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The Second Annual Dionysus Awards. New Blog Policy. The Philosophical Legacy of Charles Darwin. Does Postmodernism Mean Moral Relativism? Am I a Postmodernist. Work and the Self. Comment on Pornography by Rae Langton. This last one is tough to identify in contemporary society. I have an intuition but no really good reasons why I think that Louis C. Any one of these could center on censure and extend further. Assuming that censure sits at the center of satire — or, to put it more bluntly, granting that satire has a fundamentally normative core, then we could say that Satire is the form of persuasion which hinges mostly on the generation of a specific kind of pathos emotions and values in the audience toward the topic of the speech.
Satire would be that form of persuasion which evokes disapproval of particular actions and behaviors through the use of the particular tools above, any one or all of which may also have comedic effect. But I would contend that satirists are among those who may choose to use the art of comedy as a tool weapon for achieving their own ends. It seems rare that one would go to a comedy show to be morally, politically, rationally improved.
Can you imagine a thoroughly solipsistic or deterministic satirist? Satire does more than simply denounce actions, though — it depicts them and exaggerates them, and. As Sor Juana points out, the satirist may or may not recognize their own implication in the characterization. The question Sor Juana raises, here, is: how diligent has the satirist been in inspecting their own judgment?
The question seems, perhaps, to not only fall on the comedian-satirist but also on the audience, in this case. Why are they laughing? De la Cruz suggests in this philosophy of satire, I think, that the satirist bears an obligation to be certain they play no avoidable unnecessary, contingent causal role in that which they satirize. So, too, I would think that many effective satirists may not be aware of the nature of their art.
We in the theatre group were talking a couple of months ago about the effectiveness of satire as a subversive form. Our questions had mainly to do with how capable satire still is of motivating social or political action, or if it now generally motivates like-minded people to feel smug, while activism gets conflated with entertainment.
Coming off of a few months looking at Brecht, Artaud and Schechner, it seemed to us that there were some deeper questions here about how people relate to mediated forms of content, ritual, etc. In a world where facts no longer have sway and people are disenfranchised and excluded from the political process satire loses its efficacy. If we lose the ability to see the humor in our failures, satire will have no influence on us. He very effectively uses satire as a weapon all the time but insists The Daily Show is just comedy, the kind of show that follows puppets making crank calls, as he put it.
The paradigm of the satirist who refuses to acknowledge his stance is Colbert. His adoption of a persona from which he acts out his satire creates a double distance from accountability. Seth, I think David makes a great point about Stewart and that you are misunderstanding him slightly.
Stewart of whom I am generally a huge fan very clearly has, as you say, his stripes on his sleves. I kind of think you actually agree with him and that he nailed a good example of exactly what you were trying to get at.
His appearances on Fox seem to contradict this. He identifies as something like a progressive liberal. Colbert on the other hand not only denies having a specific political position in the interview but also uses his satirical persona to distance himself from an identifiable political or moral position. We then discuss the efficacy of satire as moral critique and look at Colbert, The Onion, etc.
From my experience, most people who have found the freedom to choose their profession to some degree do what they do because they love the action itself. If you enjoy handling fire or jumping into dangerous environments, you become a fireman. If you enjoy making things precise and crunching numbers, you become an accountant. If you enjoy making people laugh, you become a comedian. A natural satirist is going to have that perception of the absurd driven by an instinctive and emotional outrage at the current social order.
That does not mean that you should expect the satirist to identify with that outrage, as in their mind and I think most of our minds as well , what they identify with and strive towards is that which they love, rather then what they hate. Your email address will not be published. Yes, please add me to your mailing list for an occasional announcement or newsletter. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Log In. Satire, the general term, often emphasizes the weakness more than the weak person, and usually implies moral judgment and corrective purpose This dictionary of literary devices posits a more explicitly normative structure: Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony , exaggeration or ridicule.
