2012-09-07
Explanation
This single-panel comic with a caption shows a courtroom scene. A defense lawyer passionately argues: "My client cannot possibly be guilty of baby murder! '''Justice''' is a fallacious Platonic ideal we received via Christianity'''s embrace of Greek thought in the Middle Ages!" He gestures dramatically toward his client (a red-haired person seated at the defense table) while a stern judge watches from the bench. Below the panel, the caption reads: "There is a reason no one hires philosophy majors."
The joke targets the stereotype that philosophy degrees are impractical in the real world. The lawyer is using genuine philosophical arguments -- the idea that "justice" is an abstract Platonic Form rather than an objective reality, and that Western concepts of justice are historically contingent products of medieval Christian-Aristotelian synthesis -- but deploying them in the worst possible context. While these arguments might earn points in a philosophy seminar, using deconstructionist reasoning to defend someone accused of baby murder is both morally repugnant and legally useless. The caption drives home the punchline: this is what happens when you let a philosophy major practice law.
The votey panel shows the lawyer calmly stating "'''Murder''' is really just a linguistic notion," doubling down on the philosophical deconstruction. This references philosophical positions about language and meaning (such as those associated with Wittgenstein or Derrida), but applied in an absurdly inappropriate context where the practical consequences of the word "murder" are very much real.