin led to it becoming cheap enough to allow people to live.
Whatever was keeping insulin so expensive before that, it definitely wasn’t the free market.
There are literal wars being fought and people being shot for economic gains.
Right. That’s bad. Not very capitalist though, given capitalism is defined by free markets, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. Those are the alternative to shooting people for their stuff, if you didn’t know that.
Civilization predates Capitalism by a few hundred thousand years. Capitalism did not create civilization.
And capitalism is better than systems we had before, like feudalism and slavery. We critiqued and revolted and improved on those, and we can do better than capitalism too.
Capitalism is not the worst we can do, but it’s not the best either.
I guess it depends on how we’re going to define capitalism.
Cooperation between humans, in a state of nature, ie before civilization, incentivizes free trade. Why fight the dudes on the other side of the creek if you can trade with them?
Why fight with them when you could leave them alone entirely?
If communicating, why not trade with them?
If you want all their stuff for yourself, is it really worth those four gourds and a bead necklace to fight to the death for it?
Coercion is costly, and it’s more costly the closer you are in strength to another person.
Trying to coerce somebody your own size is a bad idea. Trying to coerce someone smaller is inefficient assuming they’re not trying to kill you, which they won’t be because that’s suicidal on their part.
So the first arrangement we had with other people was free trade, governed by everyone’s capacity for violence and willingness to fight back if attacked. Probably less human-v-human hatred when nature was so relatively powerful too.
This is before civilization mind you, when we just had tribes.
In a separate thread it might be good to consider whether the classic dating of civilization to have dawned when agriculture created food surplus, is the first historical example of the capitalist/worker relationship. But that should be in a separate thread.
Educational resources Funded by Qatar…
Ah yes, interspecies ass eating. What a time to be alive
I mean, it is Oglaf…
I thought the art style looked familiar!
ONWARDS MY CUMSPRITES!
