A Chinese newspaper is fooled by a story in The Onion, and then publishes a correction: " I can recall my smirking attitude when the same Chinese newspaper acknowledged soon after that it had been fooled. “Some small American newspapers,” the paper chided, “frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money.”
I'm betting that once the Chinese paper realized they were fooled, they turned and fooled back. Smith's "smirking attitude" should have been an admiring chuckle. "small American newspaper" indeed.
That's where the art of satire gets transcendent: Swift publishes his "Modest Proposal". Most amusing. Then someone writes an indignant letter to the Times: "This is an outrage!" Is the letter writer a hopeless square? or (more likely in this case) taking the satire to the next level? There are no rules anymore.
1
"NYT supports newly proposed ban on smiling" A new Times study shows that the facial expression is often divisive and may convey unwarranted approval.
9
They key to satire is the truth that is at its root.
9
I think George Orwell is still alive and that he wrote this terrific piece of satire.
2
Really? I read the following paragraph in quizzical disbelief:
"Over the past few years I have been made to see, in sum, that the nature and extent of satire is not nearly as simple a question as I had previously imagined. I am now prepared to agree that some varieties of expression that may have some claim to being satire should indeed be prohibited. I note this not with a plan or proposal for where or how such a prohibition might be enforced, but to acknowledge something I did not fully understand until I experienced it first hand — that even the most cherished and firmly-held values or ideals can change when the world in which those values were first formed changes."
A philosopher who never noticed that when times and cultural contexts change values may also change? Who never thought, for instance, that "a right to bear arms" (i.e., a single-load, single-fire pistol or musket) in 18th century post-colonial American society might not be the same as having a right to bear a widely available, magazine-fed, rapid-fire, automatic weapon in the 21st? Who never supposed that, say, values about protecting and preserving the lives of the unborn may have been contextually very different in the 13th century than today?
As I read on, I began to suspect that the author was perpetrating a fake-news hoax or put-on and satire of his own. I certainly hope he was. Otherwise, he's simply the most recent contributor to the silly Stone series of articles who qualifies as a stone goof.
5
Monsieur Smith, you over-complicate the issue. Satire only works when there is a shared version of reality and/or culture. only within a certain context does satire bring its point home.
5
Because of some satire upon actors dead for 13 centuries, Pakistan labelled yours truly “Extremely Blasphemous"… a perpetrator of "Electronic Crime”. WordPress reacted as follows:
"A Pakistan authority has demanded that we disable the following content on your WordPress.com site...
Unfortunately, we must comply to keep WordPress.com accessible for everyone in the region…"
Earth, we have a problem...
7
When using the Charlie Hebdo example Justin Smith confuses freedom with responsibility. The constant, deep insulting cartoons against Islam amd French Muslims had nothing to do with "satire": it was pure, aggressive Islamophobia, with an economic bent (making millions of Euros in sales). You cannot understand Charlie Hebdo's rise to fame, while it had been a dormant cartoon outlet for decades) if you do not know that Muslims in France are an easy target all around. They enjoy no political, economic or cultural representation or agency. One wonders why, rather than drag through the mud Islam and Muslims, Charlie Hebdo never took head on explicit discriminations for example, and poke fun at racists?
3
Mayor Pete has Great Gazoo tricks and dum_dum followers.
Funny, how many jokes are not funny anymore.
1
A wonderful article, about the evolving problem of infotainment. So often we tune-in to the amusing, or merely odd, to scratch the itch of curiosity. Then there's the familiar, the carefully tailored, the curated-to-taste, and as media 'users', we're empowered as never before to create our own media feeding tubes. (Consensus, shared facts... good luck. Legacy media? Look at the number of paid 'articles' on the 'front page' of this digital 'paper'.) In this virtualized, customized context, the narrowing distinction between skewering satire and dangerous disinformation is cause for concern, but political cartoons aren't futile when misread. Granted, there's a new caveat in the broad defense of freedom of expression: hate speech and propaganda benefit from the same amplification, the same blink-quick publicity, the same tools of verisimilitude one would hope for the most conscientious, and usefully-contentious, of humorists. I would add an unspoken element to this dilemma that may help address it in a practical way: the cultivation of sharper, more critical eyes. Screen culture is not just expanding - it's metastasizing. Is it not natural that we (as parents, cultural producers, etc.) develop ways of fortifying more careful, reflective viewing? Image making and transmission has advanced faster than visual literacy; currently a rarefied course of study, associated with graphic design, film/media studies, and fine arts. It seems time for a new approach to visual education.
1
This piece is brilliant AND depressing. From my first reading Swift's Modest Proposal, I've savored and rejoiced in satire as a greased portal into a thrilling freedom of mind. I've felt that satire is as humanizing and significant as any kind of expression. Now I'm forced to consider that somehow this liberating tool has been infected with a sickening, and maybe deadly, bacteria. Ugh! The last sentence echoes the foreboding lines, loved by librarians, in Marguerite Yourcenar's novel Memoirs of Hadrian: "The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead".
2
Truth. Nothing is funny without it.
A first step is to make it a crime for a bot or other automated process (even personal out of office messages) to represent itself as human generated. Distributing perfect fakes should be a serious crime. Need some good bots to help police the system, though.
1
Oh god, not this again.
How many times will this article be written? First iteration I saw would have been in the early 80s, and that would not have been the first go-round.
History repeats.
2
Regulating satire? Are you kidding? Who will the regulators be?
To whom would I submit this for careful evaluation?
http://chironreturn.org/audio/cranky.pdf
3
I guess you had to be there.
1
The best response to the Charlie Hebdo attack I ever saw:
http://tinyurl.com/y5f578jm
1
Too FUNNY!
1
And so it goes, say the Tralfamadorians.
3
Can someone explain to me the difference between an ironic display of a swastika and a straightforward one?
2
April Fools’ Day ... one week late?
2
For decades progressives applauded Jesus statues in urine or elephant poop paintings of the Virgin Mary as high art. But that was about offending a Christian religion represented by ancient nuns and priests busy with, etc. Now that we have a religion which is serious about itself, believes itself, and finds numerous adherents worldwide happy to do a bit of killing, now our beloved progressives are worried about offending a religion? Cowards indeed. Moral cowards.
13
You are mistaken: The inability to distinguish satire from sincere demagoguery is not new. How old are you? I was in high school when All in the Family premiered. Archie Bunker was a satirical character if ever there has been one. Yet some of the biggest fans of Archie Bunker were the white racist bullies in our school, who exulted that there was finally a hero on television who spoke for them--who "told it like it was." They never did get it--trying to convince them they were the butt of a joke was pointless. You are naive if you think that this blurring of lines is peculiar to today's media culture. Satire is actually lost on most people, no matter how it is delivered.
7
I respectfully disagree, satire is still around but not the way this author may be used to. Satire nowadays I find in places like the real news site The Wonkette, whose writers use a satirical tone to comment on real news stories pointing out the moral wrongs in for example, knowing when the periods of women and girls are (for the purpose of preventing them from seeking abortion) while you can't reunite children to their families. What I do think the author should understand is that satire is not offending people for the sake of causing controversy. At times Charlie Hebdo has used satire as a cloak to defend themselves from rightful criticisms of their work (some of which didn't have a distinguishable purpose other than trolling in causing said controversy). The New Yorker has a funny satirical column, and SNL still does a good job of satirizes the news of today (their cold open about Biden's touchy feels was spot on).
This is a quite socratic text. Are we really to believe that professor Smith fell for the Gorilla Channel ruse? Or is he performing, ironically, the sort of ignorance he attributes to those benighted "dupe[s] of totalitarians" for whose sake he advocates the policing of voices? Whatever the case, does this qualify him to determine the boundaries of acceptable public speech? Who is so qualified? Doubtless, "the nature and proper scope of satire remain[s] an enormous problem," and no one may enjoin us against discussing this problem, but it does not necessarily follow from this that satire should be regulated.
3
I don't quite understand the math here: Satire is dead because Chinese propagandists and AIs can't grasp satire? Sounds to me like satire isn't the problem at hand.
4
The difference between satire and fake news is that satire doesn't try to pass itself off as not-satire.
If you can't tell, then you're either being confronted with fake news or unsuccessful satire, neither of which is worth your time.
7
Bravo! A priceless send-up of a stuffy academic pseudo-intellectual hopelessly in love with the first person pronoun self-consciously agonizing over the unpredictable consequences of satire going off the rails in the Age of Trump and internet ubiquity. Just the right combination of effete arrogance and bored self-importance.
A satire on an intellectual sophisticate contemplating the end of satire is truly a brilliant literary device. One can only wonder what the editors of the Beijing Evening News will make of this. Keep up the good work.
6
Who has time to mourn satire? I, for one, am too busy satirizing the taxidermy of Donaldo d' Trump.
As a first start, we might insist that all internet submissions be accompanied by the real name of the sender.
3
Satire, at least cartoon satire, has been under attack for some time now. Cartoon satire is characterized by exaggeration of physical features or behaviors.
But you better not depict a minority person in this way. The exaggerations are interpreted as racism, or ethnic hate, or hate against religious groups and their members.
So, it is fine to depict any well known overweight white male as as someone with blimp like proportions, or with a double chin as having six or seven chins. Or with large ears as having ears of elephant proportions. But other exaggerations of women, racial and ethnic groups, etc put the cartoonist, and the publisher, in hot water.
So, it is not surprising that the avoidance of such controversy results in suppression of satire. There is always someone outraged, no matter how innocuous the fun poking may be.
5
Yes, it is best to outlaw satire instead of learning about it.
3
On the day after the Charlie Hebdo disaster, I was invited by WNYC to discuss my enthusiasm for irreverence on “The Takeaway.” (For logistical reasons, the interview never occurred.) My primary credential was my cycle of satiric novels, among them “Only Begotten Daughter” and “Towing Jehovah.” My essential argument to the radio audience would have been that that real blasphemers in l’affaire Hebdo were the terrorists themselves, for their crime bespoke a divine order so frail and feeble it needs mere human agents to defend it.
I believe you are correct, Mr. Smith, that satire of the sort that announces itself must never be subjected to regulation. We must assiduously critique the “moral cowardice,” to use your felicitous term, of those who accuse Salman Rushdie and the Hebdo cartoonists of “punching down.” To Sean O’Grady, I say, “If we are to censure ‘The Satanic Versus’ under the rubric of anti-hate legislation, let’s ban the Bible—a text whose relentless enthusiasm for slavery and anti-Semitism is equaled only by the intensity of its acquiescence to misogyny and homophobia—while we’re at it.”
6
When autocracy takes over a nation, satire always dies a sudden death, as proven in the early 1930s in Berlin, where Cabarets where at their hight.
I remember a story my grand parents told me, one which was making the rounds in Berlin at that time.
Four famous satirist where performing at a Cabaret and had four framed pictures of Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler and Goering as props.They didn't say a word for quite some time, putting the pictures on the floor leaning against the wall, stepping back, picking them up and holding them eye- high against the wall, looking at them over and over again, shaking their heads and repeating it numerous times.
Then they looked at the audience and asked them: " Now what do you prefer. Shall we put them against the wall or hang them?
A few weeks later, after the appointment of the Austrian paper hanger to chancellor, on Jan. 30th, 1933, the Cabaret was immediately closed, and soon all others were too.
2
I recently saw a meme on the internet --
It's a photograph of a young, well-dressed black man - looking into the camera with that subtle "Aren't I smart" smile - while pointing to his forehead --
The caption reads --
"Yesterday I saw a book called 'How to Solve 50% of Your Problems' - so I bought two"--
...
Are you laughing ? --
Did that make you smile a little - ?
Are you embarrassed because you thought it was funny - ?
I've shown it to a number of friends - all of whom found it amusing -
Satire is funny - and the humor of satire exists in the laughter of the beholder --
"Today it is no longer publications like The Onion that are driving the proliferation of satire. Nor is it the palliative care for liberals offered up by Stephen Colbert and the other the late-night talkers, or by “Saturday Night Live,” now into its fifth decade of tedium."
I stopped consuming two-dimensional content such as that years ago -- as if we need people like Colbert to lead the equivalent of a liberal frat-boy squad as they cheer his tepid political jokes - none of which are funny --
Finally --
Back in 1988 - when "The Satanic Verses" was published and the author had to go into hiding -- I was in California with a friend --
We stopped into a small, underground bookstore - and on the shelf by the cashier was a basket of buttons - free for the taking --
The buttons had large bold letters --
"I AM SALMAN RUSHDIE"
I still have mine - just as satirical now as it was back then...
5
Sometimes an exploding cigar is just an exploding cigar.
2
On second reading, I'm hoping against hope that Prof. Smith's column is satire.
