As a double English and Philosophy major I’ve read my fair share of books and have a deep-rooted appreciation for literature and other types of writing. I realize that nowadays this puts me in the minority and that I often appear pretty nerdy to my peers because of how much I care about books, but this doesn’t bother me.

One thing that does bother me though is how much TV people consume. It really pisses me off that people choose to spend hours of their lives propped in front of a TV screen allowing their eyes to eat up the sh*t on the box. I don’t understand how people don’t come to the realization your time is extremely limited, and that using that precious resource to melt and numb your brain listening to a vapidity only the Kardashians can spew can legitimately be called a denial of life.

I’ll spare you further vitriol, but the grander point is that I would almost never ever recommend someone watch TV over picking up a book. However, the only time I wouldn’t reproach someone for watching TV would be if they were watching South Park, and I’d like to explain why.

Satire is a branch of literature (and sometimes other forms of media) of which the purpose is to mock and ridicule vice and folly in society, or individuals, in order to promote changes in behavior and attitudes. Satire is one of my favourite types of literature because I believe it has the ability to — and that it has — frequently affected behaviours and attitudes, for the better.

It’s the real world impact satire carries which draws me to it; I believe satirists can often make a genuine difference in the world. That being said, they can also often do harm, as we very clearly saw in this year’s tragic Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. Although some may argue that the satire was still successful in a way because it brought the free speech debate to such prominence in the public eye.

Satire goes back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, continued through the middle ages, and is still around today — albeit in very varied formats. Some of my favorite satirists are Jonathan Swift, the 18th-century Irish essayist and poet who once suggested in a pamphlet that Irish people eat their children in order to deal with poverty and starvation (satire is often intended to shock for effect, and what Swift was really doing was criticizing attitudes towards poor people and the Irish government's policy towards them); and John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester, who, when hired by the King of England to write a play to provide entertainment for extremely important French ambassadors, wrote a play entitled The Farce of Sodom or The Quintessence of Debauchery, in which women resort to "dildoes and dogs" because men are too busy sodomizing each other — Wilmot was in fact critiquing the over-sexualization of King Charles’ court and the King's penance for religious tolerance.

However, my two very favorite satirists are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, who have, in my humble opinion, gone above and beyond any writer who has ever lived in offensiveness, vulgarity, impartiality, moral judgement, and satirical success.

South Park, for anyone who has never watched, is a cartoon about a town called South Park in Colorado, and the adventures of four boys from that town. Despite the simple premise, the complexity of the vision the show encapsulates is immense. One of the main reasons for the show’s success as satire is the fact that it operates on a strict nonpartisan and no pulled punches basis.

The beauty of South Park is that no one is out of the crosshairs of Stone and Parker. Celebrities, politics (politicians, parties, beliefs, etc.), athletes, actors, writers, criminals, religion (institutions, deities, followers, leaders, figures, beliefs, etc.), world leaders, musicians, regular people, and fictitious people, etc., etc., are all fair play for the duo.

This is the genius of the show because, as a satirist, as soon as you align yourself with one set of beliefs, or with an institution, or with some public figure, you diminish the scope of your vision and become limited in range of satire. Remarkably, Parker and Stone have been able to avoid partiality or taking any specific side since the show first aired in 1997.

In addition to this, since its inception, South Park has been able to increase shock value exponentially, thus exponentially increasing the effectiveness of the satire. Parker and Stone have never been afraid to be as shocking as possible, which is why South Park has to be known as a show that will go places similar shows (e.g. The Simpsons and Family Guy) would never dream of going.

However, the beauty behind this, which I think a lot of people very often overlook, is that no matter how vulgar, disgusting, or controversial the show gets there is still always a message behind the plot, which is always one of moral profundity or social innovation.

Without going on to list specific examples of this because there are so many — and because it’s always better to see them on the show or yourself and have a moral realization on your own terms — I think it’s quite incredible how Parker and Stone are able to bury a genuinely important moral point behind the twists and turns of their absurd plots only to reveal the grander aim of the show in the final minutes of the episode as articulated by the protagonist children.

There is a plethora of reasons which could be discussed in much greater and more technical detail as to why South Park is the greatest satire ever, but that would turn this article into a dissertation. Therefore I want only to leave you with my opinion, a couple of reasons to back it up, and some new information about satire and South Park that you may not have known before; and with this I would like you to go and judge for yourself — is South Park a great work of satirical art, or is it just a vulgar cartoon?

So, next time someone says they don’t watch South Park because its crude and childish or whatever else they may think of it, hopefully you will be able to convince them otherwise and put them onto a wealth of moral lessons. I think that if society were to seek to enhance itself by watching television, South Park is the one show guaranteed to foster that improvement.

I am not encouraging a greater consumption of TV, but if you’re going to watch TV at all I would highly recommend watching South Park, not just because it’s entertaining, but because it has the potential to make you a better person.