Yeah, I think this is right on. And I feel like there's some value in that -- pointing out the hypocrisies and flaws in even the best causes can be useful. Nothing should be above criticism.
There are some negative side effects of leaning too hard into that though, I think, like you mentioned in your last paragraph.
Slaying sacred cows is all fun and games and everyone loves South Park for it.
Right up until the point at which your own sacred cows are slaughtered. Then suddenly it's not funny any more. Blaspheming the sacred has long been grounds for jesters to be fired or beheaded, even though that is the jester's role in society.
It's still funny, you just don't like being ridiculed. Which is proof positive that your sacred cows must be ridiculed as much as possible.
That seems really reductive. Not all campaigns of slaying sacred cows are the same, and there are a lot of ways it can be biased, some of them bad.
> just don't like being ridiculed. Which is proof positive that your sacred cows must be ridiculed
"You're being defensive, therefore you're wrong." That's nothing more than an insulting fallacy, where the person saying it gets to feel morally superior and always right. There's no possible response, either they admit defeat or they 'prove you right'.
Again, you're just being insulting. "If you object, then you MUST be motivated by it being 'your cow' and NEVER correct" is a very stupid thing to say. Stop being so smug and think it through! If one person goes after cows ABCDEF, and the other person goes after cows ACCCDC, there's a significant difference between the two. Someone complaining about the latter is not automatically wrong, unjustifiably mad that their cows got slayed.
But isn't that what comedy is all about - you make fun of everything, the truly great ones, Chapelle comes to mind, expose naked truths and come off with blinding insights.
You can't be too great at it though, or you get beheaded. You have to carefully limit the societal critiques and "blinding insights" to something acceptable enough for your audience.
There are some negative side effects of leaning too hard into that though, I think, like you mentioned in your last paragraph.