Lately, I’ve been watching Seinfeld on Netflix. I started mostly on a whim. I am old enough to remember when it was on, but too young to really have understood it and I wanted something to have on to entertain me while I was folding the laundry. For the most part it is what I expected. Like all sitcoms, it was fairly funny without requiring any real intelligence to understand. Politically, it leaned Leftist, but this is unsurprising given that its characters are all single New Yorkers in the mid-Nineties. The show usually didn’t require much mental engagement from its audience, delivering its jokes on a silver platter full of delicious empty calories. But, every now and then, buried beneath the slapstick and shallow humor, it had an episode that actually gave you something thoughtful, a piece of cerebral gristle to chew on for a while. Such was season 6’s episode 5, The Couch. This is the Episode where Seinfeld took on, and tore apart, cancel culture and abortion politics.
The Pro-Life Restaurateur and the Crazy Pro-Abortionist
In this episode, Jerry and his friend Elaine go to Poppie’s, an Italian restaurant owned and operated by the titular Poppie, an Italian-American immigrant who came to the United States after World War II. While Jerry and Elaine are waiting for their meal, what they are assured is a succulent duck, Jerry mentions that he would rather be home eating a pizza from Paccino’s, a pizzeria nearby. Elaine tells him that she would never have pizza from Paccino’s and that neither should he. When asked why, Elaine explains that it is because the owner contributes money to “one of those radical anti-abortion groups.” Jerry finds it surprising and mildly interesting that Elaine would refuse to eat at a place because of the owner’s personal politics and decides to test this out. He calls over Poppie and asks him what he thinks of abortion.
Poppie explains that his mother was pregnant when she was captured by Communists during the war who forced her to get an abortion and then put her in a slave labor camp. Since then he has been opposed to abortion. Elaine explodes at this and starts lecturing Poppie about his opposition to abortion. Poppie demands to know what gives her the right, presumably to kill a child in the womb, and she responds, “The Supreme Court of the United States gave me the right!” Another woman to the side overhears the conversation and agrees with Elaine while another one shouts her support for Poppie’s pro-life arguments. As the scene cuts away, we see the argument spreading across the very busy restaurant with people angrily getting up to leave.
This scene is great on a number of levels. First off, it totally mocks the entire idea that someone should refuse to shop at places or cut off relationships with others because of political differences. Elaine’s behavior and opinion in this regard is presented as ridiculous, something easily manipulated by Jerry and something which he thinks is hilarious. It is silly behavior by a person obviously overreacting to the situation. Elaine standing up and yelling and screaming in a restaurant precedes the concept of the entitled “Karen” or the green haired “Social Justice Warrior” (SJW) by decades but fits those ideas – and what they’re mocking – perfectly. And her being presented as being so ridiculous here implicitly suggests that her unwillingness to eat at the previously mentioned pizza place is equally ridiculous.
Secondly, Elaine’s comment that the Supreme Court gave women a right to abortion demonstrates just how shallow the understanding of human rights is among the general populace and especially among those who are pro-elective abortion. Whether you believe, as the Declaration of Independence asserts, that human rights are a gift given them by God or whether you believe in natural rights as something which arises solely out of the evolved nature of humanity, a right is something that pre-exists governments and supersedes government laws. The power and authority of governments are based on the inviolable rights of individuals. As a result, the Supreme Court can neither create nor give people rights. If your “right” exists solely because of some state edict then it is not a right. It is, at best, a state granted privilege that can be given or taken away by the will of those in power. That Elaine thinks rights can be granted or retracted by judicial fiat not only makes her wrong, it also shows that her conclusion based on this argument – i.e. that there is nothing wrong with elective abortions – is also wrong.
Third, having a woman supporting Poppie’s pro-life stance was genius. It is typical of pro-abortionist propaganda that it is only men who are against abortion. But from the very start this episode breaks that myth by having at least one woman who is pro-life voicing her support for pro-life ideals. Even as short as it was, a single line, it gave a different feel to the entire scene. Would could have been simply shown as men arguing with women, therefore perpetuating the pro-abortionist stereotype, instead we have a scene that shows that women and men are pro-life and that many women do not believe they have a right to kill children in the womb. Indeed, as the scene closes and the arguing spreads through the restaurant the presence of this one pro-life woman also suggests that at least some of these other women are pro-life as well and are arguing for their beliefs against pro-abortionist husbands and boyfriends. It shows that the pro-life movement is a universal movement. It also further undermines Elaine’s argument that abortion is a right when other women contradict her by voicing pro-life ideals.