3
Your point about deafness to what is intended as satire made me think of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
I suspect few with opinions about that infamous document have actually read it. I have, and what struck me most about it was that it was obviously composed—and intended it to be recognized as—a satire. And one mostly made up of a pastiche of two earlier pieces that were quite obviously intended as satires. This is not to say that the composers of The Protocols did not in fact hate and fear the Jews—and others—who were the object of their satire. But that they thought there really was a secret organization called The Elders of Zion, whose leader, the speaker in “The Protocols,” was accustomed to address his fellow conspirators in the cackling, self-hugging, manner of a cartoon villain is something one would think impossible for anyone to believe who possessed the least discernment between one kind of literature and another: between a real outline of a strategy for achieving a political end and a jeremiad against the perceived causers of the evils in society, cast in the form of a satire.
Almost biblically, Babylon is upon us, with the fracture of speech across geographies and generations. We built a Babel of "social media" that presumqbly would provide us the happiness of a "sharing society". I wish I was a philosophy teacher, because the need to analyze our beliefs abd behaviors has never been greater. Forget satyre! You cannot even twll a joke that begins with "A priest and a rabbi meet at a bar and...". Compliments to the opposite sex , forget about it! But we all have smartphones, Apple or Google.
1
*We* are the satire!
Satire is not dead or threatened so much as is intellect. Discerning real satire from egregious exploitation was simply done by intellectuals and ignored by the uninformed. Does anyone think Mort Sahl could be as popular today. Social media is just another step in the dumbing down of America. On the right it is the ability of backward cave people to communicate in their own illiterate vacuum and on the left to fixate on worthless obsession with political correctness in machine like expression. The old right never had a penchant for intellect and is in a maelstrom descent of the mind. The young left is twisting its intellect into indiscernible righteousness. Satire cannot find its way in either brain.
2
Only those with an inferior fear and loathe the free marketplace of ideas.
Say what you want, but the oft-maligned “continental philosophers” (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida—the latter besieged by this very paper) have been alluding to this tremulation between oppositional constructs (“truth/falsity” perhaps the Adam of them all) for a century and a half. We’ve had our warning.
Why is it that whenever I finish reading a really good opinion piece, which thoughtful points and nuance, that the author always ends up being a philosopher.
Social media, proscriptions and all, serves as a retardant function in many cases to the expansion of knowledge. The role of satire has been to offer a respite to the arduous pursuit of knowledge through humor. Therein lies the difference between conventional satire and the somewhat arrogant musings of would-be pundits. As to the difference between the declarative and the interrogative, it is a matter of tone, perhaps, rather than mood. In Frankovich's documentary, "The Maltese Doublecross" the narrator poses the question, " Has our tragedy now become a comedy?" in a very declarative, alarmed tone, so as to indicate the ineptness of investigators, and their ludicrous assumptions. Perhaps this is indicative of the problem you describe. The public has a right to know, however that right might not be properly served by comic books and the like. However much we, the people, should like to avoid the difference between satire and propaganda, treating each as "things in themselves" that difference often is blurred by the objective correlative. I guess that's where AI comes in. The future?
1
There is a distinction that Pr Smith does not make and should, when he regroups under the term of « satire » both the hoaxes of the onion or the fictitious scenes of SNL, and the voluntarily blasphemous and provocative cartoons of Charlie. Although the two subcategories, in order to function properly, both assume a « connivence », a degree of implicit understanding between the reader and the author, the first category can lead any candid (Chinese) reader to take the satirical content at face value, thus making it close to a fake news, while the second category, the provocative cartoon, can never be taken for a (false) statement of fact, but for a provocation that inflames a particular category of reader who feels directly targeted, and that will lead a candid « third party » reader to profoundly misjudge the author’s beliefs and intentions. There is much more bravado in the cartoons of Charlie, because even when the authors never imagined that they risked their life, they knew that they risked their reputation, that they risked to be misjudged and hated, which is somehow the ultimate courage of opinion, and they were proud to push freedom of expression to its limit. The onion and SNL writers are just proud of being creative, witty, lampoonesque, the stakes are less high.
1
Who gets to decide what's funny and what's not? No one, especially not the government. That's the law in this country.
1
Satire only goes so far then it runs into pathos and destiny; both inscrutable and without humour.
2
I am of the belief that Satire is one of the most powerful forces in all of human existence. We all need to be knocked down sometimes, and while it is scathing it is how we show our understanding of human justice to others.
Sometimes we have no other way to prove our reality to others. Some of were inborn with a tendency to satire. We just do it because it is how humans show each other's hypocrisy.
None of us wants to admit our flaws. And so we make fun of others that show our flaws. It's ok in my book. It is ok.
4
Flanders and Swann: "The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cozy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again."
Sadly a lot of political disinformation was passed off as satire in the 2016 election. I can remember really hateful articles showing up on alleged satire sites all over the internet. When you read them, the fact that they were satirical was lost on most people. Too often they were posted on other web sites as fact.
2
Perhaps a sharpened version of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is needed to shed sane light on the monstrosity of current events.
2
There's a reason the deadly serious and obtuse Chinese government doesn't understand satire. Satire is the mark of a sophisticated, free-thinking society with a complex, delicate, subtle, self-deprecating sense of humor, a society that has moved beyond the basics of survival, self-promotion and brute persuasion and is able to analyze itself critically and influence opponents with disarmingly light-hearted precision. Satire is not screaming on a soapbox to drown out opponents, it is a gentle embrace of one's opponents that cleverly turns into a brutal reductio ad absurdam. The British are masters of satire. And until recently, so were we, the open-minded, intellectually sophisticated Americans. The fact that satire here is no longer understood as humor, or is difficult to separate from the absurdity of actual news, is a glaring indication of our society's accelerating decline.
9
Any possibility that can be imagined can become real because it's no longer what happened that matters, but the telling of it. Lies and fiction are no longer discriminated against, rather, they are buoyed by a perversion of affirmative action and given equal time as truths and facts. This is why we have so many false equivalencies and a blur between mendacity and satire.
It used to be people were capable of understanding the world around them by keeping an open mind and having the liberty to think without constrictions (Modernism). Then that changed when people thought with so much liberty that they believed we all have our own truths and that whatever they wanted to think was just fine regardless of the facts of Nature (Post-Modernism). Now we're at a point where so much is fabricated that the virtual mediated world is objective reality, is Nature: earth, wind and fire is a music group and climate change denial is real as the objective science. The least that could be said is that we inhabit a parallel media world that runs alongside the real world.
Ours is a period where trust has eroded away due to a failure of surety and understanding in ourselves, due in part to too much virtual reality. I call this period the Mendacine. We're lying to ourselves that the realities we create are real as the ones we find.
We are living in a fictional world we created around us the way one creates a play on stage, and it has become real as the natural world. We are living satire.
4
Part of the art of light satire, as opposed to the heavy like Seneca's "Pumpkinification of Claudius," is just that someone, somewhere might mistake it for straight narrative. In one of the editions of George Mikes' inimitable, "How to be an Alien," a post WWII description of life in Britain, he reports that at the same time that the Home Office in Britain was using it as a witty guide for refugees, Bulgaria was using it as anti-British propaganda. But then, even this could be satire that I, an American, missed.
1
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Ben Franklin
It is a slippery slope and we may well be part way down, but to acquiesce to someone else's religion is to be repressed by it. As we have no inherent right to tell others what to think they have no right to tell us what we can say. If this is the war on our thought then lets have it now.
5
"Hello, I'm a Person of the Left. Here is a thing with which I have had some experience. I used to like this thing a lot when it was something that was controlled by the Left and used to serve the ends of the Left. But now that it is no longer under the singular purview of the Left, and can be used by others to whatever ends they desire, I no longer like or support this thing. In fact, I think it should be made illegal and that those who continue to practice it should be shunned, if not arrested. Thank you for your consideration."
7
I also see an Increasing number of people mistaking satire for news. Sometimes I question the intelligence of those who do this, but in their defense, even the most obviously absurdly inflated skewing of current events, particularly those involving the current administration, can be taken as true. I think this is because reality has gotten so unlikely, strange and bizarre that it has become quite difficult to satirize. With every transparently corrupt appointment, and every heavy handed politically motivated attempt to obstruct rule of law, satirists have their work cut out for them. I don’t envy them. With the level of surrealistic events unfolding on a daily basis is, The long defunct, wonderful Firesign Theater couldn’t have even existed today. Every newscast already sounds just like them.
Oh great! Now we’re going to try label and scrub comedy and satire clean?
Good luck with that.
“This idea of “I’m offended”
Well I’ve got news for you. I’m offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list?
Life is offensive. You know what I mean?
Just get in touch with your outer adult, grow up, and move on.
I’ve seen many comics I’ve hated. I’ve seen many shows that have offended me. I’ve never written a letter. I just go about my life.” -
- Bill Hicks
10
@Bryan
Totally. It's the same with op-ed writers. If you don't offend someone, you're not doing it right.
Ah, satire be so subtle. I almost missed the “jocularity” intended by the fascist alt-right’s “ironic display” of a swastikas.
3
"Saturday Night Live, now into its fifth decade of tedium" - what a priceless comment, ringing of truth. I cherish this professor/author's apt wit, as rare as it is on target.
My feeling is that a lot of what passes for humor these days is vainglorious and underachieving political correctness. We are all afraid unto death of our own shadows. Spontaneity and true humor is rarer than the proverbial hen's teeth in this stultifying environment. What passes for humor is rage. We need a new George Carlin for this thin-skinned, angry world.
7
When truth is stranger than fiction, satire becomes untenable.
Take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/politicalhumor
Some of it is still actual satire, but most of it is simple statements of fact. Reality has become the best satire.
What have we done?
2
This is ridiculous. The so-called threat to satire that this author bemoans is material generated on the internet or elsewhere whose purpose is to mislead, never reveal itself as satire, and never end in comic relief. Satire is the opposite. It isn’t satire unless the difference between the satirist and the real person is either known before-hand or clarified as part of the performance. Without that it’s purpose is defeated. Satire’s purpose is not to deliberately mislead. It begins with impersonation, dallies with confusion between reality and art, makes clear that it is art and ends in laughter, comic relief, wonderment at the skill of the impersonation or whatever is the satirist’s purpose. It is not satire if the only person laughing is the creator of the purported satire because he never reveals the truth and is the only one in on the joke. This is more correctly characterized as a practical joke, which has always been regarded as a low, childish form of comedy. This author’s article is one of the best illustrations of an egg-head academic being out of touch. He doesn’t know the difference. Sure, there are impersonations that are malevolent, ill-conceived, or straight up propaganda. But satire will always survive because it always reveals itself as satire. Now, if this author wants to take aim at childish, immature, cruel or politically motivated deception, I am with him. But the take down should be of practical jokes and the like, not satire.
9
Satire - "use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices"
We didn't satirize Joseph McCarthy. Satirizing tyrants causing terrible harm, to me, isn't funny, What is going on around the world, and sadly, in our own country, is not a laughing matter.
1
@C
Woody Allen's movie "The Front" was a satire of McCarthyism, though it was also fairly serious. And it's quite common in everyday life to hear people say "Are you now or have you ever been...." fill in the humorous blank.
Right wing has weaponized Social Media. Humor;OK. Hate disguised as humor;not Ok. Facebook; Twitter; etc need to put their big boy pants on and draw a line. There is so much hate and prejudice broadcast freely. These sites are happy to make huge fortunes; but do not want to take any responsibility for the harm they cause. Ray Sipe Ray Sipe
2
The author seems to confuse or conflate satire with parody several times in this editorial. There are important distinctions between the two.
That said, two things came to mind while reading this.
One is that, today, a powerful, narcissistic, corrupt fool (whose name sounds like Donut Rump) can get away with making incendiary, criminal or treasonous statements by claiming he was joking.
The other is the Berlin cabaret scene during the Weimar republic era - when satire and parody became a true artform. Sadly, as sharp as this wit was, it was not enough to perforate the inflating fascism which soon devastated Europe. Some say that this satire may even have contributed to the enabling of fascism - laughter deafening people to a threat they did not take seriously. The poking did get under the nazi's skin however, resulting in censorship as well as exile, imprisonment and death for the satirists.
2
@gwr
Interesting, frightening, true. Where do we go from here?
Dr Hunter Thompson's take on hypocrisy, I thought, was the sharpest and true. The FEAR AND LOATHING in Vegas, (convention of U.S. drug busters to which Thompson is assigned) with a trunk load of mind altering chemicals in tow) and FEAR AND LOATHING on the trail of Nixon campaign is merciless and Dr. suffered a nervous breakdown along the way. Hypocrisy is Thompson's specialty...read him and weep with laughter.
This article is just so much hot air.
I can tell what is real and what is not by listening to our President. Everything else is not worth hearing.
1
@TVCritic
That's almost satirical, but sadly - Satanical might better describe it.
Tom Lehrer proclaimed the death of political satire when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. That was 1973. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
6
Interested in this topic? The latest issue (5.1) of _Studies in American Humor_ (journal of the American Humor Studies Association) is devoted to contemporary satire.
