I think this is supposed to give some message about the state of the world or something... Unfortunately, I am unable to understand it... Could someone pls explain?
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Another possible interpretation I haven't seen in the comments: it's possibly about capitalism under which companies fund school where you learn that it's normal to be a wage slave or something like that?
that's the vibe i got from it:
A parasitic class that inflicts unlimited harm upon the populace with impunity will further leverage their advantage to indoctrinate their prey and thus reinforce, sustain, and even streamline their predatory system.
School is a metaphor for the media and messaging that goes out to the public, too, not just literally brick & mortar K-12 education institutions.
Convincing the underclass that they benefit from the concentration of wealth amongst the elite. The"Circle of Life" is a metaphor for "Trickle-down Economics".
Or that's how I read it.
The subject is called "economics."
I think it's open to interpretation. Like you could take it at face value of just a funny comic about lions and gazelles.
At a deeper level though, it's about the ones in charge placating their victims by giving them something that won't actually help them out of their bad situation. And also maybe that knowledge without action won't change anything. That kind of situation and lesson could be applied to so many things, like rich people telling poor people to go to college to get degrees that don't actually help enough with pulling themselves out of poverty because in reality the game is rigged.
Stuff like that, but that's just my interpretation.
I think the reality is a lot more subtle than many people who’ve commented have implied. It’s not necessarily that people are being taught a flawed economic model that keeps them in poverty or are given advice that will explicitly keep them poor (though that absolutely does happen), but that the whole model is predicated on the idea that economics is the best, most meaningful or only framework by which to view the world.
The metaphor is a bit of an insult to apex predators, as they do actually serve a purpose within the ecosystem and biologically need to consume prey (also animals aren’t moral agents, depending on who you ask I guess).
Mostly it's a play on Disney's The Lion King, which has a scene where the king lion explains to his son the "circle of life" that while lion eat antelope, eventually lions die, "their bodies become the grass" and the antelope eat the grass. Perhaps there's some political commentary about a victimizer using school lessons as propaganda to make the prey class easier to subjugate for the predator class, ie force teachers to teach the correct curriculum and the antelope will thank the lion for eating it.
Also, it's Oglaf, so the main punchline is that the last panel somehow isn't "Oh well, anal sex!"
Also, it's Oglaf, so the main punchline is that the last panel somehow isn't "Oh well, anal sex!"
Way to pigeonhole a great comic as "almost always about sex" just because it SOMETIMES is.. 🙄
Yes, Oglaf has some good SFW comics as well as good NSFW ones. But the official list of comics does not tag NSFW ones – instead, they are NSFW by default and the exceptions are marked “safe”. It is about 80% NSFW, which is way more than “sometimes”.
It's been awhile since I've regularly read Oglaf, but my memory of it is SFW comics were the exception, rather than the rule, and after the initial plotline about the sex empress' apprentice abruptly ended, there were a LOT of issues made where the punchline was basically "they fuck in the last panel."
No need to do Oglaf dirty. It's legitimately funny whether or not it has NSFW content.
School teaches you about how the president is going to hunt and eat you one day. It’s just how it is.
"It's just how it is"
Ahh can relate now. I've heard this shit soooo many times lol
“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.” -Audre Lorde
The lions made sure the gazelles had the lion's tools.
Also:
"We don't wanna be royals"
"Let me be your queen"
-- Lorde
I always took it to be a satire of colonialism.
To add on to what everyone else said... This can also be a joke about the movie The Lion King where a bunch of herbivores gather around at the start to celebrate their future murderer.
Lol yeah, that always struck me. Now that I look at it, the "circle of life" thing just sounds like a very neoliberal thing.
NL: "The status quo is good."
P: "But aren't people homeless? Isn't systematic racism still a thing?"
NL: "Naah, it is what it is. It's the circle of life"
There's a point worth considering here which is that even the lion who founds the school thinks that he's helping the gazelles, and many of his lion friends seem to think he's crazy. Even starting from supposed good intentions, the lessons taught in the school are fundamentally based on a lion-centric worldview. Even with a "top-tier" education, the gazelles aren't being prepared to question the fundamentals of their situation in life, which is why they are still being eaten.
I think this is how leftists think that progressives/liberals see the world, if the progressives/liberals were the deer. Or something. See the deer as bourgeoise, while the lions are the 1%?
Now add a dash of school to the crockpot, and you have a cartoon that seems to want a repeat of the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s. Maybe even the Taliban currently in Afghanistan.
But this same argument can be used to regard schools as run by a stalinist or Cultural Revolution government, where the deer are the "glorious worker comrades" and the lions are the bureaucratic/military elite.
Bottom line: who knows? I don't.
Only if you interpret it as blanket anti-intellectualism. Education is a good thing, but one should scrutinize where their information comes from.
And yes, you absolutely could apply the same argument to a school or centralized school system that is funded/administered by any group of elites.
To my mind, the best answer is decentralization. Give individual teachers more freedom within their classrooms, especially in the humanities.
I think it's a joke about eating ass.
Surprisingly mostly SFW Oglaf
What a 'Wenn die Haifische Menschen wären' looking comic
Translation?
"If sharks were men", a short text by Berthold Brecht: https://www.lecturesbureau.gr/1/if-sharks-were-men/?lang=en