name
Explanation
This comic satirizes the academic and philosophical obsession with defining and categorizing humanity. A lecturer explains that "in modernity, many scholars have opposed the term 'homo sapiens' -- 'wise man' -- as the Latin species name, feeling it doesn't capture the full essence of the species." Various alternative names are proposed: "homo ludens" (playing man), "homo religious" (religious man), "homo faber" (man the maker), "homo narrans" (storytelling man) -- "but all of these seemed to capture just one quality."
Someone in the audience suggests a comprehensive name. The lecturer asks what it is. The response: "Homo 'gives himself a name and argues about it.'" The lecturer protests: "No, I'm giving our species a TRUE name!" The audience member responds: "That sounds comprehensive," while the lecturer, now agitated, "gives himself a name and argues about it" -- exactly proving the point.
The humor is self-referential and meta. The very act of debating what to call humanity is itself the most characteristically human behavior, making the joke structurally recursive. The comic points out that our species' defining trait might not be wisdom, play, religion, or craft, but rather our compulsive need to categorize and label ourselves -- and then argue about those labels. The lecturer's inability to see that he is demonstrating the proposed name's accuracy, even as it's pointed out to him, adds an extra layer of irony.