Here's the line-up
1. Introduction: Contemporary Satire, James Caron
2. An Ethics of Complicit Criticism for Postmodern Satire,
Jonathan Rossing
3. “Deplorable” Satire: Alt-Right Memes, White Genocide Tweets,
and Redpilling Normies, Viveca Greene
4. Judgments, Corrections, and Audiences: Amy Schumer's
Strategies for Narrowcast Satire, William Howell
5. Hannah Gadsby: On the Limits of Satire, Rebecca Crafting
6. Of Satire and Gordian Knots, Christopher Gilbert
--Larry Howe
Editor, _Studies in American Humor
1
Who smiles at evil?
Wait--you're a professor of philosophy and you believed that Trump kneels in front of the television and watches gorilla videos for 17 hours a day?
And so now we can't have satire?
12
Who's going to decide what's acceptable satire? You, dear professor?
2
Funny, none of Trump's rabid followers have attacked me for telling my two bad Republican jokes:
1. Do you know what you get when a Republican gives you a penny for his thoughts?
Change in rubles.
2. Do you know why you should pick up Republican hitch-hikers?
You get to use their (mentally) handicap placard.
3
"Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco comes to mind.
Hey Prof. Smith
Don't lose hope or clarity.
Good is good and evil is evil.
love humour is life giving - hate humour is death causing...
humor like food can be prepared with love or hate.
sometimes the preparer adds herbs, spices & heat
a heavy hand overpowering, a light hand unnoticeable;
always thou, each breather, filters, that which agrees within.
share those offerings chefs of words and pen
are the ingredients through the mouth, ears, eyes, nose, touching the brain with hate or love.
I think when smart professors get confused, it is time to for comportment, civics, and logic along side the STEM programs, to be returned to the grade school classrooms to once again reinforce the universal basics for and amongst the upcoming generations.
Could we all agree highly doubtful, that's the beauty of each human breathers having a mind, it is "our" choice how it is used.
Thanks for sharing
p.s. we gave up negative humor back in 1989....there is a difference :-)
2
Satire cannot be dead. How can we inflict the pain to exact the revenge on those whose Utopia is causing pain to those who greatest joy is giving comfort and affirmation?
The function of satire, humor, in human society and prospects for such in the future of Western Civilization?
Human beings laugh, are distinguished from other animals in such, because they have consciousness and time sense and capacity to calculate differences in quality in human thoughts and actions, and they will laugh until meeting with someone or something or some thought or action they cannot ridicule and satisfies their conception of excellence, in which case they might use a word such as awesome.
If satire, humor, is declining in society it means mediocrity is not only setting in but a system which seeks to erase levels of excellence, to make people ignorant of scales of difference of human possibility, to leave people not laughing because they have become any better, but the reverse: Because they are falling back to the level of the other animals and no longer know the difference between the ridiculous and the sublime.
Great civilizations seek to increase laughter, ridicule, to force people to become truly excellent, admired, beyond ridicule. Weak civilizations are composed of citizens who are always trying to prop up a mask to conceal defect, to prevent ridicule, as if excellence can be achieved by hiding, always hiding, discouraging laughter and making ever greater and usually crueler effort to hold the mask in place.
Satire, humor, seems to be declining today because the political/economic project seems an everybody equal, self-satisfied, sheep society.
3
@Daniel12
If you don't think dogs laugh, you don't know dogs. Scratch one on the belly and see what happens.
1
Increasingly, satire becomes hard to detect. If a reader is spoiling for a fight, an oblique take--no matter how absurd or hyperbolic--can be taken as earnest.
Satire needs to be identifiable, but not overtly. The cue needs to be subliminal, otherwise the magic is ruined. I found the solution online: the "Whiffster." It is nothing more than a vape device repurposed into a wireless scent generator, hooked to an app that can recognize sarcasm by using either an algorithm or tags placed the author. The Whiffer sends out a tiny puff of scent (the options vary from "New Mown Hay" to "Scarab Jelly" and many others), alerting your unconscious to regard the material as ironic commentary--without spoiling the fun.
Many commenters have asked whether this piece is itself satire. I can assure you that it is not. Satire is funny.
3
Who can deliver us from hermeneutics about satire? Satirists, of course. Much thanks to Prof. Smith for providing them with material.
2
The writer gets it so wrong.
Humor (satire especially) is dead because no one knows anything.
How can you "make fun of" (good or bad) someone or something if your audience has no idea what it is you are talking about? You can't.
Here's an example from my youth - the 1970 comedy album by George Carlin had this one line gag:
"The aerial photographs of Kate Smith"
The audience roars with laughter at Carlin saying this because they know, as Carlin knew they would, both who Kate Smith was and that she was a large lady.
I heard that as a 10 year old, and I laughed. Because I knew who Kate Smith was (though barely - I knew she was one of those old time celebrities my parents enjoyed, like Danny Kaye, a celebrity of their generation, but not my own). And I knew she was a large lady. So Carlin's joke was funny.
That joke only works because the comedian can assume the audience (young or old) has a common culture, and a shared awareness of their times, and the times that came before them. And they are educated. That has all been lost. Not just because of technology, but because of greed and the destruction of education and the replacement with the "common culture" with marketing to the individual.
The whole idea of a comedian like Carlin, performing live before a physical audience, is now archaic.
And who is this George Carlin guy anyway..........?
Perhaps the practical observation here is that satire is - and always has been - entirely situational. One can satirize bikers like the Hells Angels for laughs downtown, but the effect and response might be different if the satire is performed in front of them in their clubhouse.
Satire works when everyone in the audience shares a similar perspective, is already in on the joke, and understands in advance that what they're getting is satire. It doesn't fare so well when it's broadcast widely: it doesn't translate. And, it only really works when the audience wants to be entertained, and identifies strongly with the performer. Satire usually flops badly at funerals and bar fights, divorces and police raids.
As the Hedbo incident confirmed, the situation in the world has changed - more desperation, more anger, more tribal divisiveness - in ways that are less conducive to satire. Even worse, the anonymity of the internet now robs us of the crucial cues we need to determine whether what we're seeing is genuine or send-up, satire or hate. And it shields the poster from responsibility, and the consequences of their communication.
George Carlin once observed that, by definition, half of the world's population was below average intelligence. Social media means that every utterance now has an unfiltered world stage. Words matter.
The "Gorilla Channel" episode remains one of the funniest things I have ever had the pleasure to read.
Smith writes:
"I am now prepared to agree that some varieties of expression that may have some claim to being satire should indeed be prohibited."
Okay, well, stay over in France, would you? I like watching Veep and Southpark. And you're a threat to those shows and who knows what else.
2
"'Today’s horrific events only reinforce the idea that we cannot and will not let extremist zealots dictate what we can and cannot say,' is a comment that we will quote, but one that we do with a legitimate sense of uncertainty over whether it could incite an attack against the speaker or their loved ones, a sense of uncertainty that feels awful, grotesque, and wholly unnecessary in this day and age."
https://www.theonion.com/it-sadly-unclear-whether-this-article-will-put-lives-at-1819577328
It's not that satire is indistinguishable from propaganda. It's that humorous falsity is afraid while manipulative falsity thrives on the fear. No one at Fox News fears for their lives as the broadcast countless offensive lies. Why is the Onion afraid then?
I found this very interesting. And I'm not ready to call it heresy. In another news piece today about Mark Zuckerberg and the hate that appears on Facebook, I commented that the Avenue Q song "There's a fine fine line between a lover and a friend" applies to censorship. Have we reached a point where we must censor hate while hoping at the same time that we have enough intelligent people to break down a 1984 Orwellian wall if it should occur? Or has the message of Trump conquered me, an avowed left-of-left liberal?
https://imgur.com/a/8w8vTHE
We trusted in government to protect freedom of speech. Of course there always needs to be some degree of censorship, but only to trim off the most extreme content. By this virtue, we would develop trust with our media to provide fair and balanced news as multiple news outlets would "counter check" each other and help identify the falsehoods. But now in this toxic climate, the freedom of TRUST is at stake. It's not just the end of satire, but of TRUTH.
'Subtlety' also died a quiet death in 2015.
Charlie Hebdo was not satirizing the powerful in France. It was not even criticizing lashings as punishment, used in Saudi Arabia and a few other Muslim countries. It mocked Sharia and the Prophet Muhammad, echoing the Islamophobia of the National Front toward the French Muslim minority. Trump mocks Representative Omar and Central Americans seeking asylum. When satirists punch upward they carve out freedom for the people. Punching downward is oppression.
Why do you assume that one of the world’s most popular and powerful religions is weaker than a couple of satirists sitting in a room somewhere?
Agree and disagree about satire and sources of satire in these times.
Saturday Night Live might be pickled a bit, but their satirical sketches of political appointees, such as Sean Spicer could not have been better, if not truly brilliant. And Steve Bannon as the grim reaper was equally comical. Jimmy Fallon as Trump's son in law was so perfect.
People are all together less "interactive". California has always had a flat affect whereas NYC was a place you could find a joke a minute, forty years ago and more. The world could be becoming more like California (dummer).
There is non mainstream comical material on Prime. Flight of the Conchords, Bored to Death, to name a few, and standup lesser known and cleaner comedians shows.
During the Depression of 2010, also known as the "Great Recession" there were LA standup comedy shows to stream. (The comedy channel?) There is a ton of talent down in LA.
But the broadcast of their performances has been nixed.
Sports, sports junk, tv shopping, and meaningless empty drivel like "sit-coms" prevail on network TV. HBO and AT&T show mostly violence-based entertainment.
Many readers enjoy the NYTimes because it has many satirical op-ed writers.
Satire has weight when life is too unbalanced. But when language (media) is simultaneously at risk, we need more powerful satire. Hence, we develop satirical horror to inform and motivate -- Sorry to Bother You. Get Out. Our literature muscles up -- The Sellout. And our fantasy snarls while it inspires.
There may always be richer and poorer but this abundant world will not abide too great a divide between us. Our younger folk witness a discrepancy every day and are using new tools to find agreement where possible but foremost to correct this national and global divide. Until all have enough, we are naive not to expect high tech protests or violent rebellions.
Any scent of "camps" will ignite deep objection. Among older folk, the Nazis, Fascists, Hiroshima, McCarthy, Vietnam, Kent State are not forgotten. Unspeakable wars, foreign and domestic, despite the myth of their 'unifying' and the truth of their money-making, hurt us and maim the world.
I am not sure how, without trustworthy media, our species will learn to discern truth, agree to observe core values, and share resources and power, but we are crafty animals. We will either learn or self-destruct.
A crucial distinction is whethe rthe reader KNOWS they're reading satire. That's the difference between possibly crass satire and mendacious (often right wing) hoax. The piece should not be a fraud. The reader should be in on the joke, and the satire should, like good irony, use absurdity to make its point. Anyone reading A Modest Proposal literally will think the author insane, but a knowing reader may have their eyes opened to a topic on which they wouldn't have read or learned as much from a polemical article.
2019 is so bizarre that it's beyond satire.
1
Every time I need a distraction from the latest Trumpian Theatre of The Absurd and the sycophants in his administration, I count myself lucky to get the "News" in my in-box from none other the brilliant satirist Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker.
His writings make me laugh out loud, and save me from having to make a weekly appointment with a psychiatrist.
The problem with satire in the US seems to be that a large portion of Americans don't understand satire at all.
1
I think part of the problem is the strict compartmentalization of satire as a purely political pursuit. Satire has much wider implications and possibilities. The overload of political satire has rendered it kind of hacky. There's a much wider field of targets; this field is currently too crowded, too trampled, and not very fertile. There are other things in life than politics. Academic humourlessness, for example.
I understand some courts judge satire in a libel lawsuit by asking whether a reasonable person could reasonably believe the satire was literally true. Context is important. There are subtle ways to signal satire.
When satire, subtly signaled as such, is posted on interactive electronic media accessible worldwide then more people will miss the subtle signals. It’s prudent to keep that in mind when posting or viewing.
So satire is regulated now in the west under the law of defamation. You can be successfully sued in some jurisdictions if what you say is false and defamatory and you didn’t sufficiently signal that you’re joking to make a point. But whether you successfully signaled that your post is satire is now more difficult to determine. Some people always miss the signal, that isn’t new, but reasonable viewers from one culture are more likely to miss subtle signals posted by someone from a different culture.
The old maxim “When in Rome do as Rome does” doesn’t help so much when the whole world can quickly go hang out in Rome at little cost in time and effort.
So if you want to regulate satire I understand you to say you want to regulate it differently. If that means replacing a “reasonable person” standard with a subjective standard then watch out. We may start fighting wars to determine whether I get to send you away to the re-education camps or you get to send me.
1
The difference between satire and mockery seems to be beyond the understanding of this professor of philosophy.
That's the intellectual failing here. But there's also a gutlessness in the face of tough challenges presented by new forms of communication and intersections of cultures.
We're going to need to do better than this if we're going to avoid panicking our way into a muzzled society and a future of significantly reduced freedoms (in thought and, therefore, inevitably in other ways).
