Satire

 

Those Were The Days (Theme to All In The Family)        

And you know where you were then,         

Girls were girls and men were men,

Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again,     

Didn't need no welfare state         

Everybody pulled his weight,          

Gee our old Lasalle ran great,         

Those were the days.

Archie Bunker was an object of satire.  He was not meant to be a taken as an ideal.

Jonathan Swift, in his essay A Modest Proposal, proposes that the country ameliorate poverty in Ireland by butchering the children of the Irish poor and selling them as food to wealthy English landlords.  He meant that as satire, not as a serious proposal.  Those who did not get the satire treated it as a serious proposal. 

Similarly Norman Lear’s All in the Family was a meant to satirize, not idolize, Archie Bunker’s behavior.  You can see that in the lyrics of the theme song.  Herbert Hoover was not an ideal president.  The LaSalle was a discontinued automobile line. Everyone knowing their place was an unfair restriction on those in “lower” places.  You were meant to laugh at Archie Bunker, not agree with him.

It is a sad that there are those who have adopted Archie Bunker and his ideas as an ideal. They have missed the point of the satire.  Perhaps we can also interest them in a recipe for sautéed Irish babies?