How To “Cancel” Your Happiness
After the restaurant scene the next major scene having to do with the issue of abortion is about Elaine’s romantic life. She has just started dating a new guy, Carl, who she is just over the moon about. He is simple without being simple-minded. He is kind. He is attentive. She just gushes about how much integrity he has as a real, honest person who doesn’t play games and try to manipulate her. And it doesn’t hurt that he is also very handsome. As she says, she is in “loooooove!” You can see the mischief in Jerry’s eyes as he smiles and asks her about his view on abortion. The question just crushes all of Elaine’s enthusiasm as she realizes she wants him to be pro-elective abortion, but she doesn’t know if he is or not. Jerry tells her she should find out, if only to avoid any uncomfortableness if he one day brings Paccino’s pizza to a date. The next scene with Elaine has her talking to Carl in his work truck. She makes up a story about a friend of hers who was impregnated by her “troglodytic half-brother” and then had an abortion. Carl then looks into the distance and says, “You know …someday we’re going to get enough people in the Supreme Court to change that law,” while Elaine bursts into tears. It is the implied that she broke up with him.
These scenes further hammer home the ridiculousness of Elaine’s choices. She is in love with Carl and they have a terrific relationship. In fact, it is one of the best relationships she is shown to have had in the entire show up to that point. And she gives it up over his opinion on abortion. That Elaine could be so easily manipulated by Jerry into doing this, for what is obviously an attempt by him to amuse himself, presents her beliefs and her actions as being utterly ridiculous. It in fact presents Elaine as a bit mindless. Instead of actually engaging with this person who she has just spent significant time telling us is incredible in nearly every way, she cuts off her relationship with him completely.
This is not something someone with significant intelligences does. They talk to people about their differing issues, debate ideas, and form conclusions based on those experiences and the insights they bring. Emotionally and intellectually mature people confront uncomfortable ideas and discover the value in people with whom they disagree. Elaine is the opposite. She throws out the greatest relationship she has ever had based on a single belief without even trying to understand why he thinks the way he does, changing his mind, or even confronting the possibility that she might be wrong. Elaine is an idiot who is easily played as a fool by Jerry for his own personal reasons and having her be the avatar for the idea that you should cut off contact with people you disagree with it suggests that people who believe that are also idiots and fools easily manipulated by others for their own amusement and personal gain.
This scene also shows how limited the understanding of most pro-abortionists actually is when it comes to understanding why abortion happens. Elaine’s example of an incestuous relationship (perhaps even a rape, though that isn’t actually implied it is possible) is one that doesn’t apply to 98.5% of abortions. Less than 1.5% of women cite either rape or incest as the reasons they had abortions. In contrast, 74% of women said they wanted an abortion because having a child would change their lifestyle. In other words, the vast majority of abortions are entirely self-centered and derive from selfish desires. People mostly get abortions because they love their material comfort than they do the rights and humanity of their children whom they are killing. And yes, it is the scientific consensus that human life starts at fertilization. Even the vast majority of “pro-choice” biologists agree. To put this argument, justifying unrestricted abortion because of incest, into an idiot’s mouth shows that it is the type of argument that only idiots make and that only idiots would believe it.
When Is A Pizza A Person?
The final scene of the episode returns combines two of the plots of the episode. Poppie and Kramer are going into business together to open a restaurant where people will be able to make and bake their own pizzas. To prepare for this Kramer is with Poppie in the kitchen of his restaurant learning how to throw dough and make a pizza. During the scene Kramer goes to put cucumbers on his pizza and Poppie tells him that simply cannot put cucumbers on a pizza, that no one should ever have that choice. An argument then ensues about when a pizza is a pizza, whether it is one form the moment that you start pounding the dough or only when it comes out of the oven. Of course this is all a thin veneer for the abortion debate, specifically the argument of when a person is a person, from the moment of conception or only when he/she is born.
The intention with this scene seems to clearly suggest that both assertions are extreme and that neither is correct. But, when I think about who is making which claim during this scene it becomes interesting. The messaging certainly becomes less clear.
Poppie is not a well-balanced individual. Like all the characters in the show he is a little strange and a bit crazy. The only character that isn’t crazy is Jerry, who acts as the viewer character and the most sane character in the show. (It is, no accident I think, that we never actually find out what his character believes about abortion. His unwillingness to be drawn into Elaine’s insanity and make abortion a definitive aspect of his relationships with others is another strike against her beliefs and actions.) But, Poppie is no more crazy than any of the other characters in the show. In fact, he is shown as being substantially more stable given that he has both a successful family life and a successful business while the lives of all the other characters are in shambles. The same cannot be said for Kramer. Played by Michael Richards, who has an incredible gift for physical comedy, Kramer is certifiably insane. And believes things like the military is breeding an army of super-strong pig men, that the Bermuda Triangle is supernatural, that the US government is conducting alien autopsies, and that corporations are suppressing the cure for cancer to prevent people from getting well.