This reads more like the musings of a nervous bureaucrat than a Socratic analyst.
The columnist misses the point that most people protesting satire miss and is well illustrated by the Salman Rushdie affair. The book, which i did read, was an intense satirical attack on a man, a particularly murderous Ayatollah, not on the underlying religion.
In keeping with my belief in Justice Black’s almost universal deference to the First Amendment’s protections for free speech up to the point where such speech either puts others in danger (yelling fire in a crowded theater) or restricts another’s speech in some way, the question today is choosing one’s news sources wisely. This is much easier said than done, and I sometimes even question my near total reliance on The Times. Well, it’s the best I can do but at least I allow myself to read whatever is out there and might pass for news, and not jump to the conclusion that what wants to pass as fact is instead fiction or, sometimes, simply humor. The Onion taught me as well to be careful in distinguishing fact from fiction, like the time I read about the pride of lions roaring their way up Madison Avenue...
3
If ever there was an argument for making sure that the teaching of humanities needs to regain it's status alongside STEM education it's this.
9
@Hern
The other point of view is that the analytical skills acquired through STEM education are the tools required to determine the context of any discussion, literate or not, and which allow the recognition of satire.
@TVCritic
Geeks do not get it. No matter what '"it" is. That's the definition of "geek" aka STEM. Not prejudices speaking here, experience.
TVCritic: "... the analytical skills acquired through STEM education are the tools required to determine the context of any discussion, literate or not, and which allow the recognition of satire."
Name a STEM curriculum in which satire, irony, ambiguity, etc. are studied. For more terms, see, for example:
* "The Oxford dictionary of literary terms" by Chris Baldick.
* "A dictionary of literary terms" by J.A. Cuddon.
1
When referring to satire generated by robots, Mr. Smith states that these bots have no intentions, which is true for our current robots. However, in the not to distant future there will be robots that think exactly like humans - if they're fed the same ridiculous beliefs that humans consume. If left free of the beliefs found in human societies, these robots will show us how we're built to think.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
I'm not sure what's worse: the debasement of authentic satire by social media, or public policy made in 240 characters or less.
6
There IS a difference between satire and, say, propaganda or other types of statements that appear to be true but are not. And that is that satire intends to be humorous. It is not intended to be taken as true, except, maybe, in the initial moments, until the reader discovers and realizes that someone is making a point by being ridiculous, by mocking what someone in that voice might be imagined to have said. The intention is all. Fake news, or what passes for news on Fox, is not intended to be funny. It is intended to make a point that the writers wish to be true. It is to be taken seriously. And not doubted. There is still a place for satire, although not many people are good at it. It requires intelligence, wit, and cleverness. And when done well, can be devastating. I wish Al Franken were still viable as a political commentator. That was a strength of his.
10
Unfortunately some of us (myself included) seem genetically unable to detect satire and need someone else to point it out. When I first listened to “A Prairie Home Companion” on Minnesota Public Radio in the 1970s I thought I’d found a genuine small-town radio program conducted by a folksy guy named Garrison Keillor and was embarrassed when my friends pointed out that it was “fake news.” I stopped listening for a few years but got over it, forgave Keillor, and resumed listening, as an “insider” in the know. But I was always (still am) bothered by the subtle bullying nature of satire...it sets up a situation where the promulgator/writer/performer holds special knowledge that is concealed from at least some of the audience, who become subjects of ridicule by those in the know.
@Martha
Um, Martha - A Prairie Home Companion was faux news in the same sense that Beyonce is about Black feminism. Neither one is quite satire, just fantasy. Or, cultural appropriation, if you prefer. And both perfectly permissible and unlike anything on FixNews, IMHO. Also, nothing satirical whatsoever. You may wish to migrate to to NPR, if you like fantasy.
1
I am not sure I understand the concern of the author. The key basis for criticizing a public message is intent. Thus the (sometimes subtle) difference between satire and defamation. If intent is unclear or cannot be resolved with time, that is in itself naturally a problem. It is also definitely a problem if intent is misunderstood leading to undesirable eg antisocial behavior.
By the way, a classic example of a miscontrued message, if there ever was one, is the radio transmission of Wells' War of the Worlds. More recently, the nuclear attack warning issued in Hawaii a while back? Not satire by any means, but not grounds for the same level of critique as the intent was not to harm.
2
The left was in a good position when it was only the right that didn’t seem to understand satire, but now the problem is that the younger generation on the left also doesn’t understand satire.
10
I love satire but I do not mistake satire for comedy or the other way around. Satire is meant to hurt or render its subject harmless. "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is not, on the whole, conducive of laughter. What is "going too far" if not advocating eating Irish babies to solve overpopulation and famine? Swift's target was social policy as made by the British in Ireland. Neither the Brits or the Irish found that laughable but many grinned at the irony.
More people laughed at "Gulliver's Travels" but it was still satire. Juvenal satirized his Rome but even the lightest hearts among Latin scholars found much of it funny.
Steve Colbert can hardly be described as "palliative care" for anyone, especially the crowds of candidates who call themselves Liberals or Progressives. The fact that Colbert can find anything funny about the Trump administration makes him too optimistic to be considered a pure satirist. Professor Smith overestimates Saturday Night Live by calling it satire. Aside from Weekend Update, they are out for laughs. The satire is incidental and not intentional (which may explain why there are too few laughs on a so-called comedy show). But Professor Smith underestimates the public's ability to sort it all out. The easiest way to kill a joke is to explain it. That confuses autopsy with corrective surgery.
1
I just returned from a trip to the island of Rhodes in Greece where I bought a wonderful book called "Rhodes 1306-1522, A Story". It is by the late Vangelis Pavlidis one of Greece's greatest political cartoonists. It is both a satire and a cartoon history about the period when the Goths, Seljuks, Turks, Crusaders and others tried to rule Rhodes. It is wonderful because there is no hint of political correctness and all parties come in for equal visual and verbal satire. His attitude seems to be if you are a Christian an Arab or a Turk and you are offended, you just need to grow a thicker skin. I found it very amusing and so refreshing.
2
The world of toxic disinformation has come about at the nexus of the new technology of social media and a public hungry for information and amusement.
Unfortunately so far too many are being lured into believing that Facebook is a news source. And that real news is either not accessible or too much effort.
There is only way to move forward and to challenge so called media sites such as Facebook, propaganda monsters of our time.
Not by regulation nor by prohibition. But by education and knowledge.
These keys to success in counteracting the truly fake media, rests on basic traits in the very nature of humans. Which is the desire for truth, honesty, and integrity. Not just within ourselves, but with each other and in the world around.
Satire will survive as the language of outrage under tyranny.
The fact that it can be confused for propaganda is not a failure, but the key to its survival.
5
I feel like conversations like this are based on the assumption that we simply cannot rely on other human's intuition. I don't think we can at the moment, but surely it would be better for society to have better thinkers than to take away what they don't understand.
2
Here is where information literacy is key. Librarians working in schools now endeavor to teach students how to evaluate information and media content, and it's incumbent upon those of us who are no longer in school to educate ourselves. Indeed, the best way to show our children that information literacy matters is by putting this form of literacy into practice ourselves, and discussing it with children.
5
I remember when the legendary satirist/advertising mogul Stan Freberg was fretting over how political correctness was eroding the ability to sensibly debate various topics as polarization was setting in. (He'd spoofed that as early as the late '50s with the parody "Elderly Man River", & was still talking about the subject in the '90s & early 2000s.)
These days, forums such as "Saturday Night Live" & the late-night talk shows seem somewhat less relevant amid the self=parody of the current presidency & the prevalent deniers.
As the playwright George S. Kaufman wrote regarding the absence of wit on Broadway, "Satire is what closes on Saturday night". In this era, that's true.
3
I hate to bring up Orwell but damn. You really think it's good idea to protect us from your definition of Hate speech. Some ideas, ideas mind you, cannot be expressed by anyone. Some only by certain Identities. This attitude seems to be supported by the paper of record here in the good old usa.
5
Even racist misogynist homophobes can find satire hurtful and offensive.
2
Life has always been risk, especially if you make fun of power. Punching down may be considered in bad taste, but punching up is risky in world where some are willing to die for their cause.
Test your level of agreement by posting publicly under your name anything negative about one group's prophet.
1
Every now and then a legitimate news story is commented upon by asking "What does The Onion write about these days?" That's not a comment on the shortage of satire but a comment on the weirdness of the things that get reported by news organizations.
5
Satire works because the reader recognizes an underlying truth which is the basis for the humor. But the ironic use of a symbol like the swastika is just an inside joke, a sly wink and nod to those in the know. It's cultural graffiti, not satire.
4
If you can satirize death, satire can never die.
1
Sigh.
I happened to be in France at that time, like me some philosophy, and don’t have an asteroid named after me let alone a nice faculty posit in Paris, so I was disappointed to see the whomping up of the same old silly fantasies that every progressive got together at some glorious meeting and voted to attack memorializing Charlie Hebdo.
Which, as a bristly guy at the Rue d’abbesses news kiosk told me while I was buying the famous edition with Mohammed on the cover, is pronounced “Sharli.”
Ease up on the right-wing attacks, okay? Especially when they’re the typical ones, and leftism generally presents such a rich field of opportunity for intelligent laughter. and even more especially when what you are clearly talking about is that ranting attack on Muslims by a far-right nutjob...without, for some reason, saying so.
Otherwise, some anonymous wise guy might point out that if we’re gonna wail about the death of satire, we moght do well to mourn the death of “Mad,” and the rise of that Trump clown.
3
Great article, thanks. The reasons people don't respond well to satire is if they are ignorant of the underlying references, or they are too emotionally invested in the subject to tolerate being mocked, or they're not smart enough to process it. Of course the satire could be poorly rendered, but assuming its not. Also, some people don't have much of a sense of humor.
We truly are going to have to develop new intellectual tools for this age of communication onslaught. Sometimes it feels like we are hydroplaning on information.
6
This is either a poor attempt at satire, or the author is not aware of the First Amendment.
5
Je suis REAL scared of the thrust of this piece... chipping away at free speech, loathesome or otherwise.
4
This is how we lose to the terrorists. This article legitimizes the attacks on Charlie Hedbo at least for their reasoning, if not their execution.
Jail the Comedians is not the answer. Gag them is not the answer. The fact that Justin EH Smith can't always get the joke is not enough for censorship and authoritarian intrusion of the state.
When people want to censor, who do they think the censors will be? It will be people like Putin, Erdogan, Xi. It is the people who burn books and shut down newspapers.
Ban the Onion? Put their authors in jail when they don't pay the fines that Mr EH Smith deems vital to society?
Is this meant to be satire Mr EH Smith, cause otherwise it is a grotesque plan that would make your ideological enemies proud.
9
Is this essay itself satire?
7
The Onion is now replaced by the Babylon Bee.
Yeeesh what a grim and dowdy analysis. And the stiff, stuffy, stilted diction of the text reads like it was translated.
Are we sure this isn't some failed effort itself as satire?
7
This is satire.
1
We’re drowning in comedy. We delude ourselves that it makes any difference. Life, for us workers, just isn’t that funny. The best comics of the day assaulted Hitler. How’d that work?
@Joe doaks
Hitler banned Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" in Germany. Satire's irrelevant/ineffectual? I guess die Fuhrer didn't think so.
1
"Comments are moderated for civility " .
4
Much of the quality and the very nature of satire lies in the eye (mind) of the beholder. So, as people become dumber and more limited in outlook they are not going to “get” satire. Also, as extremist conspiracy theories become more and more mainstream, aided by Trump and his idiotic minions, the more satire and sheer idiocy become harder to distinguish. For one man, Hillary Clinton abusing toddlers in the basement of a pizza restaurant is satire; for some idiots this is reality. In an Orwellian universe satire becomes reality.
6
Is this article satire? Or just the effect of too much navel- gazing?
He had me fooled until he talked about regulating satire. The Onion editors would have shortened this piece to make it punchier (and funnier).
6
Satire serves yet another purpose for the thinking masses; It forces us to consider every single thing in light of its probity. This is no small matter.
At first, I believed that most of Trump's supporters were just idiots-- believing in this cartoonish character with a long and verifiable record of fraud, grift and self-promotion. But I have come to believe that many of these Trumpies are simply unable to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. They lack, in some part, critical reasoning faculties that others have.
Regulating satire, in almost any form, is not the answer. Doing so deprives the reasoning majority of an opportunity to sift through and evaluate events in a way that is scintillating to many. It eliminates or hampers an entire way of thinking which is not necessarily tied to straight reportage but relies upon the reader to make decisions as they read.
The choice, as made by characters like O'Grady and the Ayatollah, is not to read the material which they fear might offend them. This is as it should be.
Let those who can swim, swim. The rest can stay on the shore.
8
@LKF Or perhaps they don't like the society being constructed using today's new morals and intersectionality and critical theory (an unintentionally mean satire as it relates to critical thinking)
1
"If you don't have a sense of humor, it just isn't funny." Wavy Gravy
3
Policing humor – Orwellian idea if I ever heard one.
