“Three Men, One Island, No Agreement"
“Three Men, One Island, No Agreement”
(Live on stage. Three stools. One iceberg-shaped lectern no one asked for.)
[Applause. Jimmy Carr steps forward first.]
Jimmy Carr
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight’s topic: Greenland.
An island so cold even capitalism hesitated and said,
“…let’s think about this.”
Now, with me are three men who agree on absolutely nothing, except that someone else is wrong.
[Enter Slavoj Žižek. He immediately adjusts the mic, sniffs, wipes nose, ignores the audience.]
Žižek
Okay, but you see, already this framing is wrong.
Greenland is not an island.
It is an ideological symptom.
Because when America says, “We want Greenland,”
what they mean is,
“We want the fantasy of Greenland.”
Which is—how should I put it—
a giant, frozen IKEA shelf
where you can store geopolitical anxiety.
Jimmy Carr
Lovely.
So Greenland is basically emotional freezer storage.
[Enter George Carlin. No stool. He paces.]
Carlin
Bullshit.
Greenland is land.
Frozen land.
With rocks.
And oil.
And people who keep getting talked about by people who’ve never been there.
You don’t “symptom” your way to an aircraft carrier, pal.
America doesn’t want Greenland because of ideology.
America wants Greenland because maps make generals horny.
[Audience laughter and applause.]
Žižek
No, no, no—this is exactly the naïve realism that sustains the illusion!
You think America wants Greenland for resources.
But what they really want
is to avoid confronting the fact that the center no longer holds.
Greenland is like—how to say—
a comfort blanket for declining empires.
Carlin
Comfort blanket?
The U.S. doesn’t carry blankets.
It carries bombs.
Jimmy Carr
To be fair, George, some of those bombs are very comforting—to the people selling them.
[Audience laughs.]
Carlin
Look—here’s the joke nobody wants to hear.
Greenland isn’t being “offered freedom.”
It’s being offered a receipt.
Once America shows up, everything gets monetized:
-
Ice? Commodity.
-
Air? Strategic asset.
-
Silence? National security risk.
Žižek
Ah! But this is where you are wrong!
Because capitalism today does not merely monetize—
it moralizes.
America doesn’t say, “We want Greenland.”
It says,
“We are worried about Greenland.”
Which is infinitely more dangerous.
Jimmy Carr
Yes.
Nothing says “you’re about to be annexed” like concern.
[Pause. Audience murmurs approvingly.]
Carlin
And Denmark?
Denmark suddenly goes,
“Oh! Now we care!”
Where were you for the last century?
Oh right—politely administering neglect.
Žižek
This is the obscene underside of liberal stewardship!
Denmark preserves Greenland the way museums preserve mummies—
by ensuring they never interfere with modern life.
Jimmy Carr
So Greenland is:
-
America’s midlife crisis
-
Denmark’s forgotten child
-
And Slavoj’s psychoanalytic case study
No wonder the island’s melting. It’s under pressure.
[Big laugh.]
Carlin
Here’s the real punchline.
Nobody asks Greenlanders what they want
because that would require admitting
they’re adults.
And empires hate adults.
Adults say no.
Žižek
Exactly!
The ultimate horror is not resistance—
it is agency.
A Greenland that chooses
breaks the entire fantasy structure.
Jimmy Carr
Which brings us to the final question of the evening:
Does Greenland want independence, protection, development…
or just for everyone to stop turning it into a PowerPoint slide?
[Beat. Audience applause builds.]
Carlin
Doesn’t matter.
Someone’s already drawing up the paperwork.
Žižek
And justifying it morally.
Jimmy Carr
And selling merch.
[Lights fade. Applause. Jimmy’s inhale-laugh echoes.]
Ah-ah-ah-ah.
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