And therein lies the difference. While Poppie may be off the wall, having him say something doesn’t automatically make it wrong, as we saw earlier in the restaurant scene. Poppie may be loud, excitable, and given to wild gesticulations (both Italian-American stereotypes, not “crazy pro-lifer” stereotypes), but he isn’t stupid or crazy. Therefore what he believes cannot be automatically dismissed. Having Kramer say he believes something is akin to having that thing labelled as crazy without having to outright say as much. It is something that only a crazy person like Kramer could believe because everyone else sees how obviously insane his arguments are and reject them. Just as the viewers were not meant to seriously consider his claim in another episode that the government was secretly genetically engineering a race of pig men for war, there is no reason to seriously consider his argument that a human is only a person once he or she is born. Like the pig men, it is insane.
So, what then does this scene tell us?
That while it is possible there is some merit to the argument that human life begins at fertilization, it is absolutely insane to believe that you’re only a person after you are born and therefore abortion any time before then is alright.
Facing The Mob
Cancel culture is nothing new in human history. As far back as Cain, the worst punishment that could be levied against a person was driving them from society or excommunicating them from the community, in modern parlance, “canceling” them. The problem with modern cancel culture is that unlike the past it knows no restraint. Cain had to murder his brother in what amounted to a human sacrifice to Satan (Moses 5:16-41) in order to be cut off from the community and driven into the wastes. Today you simply have to rest your hand in an unapproved way before the mob attempts to destroy you. How do we count such rabid hatred? Seinfeld shows us the answer.
You reveal how moronic it is by making fun of it.
From here willingness to start stand up and screaming in a public place to her unwillingness to eat at places where she doesn’t approve of the owner’s opinion to her willingness to destroy the best relationship she has had with the best man she has met because of a single political difference, Elaine is present day Leftist Twitter and cancel culture personified. And she is portrayed as a complete and utter jackass, a moron of the highest caliber. She is so stupid that she is easily and obviously manipulated by others for their own amusement and either she doesn’t see it or she does see it and does it anyway. She blows up her entire life and it gets her nothing but loneliness and failure, stuck in the same rut she has always been because her beliefs cripple her ability to have or do better. And, quite frankly, it is hilarious.
It is hilarious that people could be so obviously stupid and so arrogantly full of themselves that they cannot see how stupid they are. They create their own misery and then wallow in it as if it is so distinction of nobility. We should not take these people seriously. Their is nothing serious about them and pretending there is only makes their idiocy seem legitimate. They’re self-destructive clowns and the best thing we can do is to mock them as such and thus reveal the clownish nature of their beliefs. Thereafter people will not take them seriously, thus denying them power. This is shown at the end of the episode. While Poppie and Kramer are practicing throwing pizza dough we see his restaurant in the background form his kitchen. The restaurant is as busy as ever. Which tells us that Elaine’s outburst may have had a temporary effect, but in the long run it was meaningless. Why? Because, as the rest of the episode tells us, it was stupid, like Elaine. No one ultimately took her or the issue seriously enough and so Poppie’s continued on without a problem.
Our lives, like Poppie’s restaurant, will thrive only if we keep perspective. No single political position makes a person evil or deserving of being exiled from society. The idea of canceling people is foolish and does nothing but harm to ourselves and our communities. The way to face the Twitterati and the cancel culture mobs is not to debate them or take them seriously. As the episode shows that achieves nothing and only spreads discord (as happened in the scene where Poppie and Elaine argue.) The way to defeat these people is to do what the episode does – lambast their position for the absolute stupidity that it is and refuse to legitimize their arguments by treating them as equal to your own. Delegitimize them by showing how foolish they are. Sure it won’t convince them that they’re wrong. But you can’t cure stupid. Not even Jesus could make the intentionally deaf hear or the purposefully blind to see. And you aren’t Jesus.
By mocking the cancel culture mobs you can show how fundamentally silly their stances are and thereby decrease the likeliness that anyone else will take you seriously either. Let them make their own lives miserable as you cast your social and intellectual nets wide, thereby gather truth, good ideas, and relationships from all comers and all corners. While cancel culture creates a meager echo chamber where people starve to death intellectually, you will enrich and deepen yourself and grow beyond where you began. You’ll grow fat with a happier and fuller life.
Finally, if you’re wondering if what I’m talking about would be Christ-like or not, the answer is, “I’m only trying to be like, Jesus” because mocking their foolishness is how He often responded to the cancel culture Pharisees of His day.