Tell me how much humor and satire is present in a society, and I’ll tell you how democratic it is. There’s a clear correlation between the oppression of humor and the oppression of people.
Fake news will never pass as a satire because of a fatal flaw – it is not funny. Banning satire is thus a bad, bad idea - resulting from misidentification of the locus of the problem.
Authoritarianism is inoculated against humor of any kind. Satire and humor exposes the inevitable stupidity of the ruling elites and other powerful groups and individuals. That is one of the reasons that democracy and humor go well together and all authoritarian regimes are oh-so-serious and pretentious.
Fundamentalism of any kind - left, right, religious - is the target of satire (as it should be), because of its inherent contradictions, and its pathetic efforts to hide them behind the mask of righteousness.
So, let the fakers fake, but let the people joke…
282
@DT agree - does anyone remember laughter?
'The Left' has become just as reactionary as The Right, with all snowflakes requiring trigger warnings and safe spaces to hear any words they would not have spoken/written/tweeted themselves.
5
@DT not THAT DT, though: Maybe this is related to the fact that Trump has no sense of humor at all. As many people have noted, he never, ever laughs.
7
@DT not THAT DT, though, I don't know why they call it fundamentalism. It's anything but fun and requires nothing mental.
8
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."
We can now apply that law more widely.
5
It became somewhat ironic that at one point in the current administration I had to stop watching the nightly talk shows for comic relief because in the process of their skewering the occupant of the oval office they would bring the daily actions and words of that character right into my bedroom and ruin my hopes of a good night's sleep.
3
One very simple fix for this and a host of other societal problems: declare the social media companies to be publishers, just like the Times (and the Onion, the print version). In this way they are legally responsible for their content. Slander, libel, hate speech etc. will make them subject to lawsuits that will quickly teach them to police their own publications.
I suspect that they would institute a time lag so that each post can be vetted by one of thousands of human editors, thus creating new jobs and spreading some of the ridiculous wealth around. The time lag, unpopular as it may be, would also cool down the level of anger and inappropriate rhetoric. The small fly-by-night publications (right and left) would either disappear or recede back into the shadowy swamps where these things always existed.
None of this need involve criminal penalties, just civil ones, akin to the penalties involved in cutting down your neighbor's tree. Also, instead of endlessly writing rules to try to stay ahead of the trolls, the chance of being sued will make the companies cautious; a combination of angry citizens, judges and company lawyers will do the job for us.
84
@laurence But they do not produce the content, and your demands for them to police the content is a violation of their rights, the rights of those who are creating the content, and of course is what converts them from providing a communications vehicle (such as airwaves, Internet, cable, phone wires, paper/pen).
7
@David Many newspapers don't produce their content either, they reprint from AP, etc. or they use independent writers. They are still publishers and subject to the law.
20
@laurence. This is not nearly "very simple" or a "fix". Just what our over caffeinated and overpopulated legal system needs: another happy hunting ground for litigation, elaborate warnings, and excessive caution.
5
As a lover of satire, especially in French, I can appreciate the difficulty in discerning how and why to retort. This is why my
favorite publication is Le canard enchaîné, whose audience and
targets are on the same page. When you are as constrained as
Canard readers are, you can enjoy the subtlety and its effects
without fear of intercession by a hostile government or trolls
under the bridge.
I do wish that the Canard commentary had been able to follow one of its favorite and deserving targets, BHL, wearing a buttoned-up shirt for once, paraded through American cable
venues, proving that plus que ça change, plus que c’est la même chose.
Certainly, today’s satirists have much material and much resistance to counter , but sometimes we get lucky. Stephen Colbert is one of the best hopes, as his immediate responses
do not require as much digestion and reflection and have an International and available audience who not require a literary
background .
26
@Catherine Borchmann
The distinction between Le canard enchaine and internet taken as a whole is that the readers of the former typically possess an education, a sense of security, and a life experience far superior to that of so many millions of internet users. As one of the contributors to another NYT column of this day noted, the internet is a mirror reflecting its users.
3
@Catherine Borchmann
He has not yet matched Jon Stuart whose satirical news produced classics. No one has matched Stuarts facial expressions when he showed news stories about ridiculous pols or celebrities. I wish him a long and happy marriage and retirement. And, I miss him.
5
Snark has displaced satire in many digital forums, to the point where hate, threats, and even warfare become a matter of pride for the snarkster. Satire, in my mind needs more planning and a vision of sorts--to inform by a kind of paradoxical reasoning that causes further thought and reflection. But these methods are not common patterns on the Internet of Reaction. As far as Rushdie, and even Hebdo and the Gorilla Channel, go, there was a great deal of reasoning put into the creation of those satires, even if they were offensive to fundamentalists.
2
Socrates was killed by Aristophanes' satire in the Apology (c. 399 BCE) - so it is hardly a modern phenomenon.
"These earlier ones, however, are more so, gentlemen; they got hold of most of you from childhood, persuaded you and accused me quite falsely, saying that there is a man called Socrates, a wise man, a student of all things in the sky and below the earth, who makes the worse argument the stronger." (Plato 18b)
We have no need for satire with Trump encouraging the right to destroy the planet for ever greater profits, and the left destroying democracy in its totalitarian efforts to impose its social justice agenda, which largely boils down to Hate White Males. The latter is far more entertaining, of course, as it eats its own in frantic witch hunts, devouring anyone and everyone for any minor historical missteps that can possibly be interpreted as offending this week's progressive orthodoxy. It would be so much funnier if it weren't so terrifying.
1
Where is Frank Zappa,when we need him!
6
Please do not paint all "American progressives" with the same broad brush. Many, if not most, were on the side of Charlie Hebdo. Most believe in freedom of expression regardless of whom it offends.
6
Thank you for the Gorilla Channel reminder! I'm chuckling again remembering that genius bit. Totally believable - wherein lies the problem, I guess.
1
I'd add, much of what is labelled satire or joking isn't. You can't tell the difference because people use the label to pretend they didn't mean what they clearly said and meant.
For example, Donald Trump Jr. took his father's request to Russia to hack Clinton's emails and called it a "joke". But of course, it wasn't, because there's no universe where that remark is funny or incisive.
Or Ann Couler suggesting that someone should poison a justice so the republican president can nominate his replacement. Joking, she said! Really, how so?
Of course, truly awful people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to be applauded for saying horrible things to their horrible fans. But they don't want to be criticized, so they call it some form of humor. The horrible fans cooperate by laughing, but have you noticed? It's not a happy belly laugh. It's the sneering laugh of a cartoon villain, with fist pumping, and a lot of angry yelling.
Because the audience doesn't think for a second it's a joke. I have seen something of the sort that is actually a funny and satirical bit where the actor says something outrageous, then says, "no, I didn't mean that, just joking", and then turns to the camera and mouths "not joking" to the audience. Exactly what's going on.
5
Satire is built around the two pillars; ethics and morality, so no wonder its dead, where and who are you going to sell morality and ethic too in modern day society. Just go to any party, step on waste paper basket and start yelling about ethics and morality, see where that will get you, especially if you set yourself in the path of the beer cooler...you know where all your fancy talk of ethics and morality will get you? It will get you thrown out the door..that's what it will get you.
I take it that this was not a satirical piece on how people view satire.
1
The problem with satire is that in this increasingly ridiculous world, no matter how ridiculous a satirical piece is, it could just as easily be true. It has become impossible to write satire that people won't believe as fact.
7
"....or is it the palliative care for liberals offered up by Stephen Colbert and the other the late-night talkers, or by “Saturday Night Live,” now into its fifth decade of tedium"...
SNL for liberals? SNL takes no prisoners nor leaves any stone unturned, witness the recent Biden skits. Without its over the top hyperbole, satire begins to look like the 24/7 news in much of today's media where, too, ridiculousness knows no boundaries.
4
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize." - Tom Lehrer
5
Didn't satire die (for a time) at the hands of the zealots in Late Antiquity? I fear we're at a similar juncture.
Mirth, sympathy, annoyance, disbelief and even anger can all trigger laughter. Laughing at a particular joke can be triggered by opposite emotions. Satire was always meant to bring the sort of laughter that had a big dose of derision and mockery. Even those who laugh at satire may occasionally feel it inappropriate to laugh. It's no surprise that the targets of satire feel anger and frustration, and those who can, often demand a satire free environment for themselves. They claim - usually with some justification - that satire is just another tool of their historic mistreatment.
Satire at one's own expense is perhaps the only relatively safe subject, although even that is changing. Larry David was harshly condemned for his Holocaust joke on Saturday Night Live.
1
Satire makes use of irony, which requires some awareness of time , place and circumstance.
4
More calls for censorship by those who desire a new cultural revolution.
I remember the open letter from some writers about Charlie Hebdo and "the cultural arrogance of the french nation" ... How many of them did understand french ? Oh wait, you don't need no comprehension when you're sure to be right.
2
One clear trait of the authoritarian is total lack of humor (see Trump). Dictators hate being laughed at, which is what satirical humor does. Satire pokes holes in pompous despots and extremists' 'movements'. And they hate that. There is no satire in an authoritarian police state.
6
“Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” — Jonathan Swift
5
The problem is not satire but anonymity. Satirists do not try to hide their identities. Mischief on the internet, by contrast, takes great pains to obscure its origin.
6
@M. Anononymity is not a "problem." It works fine. Up until her recent outing, Titania McGrath was unknown for everything except her exceptionally funny twees on wokeness.
1
Satire is like art: I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it (and vice versa).
This article just exposes the danger of addiction to social media, the non-stop, roadside-car-accident bait of our not-so-brave new world.
1
Unfortunately we have become so absorbed in our toxic individual specialness we are no longer able to handle criticism or inappropriate comments by others. The old expression that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is no longer applicable. Too bad. Hopefully this too shall pass.
3
Satire requires a frame of reference, a shared world view, in order to have meaning. The satirical piece requires a description of actions which are exaggerations of usual behavior that go beyond the bounds of that frame of reference, so that the usual behavior is exposed for the lack of thought or consistency which underlies it.
When information is broadcast to various societies with significantly different world views, the satire may no longer be recognized because the exaggeration is not apparent to an alternative frame of reference, e.g. Satanic Verses in countries with Sharia law.
What has happened now is that social media has fractured world views from several common constructs into many individualized points of view, and every person feels entitled and empowered to "see the world the way I see it". No doubt the process has been expedited by a poor general fund of knowledge, internet trolls private and state, and psychological ploys, but ultimately the audience for satire has shrunken, and the distribution of satire has increased, leading to lack of appreciation by the viewer or reader, which is death to satire, basically a performance art.
A simple illustration of this phenomenon is the bewilderment about many posts in Comments where readers ask "Is this satire or is a he a far [left or right] troll?"
4
@TVCritic
That's called "Poe's Law."
2
Myself, I just ask if it’s funny, which is pretty much the first duty of satire anyway. That lets me figure out the politics, if I should want to; after all, funny right-wing stuff’s really pretty thin on the ground.
Well, in fairness, right-wing stuff’s generally not funny if you’re a) a girl, b) unamused by loud threats, c) unamused by the endless repeats of Hannity’s “jokes,” d) older than about eleven.
2
@Russian Bot
Thank you for informing me about this eponymous reference. Beyond the precincts of the social posters, I hope my exploration of the mechanisms involved brought some added value to the conversation.
1
The article reminds one of the rabbi joke about all sides being right, even the one pointing out the contradiction. One "simple" solution would be the labeling of satire as such (Like the Borowitz Report -"not the news" in the New Yorker). For me it would not take away from the cleverness of it all, and enforcement would require effort, but so does doing anything to address the "information pollution" of fake news.
1
I am a high school English and journalism teacher, and Smith is right on with the public's inability to discern satire from truth. When we throw fake news into the pile, it is even more complicated. This goes back to Johnathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal" (1729) about solving starvation in Ireland by eating babies. I try to take my students through these mucky waters --to use a metaphor and another layer of confusion for some--but patient teachers need to tackle these literacy skills.
15
One of the problems with satire is, as the author points, that not everyone can understand it. In my estimation, background knowledge of the society being lampooned is crucial.
My wife, a wonderful companion of many years was born in Germany and raised by her parents in NYC from the age of 11. Her knowledge of the humor and irony in our society is minimal. She looks at satire and takes it at face value.
An example: On a rural road near our home, mail boxes line the road. There is one that is on a pole about 18 feet high, painted bright yellow and conspicuously marked BILLS. The first time she saw it, she openly wondered how the usps got mail up to it. I had to point out that it was a joke.
6
This is an extremely complex subject, and I appreciate the discussion to start it in earnest. I would add the following:
How many of our fathers were laughing WITH Archie Bunker in 1972, rather than at him, as the brilliant satirist Norman Lear intended? The show's astronomical ratings and the subsequent election of Donald Trump would suggest that more of us agreed with Archie Bunker and his name calling than we would care to admit.
