As I read Gulliver’s Travels, I was reminded of a modern form of satire I believe we are all familiar with – South Park. In Lilliput, their government is founded on the fundamental question of which side of the egg one should crack. The emperor has a traumatic childhood experience, which resulted in him deciding how eggs should rightfully be cracked for all Lilliputians -- “while he was a Boy, going to eat an Egg, and breaking it according to the ancient Practice, happened to cut one of his Fingers. Whereupon the Emperor, his Father, published an Edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their Eggs”. The concept of egg breaking becomes a religion of sorts stated later, and Gulliver becomes an advocate of “religious” toleration. “That all true Believers shall break their Eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my Humble Opinion, to be left to every Man’s Conscience”. In a sense Swift inserts his own views here through the voice of Gulliver, because he emphasizes the need for religious freedom, and for choice, which seems ludicrous when the choice is which side of one’s egg to crack. Furthermore, the emperor of Lilliput utilizes the Egg religion for his own ends as a means to obtain power “…of destroying the Big-Endian exiles, and compelling that People to break the smaller End of their Eggs; by which he would remain sole Monarch of the whole World”. The extended egg metaphor provides an interesting image when considering how government and religion are intertwined, and how pushing one’s religion on another can be a ludicrous act.
The Lilliputians reminded me of a two-part episode of South Park, entitled “Go God Go” and “Go God Go XII”. In the episodes, Cartman desperately wants the Nintendo Wii, and decides he simply cannot wait for it to come out, so he will freeze himself in order to wake up after it’s release.
He wakes up much farther in the future than he intended, in the year 2546 (thus making it quite difficult to find a now archaic Wii). In this future, Atheism is widespread, but the question of what to call Atheism is hotly contested. Thus a huge war breaks out between the three major atheist factions: the AAA (Allied Atheist Alliance), the UAA (United Atheist Alliance), and the UAL (Unified Atheist League), one of which is made of genius sea otters. Obviously the humor of this episode primarily lies in the ludicrous concept of fighting over the title of a religion.
Both of these examples show expertly utilized satire; it makes us laugh, but more importantly it makes us think. Will humans always find a fundamental question to argue about? Can satire give viewers a new outlook on issues such as religious toleration?