Egocentric - desire to get a laugh to fulfill a personal need such as validation Altruistic - desire to make others laugh for relief, amusement or entertainment Critical - desire to use satire to make an intellectual or conceptual point about the status quo Moral - desire to use laughter to change other's opinions and by extension the society or world The latter two are related though I see a difference between the last two in that the moral motivation adds an emotional component to the critical motivation to inspire action, whereas the critical by itself could stand as social commentary without the suggestion of change.
Seth by. Comments Satire is bad. Glad you caught the reference. Seth — Apologies. Excellent piece, Seth. Canadian writer John Doyle has referred to the following contemporary developments in the American context making satire as a relevant tool.
While talking of war, satire on this point goes as far back as to ancient Greece, such as the play The Acharnians by Aristophanes, dealing with how a sane Athenian asking his fellow citizens to make peace with the Spartans is dubbed a traitor, but eventually, the Athenians realize their folly on being devastated by the war. In fact, liberal Muslims have used satire as a weapon to attack both Islamism not to be confused with Islam, just as Hindutva is not to be confused with Hinduism and Islamophobia.
In fact, modern Western history has seen satire achieve desired results, which is quite remarkable. The American comic strip Doonesbury satirized a Florida county that had a law requiring minorities to have a pass-card in the area; the law was soon repealed with a legislation nicknamed the Doonesbury Act. But too many satirists now take the position that they should satirize the whole enterprise of politics rather than particular positions or individuals.
What it does is encourage a kind of negativism, and it particularly hurts people on the left. It has a very corrosive effect, which is the opposite of what I hoped it would do, which is to sharpen the critique. Barney Frank has served as representative for the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts since Besides, the last thing I want the president to do is make a decision based on what someone like me says.
In many ways, satire has taken that role. I like this quote by Will Rogers, which sums up how little satire has changed. People are always going to be hypocritical and craven. We have so many ways of getting it out faster. Now unfortunately, people like me have to live tweet debates so we have to be the funniest we can be in a nanosecond. It probably results in a lot more misfires. We remember Mark Twain for having these brilliant one-liners about politics and human behavior in general, but he at least had the benefit of a little time to reflect.
Back in , when I helped start The Colbert Report, we noticed that underneath a lot of what was being said politically was the idea that we should trust instinct more than reason. The same thing happens in everyday culture. When you see something you suspect is a big put-on, some political statement or performance that feels intended to confuse everyone or make us focus on the wrong things, and you expose it and you are funny at the same time, that is very satisfying.
But I think comedy writers really shrink from the idea that their work is important. We forget that political satire has played an important role in other American eras. During the s and early s, Will Rogers was a true multi-media personality—film actor, stage performer, New York Times columnist, radio commentator—with an international following. Four decades after Rogers, the country was experiencing generational confrontations over issues of race, law and order, and the war in Vietnam, and this formed the core of the political satire on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS from to Predating Colbert, Paulsen took his persona directly into the presidential campaign with his candidacy as satirical performance art, crisscrossing the country holding rallies and seeking votes.
Walter J. The fifties and early sixties were when political satire assumed a more respected place in public discourse, particularly among liberals who saw satire as way of expressing dissent from the Cold War order. And over the years there have been concerned voices about satire not reflecting well on the body politic and others who have argued that it serves as a tonic or safety valve for America.
Previously, presidents were limited to telling jokes at the Al Smith dinner or the Gridiron Club dinner. The Colbert Report has shown me how effective satire can be to convey political ideas and messages. What is new about the Colbert method is that he engages his audience in the participatory method of learning. He takes viewers inside a field of knowledge or experience and gives them the feeling of being a participant. The only other person I know who conveyed information that way was George Plimpton, who wrote about unusual experiences by engaging in them.
That is what Colbert does very effectively on camera. I think his Super-PAC has been highly successful at doing this. It seems to me that this is not the kind of reaction we would have if he was just talking about Super-PACs in a monologue on the show.
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