Second, this raises the question of Bread and Circuses, American version. We are drowning in entertainment right now. Is that okay if we are supposed to be a mature society? Must everything be humorous and entertaining at all times? Can we really just keep insisting that anything funny can be written off as harmless? Really?
9
"I am now prepared to agree that some varieties of expression that may have some claim to being satire should indeed be prohibited. I note this not with a plan or proposal for where or how such a prohibition might be enforced,"
Let's just leave enforcement up to the people who make laws and have their own police forces, jails and courts (the government). Can't go wrong that way, right?
4
As someone who appreciates satire and even occasionally pens some, I can attest to the fact that some people get it and some don't. Literalists are usually the ones who don't. One creative challenge of writing satire is to dance along the line between truth and fiction where the story could be true, but there are just enough subtle clues to know it is not. Subtlety being the operative characteristic. Listen to the three stories on NPRs "Wait, wait. Don't tell me!" and you see how this works. It's one form of satire to go over the top in an obvious way like Saturday Night Live. That requires it's own talent to carry off. But the subtle satirist, ah, there's a different talent at work. Apologies for clever satire missed by some will not be forthcoming. So, "Not sorry, DJT."
8
I am pleased to see The Stone get back to publishing essays in philosophy. I hope this continues.
Today's essay addresses a real problem in a thoughtful way. It doesn't offer a simplistic answer. Often society cannot move forward on an issue because too many people think in slogans. Philosophy can contribute by making people see that their thinking is inadequate. This is more necessary now than ever.
5
So the philosopher of satire was naïve about humanity's willingness to harm others, and overestimated the intelligence of the general population. In 2019 that reads like satire in itself; good work!
8
This column is so unusual and so welcome: it exposes a problem without pretending to solve it. The almost universal nature of opinion columns is to suggest what we should do, which can be comforting, and can be useful. But what Dr. Smith has done is much more like real life.
It is a breath of fresh air.
18
Thanks for this expansion of Poe's Law.
"Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism." Nathan Poe
13
I used to watch Saturday Night Live occasionally, but the Weekend Update was the only part I consistently enjoyed. It's biting and realistic takes on the news of the day never failed to crack me up, and sometimes enlightened me a bit too.
Every now and then I see a post where the author is using satire but someone takes it seriously. The phrase "turn up your satire detector" seems to help. Unfortunately, some people don't have one, and others have been desensitized the the weirdness of events and the proliferation of even weirder ideas.
Ending satire is like defeating terrorism. You can defeat terrorists, and you can discourage satirists, but they are techniques, not events.
6
An important facet of satire that Mr. Smith does not mention is that satire - real satire, not just making fun of something - is always based on a moral standard and lampoons those who fall below that standard. This was true of Horace, Juvenal, Jonathan Swift, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin.
In an age where "moral standards" no longer exist, there is no possibility of recognizing satire. This has led to the POE law regarding online comments: so much of today's satire is indistinguishable from what someone else considers true and reasonable, the satirist must indicate that the remark is sarcastic, ironic, or satiric.
As many have pointed out, what President Trump says or tweets is so outre that if readers did not know he said it, many would consider it a joke. As Lewis Black, another satirist, points out, facts are the basis of opinions; now that facts are ignored and replaced by opinions, the game is over.
22
Having commented on the "mission" statement of Fox News Rupert Murdoch finally admitted what most of Us nearly extinct Satirists knew: that Fox news actually is a hotbed of Satire! Once again doing its job to perfection the satirical comments were taken as fact- even by Satirists!
6
Professor Smith's critique may identify a genuine problem, but his vague advocacy of some form of censorship unintentionally offers aid and comfort to individuals, groups and institutions which exercise power over others and therefore deserve scrutiny in an effort to curb their abuse of that power. The fact that satire often devolves into vicious attacks on vulnerable elements of society (in the form of racist and antisemitic slanders, for example) constitutes a serious problem for a free society. While censorship in some European nations drives open denials of the Holocaust underground, however, hostile public opinion in the US accomplishes the same goal without curbing freedom of expression.
The authentic purpose of satire centers on exposing the truth beneath a surface reality that obscures it. Swift's "A Modest Proposal," mentioned by other readers, accurately identified the effects and implicit purpose of Britain's policy toward Ireland. Indifference rather than malice may have motivated the policy, but in either case contempt for the Irish lay at its heart.
The subtlety that characterizes good satire poses problems for writers and cartoonists today because our president behaves like a caricature of an evil buffoon. A realistic portrait of Trump includes so many cartoonish characteristics that exaggeration becomes almost impossible. Gorilla TV? If the creatures were female, he probably would love it.
52
@James Lee
"A realistic portrait of Trump includes so many cartoonish characteristics that exaggeration becomes almost impossible."
When the reality exceeds farce, there's no where to take the satire.
And today, viciousness and malevolent intent no longer have to be hidden, "obscured" or denied by the actors, it's all in plain sight and indeed they all share in the glory of it's repugnance. When you make a public mockery of somebody's handicap and have a crowd cheer, it's hard to imagine sinking to a lower depth of human depravity than that.
15
@James Lee
Were they female, Prez'd probably be up for a cameo.
2
Some of the readers of ‘The Satanic Verses’ in the 1980s also had difficulty distinguishing satire from blasphemy. So what’s new here?
2
Ending satire would be a sad story indeed, especially in this time and age of News Media disinformation, where a credulous population is unable, if not unwilling, to separate fact from fiction, and to ascribe to satire the need to bring down arrogant and presumptuous political hacks, not so much to change their abusive stance of self-serving...but to show how ridiculous they are when unable to laugh about themselves, stiffs as they are. The fact of having too many folks out there unable to separate the grain from chaff, distrustful of governmental institutions and yet wanting entertainment by believing fantastic mermaid stories, not realizing they were all fabricated for our consumption, is creating fertile ground for demagogues to fill a void that satire ought to fill. These Trumpian times, disgraceful as they are, may yet bring a renewal of constructive criticism essential in any democracy worth it's name. And what better a way than through satire. And if reasonable propaganda is the vehicle to help us see it's value, go for it. Just remember that the freedom to say things based on the truth has it's perils as well.
4
I recall multiple Monty Python skits where some sort of visible indicator would pop up indicating that this was a joke of some sort. The signs themselves were good for a laugh on a show devoted to the silly, the sarcastic and the sublimely stupid.
Possibly we need some visible indicators of that sort in some places to guide the satire-impaired and non-native English speakers. I don't think having an alert at the end would deplete the entire joke preceding it.
6
I’m often reminded of the Joe Isuzu advertisements. ‘He’s Lying.’
We should say : saturation of satire . That would be doubly funny .
Satire is defensible when it announces itself as satire. Reading the first chapter of The Satanic Verses, you know the author isn't going for realism. You don't turn on Saturday Night Live expecting a straight news report, and you know the articles in the Onion are fictional. Someone who is trying to confuse you about whether what you're seeing is real or not is being deceptive, not satirical. Eventually, fake news and social media disinformation is going to stop working, because even if people like believing in fiction, they don't like being lied to.
117
@Mark
Thanks for this post, Mark. If I could give you another thousand recommends I would.
In the the ultimate consumption of satire the reader or the watcher has to make the humor call. Sadly, those able to access the level of informed judgement required to appreciate satire are slipping in number.
trump flat out lies to thousands at each of his rallies and they lap it up. Of course, that's not satire. It's really happening and it's indicative of how much we've lost.
6
People don't like being lied to?
Oh God, I wish that were true. But a lifetime living amongst various human tribes convinces me otherwise. I'm afraid it's in our DNA, and in the structure of our brain.
11
@Mark Thank you Mark! You made the point in a succinct and intelligent manner.
1
Fraud, libel, and slander are all tests that can be applied to the edges of satire, and public statements more generally, and they all exist under current law.
3
The biggest problem with satire is things keep happening that are worse than the satirists predict. Imagine trying to predict the current electoral scene. No one would believe you.
8
Political satire, as is stated in the sub-header, has become not only futile and powerless, but annoyingly insipid.
SNL parodies of Trump have become painful to watch.
As such, I don't really see the need to "regulate" it. A "target" such as Trump is so far beyond shaming that it renders the entire exercise moot. Sure, it may infuriate him, but it certainly isn't going to shame him into changing his behavior, it will only make it worse.
Even when historically practiced at it's highest skill level, political satire has always been highly overrated as an effective tool for social change, and in the current environment it is completely over matched. As you say, one can expect nothing more from it than perhaps fleeting palliative effect, and that's if you're a true believer.
Stephen Colbert, in the greatest and bravest piece of satire I've ever seen, exploded at the 2006 Correspondents Dinner the equivalent of a thermonuclear satirical device at the feet of George W. Bush at the height of the Iraq folly.
It had absolutely no effect. For me, that was the day satire officially died, although I was probably kidding myself all along that it ever mattered at all.
46
@JayK As long as it infuriates him, that's all that matters.
6
@Daniel SNL is a comedy show. It's not funny anymore. I can hardly laugh at what this president is doing to my country. Not funny. People need to stop laughing at him. How can we laugh when people are suffering?
4
@EG Because ironically humor is the best weapon against mental tyranny.
An important function of satire and humor in general is that, traditionally, it mobilized political power. Large numbers of people suddenly see an absurdity they didn’t see before and they change their minds. The absurdity of Donald Trump criticizing anyone for bigotry, cruelty, corruption, lying, etc., etc.,..., is routinely exposed through satire. But is it changing minds? Marginally, yes, but not in the numbers I would have expected. Why not? Why do the sins of Donald Trump not repel the religious right, for example? Is it that being swept up in a media frenzy is a more powerful force than morals, laws or traditional norms? It apparently is. Trump counters the corrective force of satire with the pollution of lies, the entertainment value of farce, and the countervailing force of being swept up in the passions of mob psychology. Having an immoral president is just the price we have to pay for achieving the party’s goals, getting “Conservative” judges, for example.
We’ve seen it before, morals, laws and norms can all be dissolved through peer pressure manipulated by a skilled demagogue.
5
I think Charles Blow’s column today answers those questions pretty well.
1
@Tom Wild
Good article. Thanks. But why is bad good for fans of the folk hero? Because bad is often more effective at achieving an end in view, a short run goal. It’s especially effective if everyone else is playing by the rules.
It's worth noting that Saudia Arabia purchased a large stake in the Independent newspaper, which is where Sean O'Grady published his absolutely despicable take on Salman Rushdie. The fact that Saudi totalitarians can find common ground with self described liberals and get them to publish such propaganda shows us what liberalism has turned into, which would be a movement that has lost it's values in the name of appearing the most "woke." This cowardice is what makes liberals political vulnerable to people like Donald Trump. Also, Salman Rushdie is more woke than any of the people who complain about his book, the liberals included.
15
Satire requires analysis and evaluation. In our word engorged world, nobody wants to bother to think about what they read. "Give me the Cliff notes, abridged version, movie so I and see the plot and discard the characters and action." We are ceasing to be a thinking society, engrossed in work or entertainment. Ripe picking for a wanna be dictator.
5
I appreciate your angst as you argue to ban some speech, the slipperiest of slopes.
You're right. Look at a National Lampoon from the early 1970's, and you'll note that everyone was fair game. Everyone, that is, who presents themselves as better than their fellow humans. Today, such people often would be distinguished by their zealotry on behalf of the planet or Israel or white men.
Satire was more effective when we could see ourselves, laugh, and learn from it that we are celestially lonely creatures who have kinda agreed upon a story about an omnipotent being who attests to our special needs.
When violent people cite satire as their trigger, we should ban satire. Wow. What a conclusion. That's almost as ridiculous as banning asylum seekers because Trump supporters suffer from crippling xenophobia.
In my home town lived a man who believed that caterpillars are the conduit of the deity's love, and so every day when the weather permitted this man lay in his front yard covered in caterpillars shouting about the grace of his Savior. Did other people in his neighborhood find this behavior insane and disruptive? Sure, but this is religion we're talking about.
None of that story is true, but people throughout this world disrupt other people's lives by shouting out their fantasy as if it were ordained truth. So, perhaps my story is satire.
The true Nanny Culture shields sensitive culture warriors from a grotesque image in the mirror. Good morning. May I tell you the good news?
9
Disagree. Satire is alive and well thanks to Trump. Just watch late-night TV to see him being eviscerated for his endless litany of lies like "wind farms cause cancer" and "my father was born in Germany."
4
Satire is like pornography in that I know it when I see it.
It is unlike pornography in that I turn to it, not away from it, when I see it.
In either case, censorship is neither wise nor possible.
Inculcating critical capacity in humans is the only answer.
9
Satire is the product of a culture's ability to think critically. Small wonder, then, that ours is dying on the vine.
10
'“Saturday Night Live,” now into its fifth decade of tedium.'
Come now, no need to project!
4
Regulation? Outlandish.
Common sense and decency on behalf of the publishers? Probably.
