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ism

2023-11-24 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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ism
Votey panel for ism
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Explanation

This comic features a character looking up at the night sky and asking God about the meaning of the vast heavens. God's response is essentially that people should judge historical figures by the moral standards of their own time, not ours -- "Of course you have to judge these people by the views of their time. By your standards, of course they're terrible."

The twist comes when the character says "I mean, we've got a bazillion thousand years of humanity's entire gamut of beauty you've never even imagined!" and God responds: "Sure, it's pretty sexist up here too, eh?" The punchline reveals that heaven itself hasn't updated its moral standards. The comic satirizes the common debate about moral relativism versus presentism in judging historical figures, suggesting that even a supposedly perfect divine realm might be guilty of the same moral blind spots it tells humans to overlook. The title "ism" references the various ideological "-isms" (sexism, racism, etc.) that fuel these debates.

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