If meanness and hate are ingrained, albeit unfortunate parts of human nature, we must create communities that reinforce our other natural tendencies toward kindness and against meanness.
There is nothing funny about bullying, nothing funny about child suicide. And yet it's not merely humor but pretty full recognition of our less than friendly impulses, that can save us from the pent up kind.
Critical argument in the U.S. media is no longer about seeking truth to correct or sustain our formative values; rather it is about winning so that others might lose. How do we find a way back?