As a regular reader of The Onion I saw what was easily one of the most insensitive articles they had done in a long time. Something about how to get more heroin overdoses or something like that. I often push their articles out on my feed. No way on that one.
How about this: if you find something offensive, stop reading it. Why is it the answer to everything for the liberal elite to create yet one more law or regulation? Don't read it or turn it off.
5
I experienced the lack of sophistication for humor or satire myself last Halloween. On Halloween Day, I had a moment of inspiration and wrote a Halloween joke about the real reason that Trump feared the approaching caravan of migrants was that it was filled with zombies that, learning that white supremacists were inherently superior, wanted to eat the brains of such superior people, especially what must be the delectable brain of the "stable genius" in the White House. I wrote it as a flash news item and to make sure readers would know it was a joke I signed off as "Digger Trench from Fake News" and placed a grinning jack o' lantern at the end of the piece. I posted it on Facebook and tried to boost it, but to my astonishment, FB disapproved it (Do bots not know that zombies are not real, only imaginary creatures?) and flagged me as a possible terrorist. It took me two months to convince FB that I was not a terrorist and was not funded by any terrorist organization before they would allow me to again boost any of my writing.
5
Leave it to a philosopher to analyze Nero’s song structure while Rome burns.
56
@Claude Vidal
Touche! Monsieur Vidal...well done.
3
@Claude Vidal
That is what philosophers do. Context is the foundation. Was it a Mozart Requiem or a barn dance?
3
""I am now prepared to agree that some varieties of expression that may have some claim to being satire should indeed be prohibited."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slippery slope, Mr. Professor. Slippery slope.
10
@Ed
There are many slippery slopes. But the mountain still must be climbed.
1
@Ed Absolutely!!! It's dangerous and problematic that it's the voice of a professor.
1
Again, another word of the english language that came from the french in the 16th century . What were the British saying before ?
Or it did not exist ?
Satire, from satura : melange, medley of prose and poetry
in a play written to criticize the moeurs . mores in english (?) .
This seems to be criticizing the mores about satire, but where is the poetry ?
In my opinion, the absolute best satire for this crazy and awful Trump era is being written by Andy Borowitz. I eagerly look forward to the Borowitz Report each day. It is the only thing that makes me smile and sometimes laugh out loud while enduring this horrific administration.
12
Yup, professional comics may find it hard to satirize our imitation president, or Brexit these days, and the flood of new (gasp!) democratic media makes prior standards uncertain, but I still think the man’s missing the mark.
Unlike humor, which, Mrs. Baumann taught us in eighth grade, can’t be done with a sledgehammer, satire demands enough exaggeration to let most of us in on the intent. True, there are always groups who won’t get it: the stupid, academics generally, legions of mainstream faithful, and current White House staff. However, make it blunt enough, with a basis in some objective reality, and it’s going to be good.
A day does not pass when I don’t regret that George Carlin, HL Mencken (yes, I know, racist), Clemens and the other greats can’t come in for a couple of guest shots. Wearing gorilla suits as needed.
43
@Marat1784
I think it was Mencken who predicted that we would eventually elect a complete moron. If there is an afterlife, no doubt he is now walking around saying "I told you so".
5
The satires by The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz help me keep my sanity in our insane political times.
15
Professor Smith, you are wrong. We don't need to dummy down our humor because the general audience is dumber. We need to make the general audience less dumb.
As an educator you, above all, should see this and strive to achieve this goal. But I fear Professor Smith is part of the problem, not the solution and this seems to be typical of academia in this day and age.
The problem is fairly easy to identify but the solution? That's hard. In fact it's too hard so let's concentrate on appeasing the people who are causing the problem.
The solution is education because that's really where the problem originates.
7
Satire is all about the moment, that fleeing glimpse by which absurdity brings the respite of humor. It becomes the here and gone touchstone as its relevancy is but a speck in time.
So rue not for the ways of the past, that page is long turned.
Embrace satire as we find it or invent it and let the bitter laugh shrink the ugly to be tossed into those dusty bins you seem to want to reach back to yet again.
2
Satire and so called fake news are NOT THE SAME! The powerful hate satire because it bursts their arrogant bubble. The fact that Trump makes satire unnecessary doesn’t make satire dangerous or an appropriate target of censorship. America needs to wake up and realize that Trump is the antithesis of all we used to stand for and he is Putin’s dream even if he isn’t technical Putin’s asset.
Long live satire. Free speech is a necessary component of a free society.
8
Maybe the problem is that Professor Smith has focused almost exclusively on the intentions of the satirist. Who knows about intentions, and how do they matter? What we do know, what we can measure, is impact. That's why speech, whether satirical or not, needs to be subject to social or legal regulation. You can't have someone cry "fire" or shoot a gun in a crowded room even if they do so satirically and with no intent to harm. You wouldn't call your mother indecent names which this newspaper wouldn't publish. And maybe you shouldn't publish cartoons of prophets with bombs coming out of their turbans, if only because it's not decent.
"It is not surprising that this craft is so often misunderstood, for when satirists do their job convincingly, when they get too close to their target, it is easy to hear them not just as the channelers of the views expressed in the satire, but as defenders of these views as well."
Uhhhh what? That's not at all how satire works. At least not the Charlie Hebdo case. No one mistook Hebdo's satire as their legitimate views. They saw that the Hebdo satire relied on a ludicrous conception of Islam. Not that Hebdo deserved violence against them, but anyone could have made their stale, Islamaphobic jokes. Their idea of Islam is like that of a 10th grader who vaguely knows about 9/11.
2
@Connor
"No one mistook Hebdo's satire as their legitimate views."
I did. But I learned of Hebdo only after the massacre. Maybe regular readers understood differently.
Not even Jonathan Swift, Western literature's greatest satirist, quite knew where to draw the line. In "Gulliver's Travels'" first book, its hero's journey to the land of the Lilliputians is biting but charming, too—effective while essentially inoffensive. By the fourth book, A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms, Swift's examples are gross and odious, his tone bitter and rancorous. Three hundred years later, we seem to be retracing Swift's downward spiral.
15
@Civres
I'm rather fond of Book 3 with the wacky scientists and mathematicians.
1
@Civres Gulliver grows less idealistic and more jaded about people in the later books, so the jabs are sharper. IMO. Swift was also a major influence on William S. Burroughs, IMO so there's that.
1
I thought the book got better and more incisive as it went along. The opposite of a downward spiral.
6
The author thinks satire should be regulated?
Where are the Philosopher Kings who will magnanimously assume this lofty role of controlling the masses of Little People? I suspect the Philosopher Kings are currently called “neoliberals.”
Have the neoliberals reached a consensus amongst themselves that the Thought Police should constantly monitor the great masses of Little People?
Think how gleeful the private equity plutocrats will be when they realize that the prison industrial complex may soon be able to house not just the paltry 2.2 million Americans currently incarcerated, but potentially millions more!
Op-ed pieces like this are terrifying because it’s a steady stream of evidence that the neoliberals are incapable of looking at their own fascist tendencies.
In fact, since the neoliberals only want to control the masses For Their Own Good, the little people who disagree with the Thought Police should be incarcerated until they can recite the Party Slogans without any hesitation: Freedom is Slavery! War is Peace! And above all: Ignorance is our Strength!
Re-education camps for every Deplorable in America!
We’re number one! We’re number one!
1
Tom Lehrer famously said "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize." But he quit performing long before Kissinger was nominated, so it's likely he thought satire has lost its punch before Eisenhower was elected, maybe at about the time the twin nukes struck Japan.
2
@Stephen Beard Maybe Kissinger understood the joke. He returned the Nobel Prize.
At some point, I, the last of the analog era, told my digital kids that the problem with memes, etc is that you are already ripping on the "thing", without knowing what "the thing" is first. You can only satirize or joke about something if you know the baseline. Now, they start at meme, so do we wonder why some folks believe in Pizza shop political sex rings ? There is little responsible discourse at this point...a Newspaper could certainly be biased, but here was SOME vetting and editing done somewhere in most cases. Today ? Fire up the Meme Generator and say "Man never landed on the moon, Galileo proved it."
2
Satire succeeds when it exposes fools. Sometimes the targets are the subject of the satire; sometimes they are the readers.
If anything diminishes the effectiveness of satire in our social media-saturated world, it comes from all the fools eagerly exposing themselves.
67
In our topsy turvey Trumpian world where facts and fiction seem to blur constantly, satire is lost and misunderstood . The irony of Trump threatening SNL as putting forth news is beyond satire.
But ultimate satirical show, 'The Producers' is a classic as it satirizes satire even as it presents outrageous satire of its own. The producers themselves assume that the audience will see their production as a morbid presentation of fact, but instead the audience sees 'Spring Time for Hitler' as outrageous satire, thus revealing their con. Every scene becomes a satire from the insane misogyny of their office to the terrorist plot to blow up the theater to the elderly ladies the victims of their con who still idolize the men who took their money.
But how could we ever conceive of pure satire now that our government has been taken over by thieves and cons in the GOP who make Nixon misdeeds look satirical.
1
This is all well and good. But does one really imagine that true-believers, be they boys or mostly into religion (which kills without remorse whatever the cast) imagine that these murderers are really killing others in God's name? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Does one really imagine that young men with guns really think?
1
So the conclusion is satire and tweeting have formed the perfect circular firing squad and we will all die laughing.
1
A few weeks back the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio program "Ideas" broadcast an episode on the history and future of satire. I recommend it to anyone who cares about satire. You can find it as a podcast on the CBC radio website.
I read my first issue of Mad about 1955 when I was 7. I have been addicted to satire ever since. I worry about a culture which becomes incapable of satire. Mad was originally a response to over regulation caused by social hysteria (the great comic book mania).
5
Even as I write this, I'm holding out hope that this piece is in itself intended as satire, a masterful example of capturing the voice of another - in this case that of the "woke" crowd, the new P.C. police, who each day seemingly wake up with no goal more prominent in their minds than finding another voice to silence, another human being to "take down", another excuse to further erode the First Amendment, and who in doing so each day provide another bit of evidence for me to use when I argue that the left and the right now represent different but equally dangerous threats to the continued survival of this country and all it is supposed to stand for.
Whatever the intent of the author, the piece is correct in saying it can be very difficult to recognize satire these days. As I admitted up front here, I'm not sure about this piece, although that's probably mostly due to wishful thinking. I don't want to be waking up this morning - any morning - and reading a call in a mainstream newspaper for even more censorship.
But the thing is, I'd rather live with that uncertainty every day of the week and every week of every year than go down the path the author is seemingly endorsing. This so, so, so dangerous, and far more dangerous than ANY speech ever could be.
9
Satire exaggerates reality in a way that is both funny and that highlights an underlying truth. Satire requires a readership and/or audience that has enough distance to view the people and events being satirized with a sense of humor. It also requires a sense of reality, a capacity to distinguish truth from fiction, and a capacity to evaluate the sources of knowledge, satire, and lies. We live in a political and media environment where the underlying requirements of satire have been weakening. A healthy polity and culture is one in which satire is valued.
12
It is hard sometimes to maintain political sense of humor these days and some of the humor that we've enjoyed before seems to have flattened out in contrast with the real absurdity, but........... there is no chance that we are going to be able to turn things right by censorship or self-censorship.Things will evolve and devolve like the always do and ultimately we're going to have to fix what's broken, or not, collectively.Sometimes I hear the trump walked into a breech that already existed, and that's probably true. Somebody with equal or greater bravado is going to have to step into the trump vacuum now. While that happens, or doesn't, there will be satire offered in bad faith and that , too, will have to be overcome. I've noticed that the impact of Colbert's zingers get a little less powerful every night. I use to watch the monologue whenever I could, now sometimes I forget to.He's just as funny as ever but it doesn't seem to amount to a hill of beans. The jibes of his bandleader have gotten a little old.
5
In a high school English class I taught many years ago, we were studying, enjoying, and creating puns. Some were silly, and some were divine. After a while, one of my students remarked that the person who created a pun was "pretty smart," but the person who "caught" the pun was even smarter, because he wasn't expecting it. The creator of the pun, the student said, was aware of the play on words from the get-go, but the listener who "got it" was a kind of innocent and witty bystander.
I thought his description of the process was ingenious. The same thing applies to satire. Once any satire is completed and sits there on the page (or on the TV screen), the burden is then on the reader/viewer to comprehend the double entendre. That's what satire is--just like a pun--words or actions with at least two meanings, either a hard set of undeniable facts or a delightful turning of the facts on their head, but as if reflected in a crazy-house mirror.
The problem today is that the world is already topsy-turvy.
14
This quote, "... that even the most cherished and firmly-held values or ideals can change when the world in which those values were first formed changes." This is key to this essay. Our world has changed. Our ways of commenting on it must also change. Satire has been overtaken by the bots, by "fake news"; they're turned what used to be a tool to rebuke overreach and entitlement into a sledgehammer.
