Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

esteem

2023-01-20 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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esteem
Votey panel for esteem
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Explanation

This comic features a dialogue about morality, death, and self-esteem that takes an absurd philosophical turn. A character asks God whether, if they were dead, everything would be "morally permissible" -- essentially asking if death removes moral obligations.

God responds that it wouldn't matter because "there's not a lot you can do" when dead. The character then asks if one should "encourage good behavior," and God clarifies: "No, for your self-esteem." The joke here is that God reframes the entire moral framework from being about ethics to being about personal psychology.

The comic then escalates as God describes a "freaky, spooky dark side" that "can only be sustained by the intersection of a dangerous lack of empathy and an extremely sophisticated understanding" -- but the punchline reveals this is about "a reasonably priced lunch."

In the final panels, the character proposes continued "presence in the world" by building monuments, and God agrees but clarifies this would "literally mean" just building things, calling the character "you absolute madman." The humor lies in deflating grand philosophical and moral questions into utterly mundane concerns -- self-esteem instead of ethics, lunch prices instead of cosmic evil, and literal construction instead of legacy.

View History (1) Original Comic