Although I was poking more at how it is that no-one has the stones to take on getting old as a self-help or how-to book but everyone writes 'em by the thousands on easy shite like raising kids, I'll follow along with where your thoughts are going.

I just wish for a social environment where people were educated enough to understand humour, and humourists were educated enough to understand shock-on-purpose and the physical functions of the human lower torso are not humour.

We live in such a cesspool of stupidity. I truly believe "Blazing Saddles" couldn't be made today simply because society has become too ignorant to get the joke and get the message Mel Brooks was sending.

The stupid? A common example:
In this country, the Jeep Wrangler has become the new "young chick" car, taking the place of the stereotype little red Chev Cavalier/Pontiac Sunfire, all decorated up with cutesy shite like rubber ducks and plushies, stickers and custom girlie accessories abound. Yesterday I saw one coming the other way with the top of the windscreen lettered with a commercial decal saying, "Booby Bouncer". That's as good as the humour gets here.

That is the level of intelligence we expect to understand and appreciate social commentary? Irony? The subtle twist that makes a story funny?

These same morons can't handle humour based on real satire or irony simply because they aren't equipped to discern let alone understand the intent of the like of, say, Mel Brooks or even "It Ain't Half Hot, Mum". The result is dumbed down puerile potty jokes as the best that can be managed.

We've raised two generations now for whom education has been replaced by passing the dull with the smart so the former's self esteem is never challenged whilst the latter are encouraged not to excel because it isn't necessary to do so. These are the generations that sit in judgement of all things intellectual, and that includes humour.

They are too stupid to get the joke, too lazy to get the joke, or empowered to quickly be offended for someone else and angrily extract their judgement and indeed revenge on the purveyor of said joke.

Stupidity Example the Second: How is it a white teenaged girl living all her life in upper-middle-class circumstances somehow is positioned to be offended for anyone? "Omygawd, I'm just so like offended by that...." I'll say it now, just because you have the latest iPhone and a Twitter account doesn't mean your opinion is worth anything without the experience or education to back it up and the intelligence to employ that experience and education in pursuit of a thesis based on some sort of considered analysis.

No social advancement has ever happened in an environment of hate and loathing, and hypocritical offence does nothing but foment hate and loathing amongst the ignorant.

No humour beyond the most crude can survive in the environment described. We've not become more stupid, but we are certainly more collectively ignorant and have effectively pounded the otherwise intellectual top performers down into the mainstream so as not to hurt the self-esteem of all, then we were stupid enough to give everyone a venue to give their every thought to everyone else on the planet in equal shrillness, completely unfiltered, in real-time. That is why we cannot have "Blazing Saddles" or indeed any real satire anymore.