2
I noticed a definite lack of the usual jokes et al during the recent April Fool's Day, as if the public has lost its collective sense of amusement at being fooled. The incredible has become normal.
Trump is seen by the religious right as divine intervention,
a modern day Cyrus. Maybe they're right.
Voltaire said that God is a comedian
playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.
16
First, the technology of the Internet needs to undergo regulating --by the FTC and the FCC--where delineating the lines between satire, truth, propaganda and lies will be easier for the masses -- but where harmful lies will have legal consequences--- not to stifle speech, but to protect against violence and harm-- This being no different as protections provided the public through through print, tv, radio --over the years -- all of which takes work-- which Congress has unwilling to do and has ignored. Second, there is a lack of a sense of humor in the leader inhabiting the White House, who attempts to define humor as laughing at the failings of others- or creating problems for others. That is not humor or satire -- but the displays of a disturbed bully, as are his followers who laugh with him.
4
@Theodore Stone: "In order for satire to be successful, the reader needs to be in on the joke...." The essence of satire (and, one could argue, all humor) is a knowledge of the underlying reality; without that comparison, satire simply fails. Perception of reality has always been a problem for us humans - we're story-tellers at heart, readily make up stories to explain things we don't understand, create or accept stories which resonate emotionally without concern of factuality, and even, in Robert Heinlein's characterization of fiction, pay people to lie to us.
Smith is right to note the effect of the internet on that equation. In a steady but gradual 40-year shift, with funding from ALEC and the like, the extremists have taken advantage of this human tendency to reinforce, exaggerate and expand what used to be marginal views into mainstream beliefs. They have also consolidated widely held but undemocratic views like white nationalism into large political blocks, some of them masquerading as churches, all with the goal of enriching the manipulators. An essential element of this shift has been to weaken the general sense of underlying reality by castigating meticulous and thoughtful reporting.
In such an environment, how can there even be satire? When a Bush associate mocked the "reality community" back in 2001, he said, "We create our own reality." At the time, that seemed nonsensical to me; a dozen years later I realized he meant it literally, and it had been successful.
6
People my age (almost 80) or a little younger may recall that Tom Lehrer, who was famous for his satirical songs, once remarked that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Plus ca change...
127
@Paul S Green: I'm in my mid-sixties, and can clearly recall the incident of which you speak. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, of North Vietnam, had just negotiated the Paris Treaty that ended US participation in the Vietnam War, after settling the important issue of what shape the negotiating table should be. The Nobel Committee, then as now, awarded the Peace Prize to the most prominent warmonger it could find who had recently signed a treaty, in hopes of shaming him into keeping it. Tho, who remains the only person ever to refuse a Nobel, did so saying he would not accept it if Kissinger were the co-winner. That sealed the deal for Kissinger, who accepted the prize solo. I miss Lehrer, not Kissinger.
18
@Paul S Green
Ah, Tom Lehrer, a mathematician and satirist, par excellence. He is sadly missed by many who found life in the world somewhat of a mystery. No topic was sacred to him. Wish we had one (or more) of his ilk today.
4
@Paul S Green
Alfred Nobel--inventor of dynamite--has a Peace prize given in his name?
Looks like giving Henry "Carpetbomb" Kissinger the prize was a conflict of interest.
Satire is a hothouse plant, and we have not maintained the environment. We are no longer smart enough for satire. Not only can't we handle the truth, we can't handle irony either.
Unless a critical mass of people know that no one in their right mind would propose eating babies to deal with famine, and that current solutions are no more compassionate, there is no such thing as a modest proposal. How ironic that seventeenth century Ireland's physical soil provided a better bed for satire than the fruited plains of Trump's America.
Milton Berle is credited with using the word "lappy" to describe humor that the comedian puts right in the audience's lap, humor that requires no leap of informed recognition. Today's political humor must, unfortunately, be made more lappy for an electorate that simply lacks the wit to separate wheat from bravery from bravado, cleverness from cunning, and sense from nonsense.
72
Satire requires a certain amount of intelligence to craft, and an equal amount to "get it". "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it"-Henry Ford
57
Unfortunately in the hands of the wrong audience it becomes more misinformation.
4
Fortunately, the US has the 1st Amendment so satire can never be criminalized.
5
@todji That just means that the government can't stop it. But there are other ways of suppressing speech. What is your employer going to do when facing the ire of some well organized activist group that has taken umbrage at some criticism you've levied at them (whether directly or via satire)?
More and more, the answer is not "take your side".
4
@todji The government need not involve itself if the people can be duped into suppressing their own free speech.
2
@MA
No body ever said the First Amendment came without costs. That is why the Second Amendment is necessary some times. For protection and defense if you are strong about exercising your rights under the first, religous and free speech. Some people really don't like that. At the very least, you face censorship or being called a bigot. Water off a duck's back really... At the worst, well there is always a price for being honest, brave and peaking out. If you can't pay, don't play.
1
Our jesters were never going to save us, anyway. We’ve sought refuge in satire instead of good faith discourse. We’ve let the jokes drive the conservation, which is why we elect clowns.
10
@Connie
I’d give you a hug but that would scuttle my political aspirations. You can write.
1
@Connie
Fake news started with Stephen Colbert. The kids who grew up listening to him for their war news in the Bush years are not helping put out the NYT.
They can't handle the truth.
They've never know it, and shut down when they are disagreed with verbally.
Professor: All we need to do is make it mandatory for every article, photo or video that is intended to be satire to have the "/s" symbol included. That ought to take care of the problem.
/s
40
@Jay Orchard
To be effective it must also be illegal for factual accounts to include the "/s".
1
"This [fake quote from Wolff's book] was excellent satire: just believable enough to be entertained as true."
OK, then distinguish satire from a lie. And don't invoke "intent" -- that requires mind-reading. Further, artists may claim their intent is one thing, yet their work can be interpreted as something else.
Anyway, a simple check of Wolff's book would have confirmed that it says nothing about "The Gorilla Channel". And no one should accept the claims of a source whose Twitter page says: "Prince of lies. Read my comics on IG: ..."
The problem here is inattention to detail and weak critical thinking skills.
15
Brilliant piece. One of today's commenters says the key element of satire is that "it's funny". I don't find anything funny about Jonathan Swift's pieces, but I do find them perceptively witty, i.e. thought-provoking, interesting reading. Satire in a magazine known for its satire, or from the mouth of Stephen Colbert, is one thing, but unadvertised satire indeed tests one's credibility, gullibility. For example, if someone told me that a government chief was fired because in forcibly separating families she wasn't mean enough, I would think: Hah, pure satire !
54
I disagree that satire is dead. Today’s comedy writers just aren’t that good at it, and Americans for the most part need to be bludgeoned with a punchline. Saturday Night Live tries desperately to expose the absurdity of the Trump Administration, but it ends up being sophomoric. Monty Python is still the standard for me. It’s still popular in the bluish parts of America, John Cleese said in a recent tour, so there’s still an appetite for intelligent satire that gleefully mocks the self-importance of power. If I were a TV executive, I’d do everything I could to lure Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin to my network and let them run wild one last time.
26
There is a thin line between satire and sarcasm. On opinion pages, as well as Facebook, it is hard to tell the difference.
5
Only a fool believes everything he reads. Humans have great but not perfect capacity to understand fiction from fact. We will evolve and adapt to the the challenges of social media. Wait until we have permanent implants to be joined to the web. The virtual and real worlds at first superimposed and later fused. Satire will seem quaint.
1
I often think our government today with its crazy cast of character from the White House on down is some divine form of satire. If you had been presented with these people in a fictional piece (absent the cruelty of the departed Homeland Security chief) 25 years ago, you'd have laughed at the absurdity of them. Problem is the joke doesn't end and now it seems we're trapped in a nightmare.
23
@Karen K
I'd say diabolical rather than divine. But yeah.
Satire has always been risky. With satire you can make a friend into an enemy, but it will never make your enemies into friends. I've read there were people who took Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" seriously.
Once there were newspaper editors who exercised a moderating influence on public discourse. Now any phrase can be instantly transmitted worldwide, from any anonymous author, with no editorial oversight, at no cost. What could possibly go wrong?
9
Mr. O'Grady and his ilk appear to be moving swiftly (pun intended) to the middle ages, when indeed, one knew a book by its cover.
6
Professor of philosophy of science at Paris VII .
Michel Serres was teaching at Stanford . At least we know who has a sense of humour ?
Political satire has become lectures with a few humorous witticisms thrown in. I stopped watching Colbert because I have been lectured enough in my life and do not need a late show that is supposed to be entertainment be, in fact, propaganda. The masses listen to these late night savants to get “news.” I have other sources for news that I can explore and make up my own mind. How I miss Johnny Carson!
4
Let's end 'philosophy' as well.
The 'state of nature' that we are allowing ourselves to be reduced to has no use for it.
Instinct is all that is necessary in nature where life is
'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'.
That. Or we could elect Democrats.
10
The great thing about satire is that it forces people to distinguish the fake from the real, and the penalty for being wrong is to look like a fool. So maybe we need it now more than ever -- we all need to sharpen our ability to distinguish real news from propaganda. By falling for 'news' from dubious sources, we are forced to look more closely at the sources we are viewing.
20
Its not working that way with large swaths of the public. Satire becomes another source of misinformation, and offensive content (racist, homophobic, sexist) can be defended as “satire”. Not sure what the solution is, but certainly faux news articles such as most of the Onion could stand to go away for awhile. Alexa could stand to go away, too: no context for anything, spouts “facts”, no critical thinking wanted.
1
"I am now prepared to agree that some varieties of expression that may have some claim to being satire should indeed be prohibited."
But you're all in favor of free speech, right? Tell me Prof, once it starts, where does it stop? Speech is either free is or it isn't.
21
@Cwnidog
But where does "hate speech" come into this discussion?
Smith misses an important ingredient in satire: the absurd. Yes, satire should do a good job of imitating whomever or whatever it is a satire of, but it should do a better job pointing to the absurdity of what it is satirizing. When satire follows something too closely it no longer highlights the absurdity.
This does not really apply to the cartoons from Charlie Hebdo, which are clearly satire, and definitely does not apply to The Satanic Verses, which is not an attempt at satire. The offense in both was that they depicted Mohammed. Prohibiting blasphemous imagery is antithetical to a free, liberal society.
There is a debate on now about whether hate speech ought to be protected speech. I myself believe that the dangers of censorship outweigh the danger of hate speech. That said, there are good arguments for the opposing view, and I believe the issue is open to debate.
What Smith is advocating, however, is the prohibition of speech which can be mistaken for hate speech. Now this is a position worthy of satire.
19
@Levi
•••There is a debate on now about whether hate speech ought to be protected speech. I myself believe that the dangers of censorship outweigh the danger of hate speech.•••
Consider scale. At the micro level: one person's hateful speech becomes the opening salvo in the events of another's death. Hate speech often comes with after-effects attached. It is so tidy to say we can tolerate hate speech in the name of freedom when it is not our specific freedom that is curtailed by the blunt tool of death. At the macro, hate speech embraced on a broad scale justifies broads strokes of one group permissing themselves to make another group's lives less comfortable, less productive, less joyful, less long.
Solving the distinction between hate speech that kills and hate speech that goes to the edge of the precipice without going over is impossible in my head. I offer no solutions, only point out that the laws of unintended consequences can crash down on the most undeserving of victims at any time.
Most people have no objection to mocking Scientologists or Flat Earthers. If you are an atheist, all religions are equally worthy or mockery. That's not to say it's necessary or desirable to engage in mockery 24/7. But when followers of any religion try to enforce their will upon the rest of us, pointing out their absurdity is appropriate. I live in Georgia, and, due to the influence of rural districts on the State legislature, I can't purchase a bottle of whiskey at 9:00 AM on a Sunday. A relatively minor inconvenience, considering blasphemy is a capital offense in several Muslim countries.
17
Well in the great liberal and progressive state of NY, we have to wait until noon to buy wine and spirits on Sunday. A loosening of the blue laws that used to be beer only, and then only after 1:00 pm. I don't think our rural counties had anything to do with it. But, as with anything else taboo, there was always a way/place to get it. 4.7.19 1008am.
1
@fFinbar
Liquor laws are satirical.
I recognize the problem, but I don't think there is anything external to the writers to be done about it. I do think we can start exercising some discipline ourselves. The first area of discipline is to take stuff on social media with a grain of salt. The second is to start rebuilding the "brands" of various sources of information, so that people can distinguish between what's expected of the New York Times and what's expected of The Onion.
And the third is, when you're writing short format, ephemeral stuff like internet comments, to take responsibility for the literal meaning of your words. You can still use a satirical voice, but you'd better figure out how to signal that in the post itself. No fair claiming you were only joking after the fact, because how is anyone supposed to know that about strangers on the internet?
That doesn't touch novels or other long-form writing. People who commit to reading those things are people who can deal with complexity and who have set aside time to do so. But nobody's going to spend time on a detailed study of every single internet post they see in a day, so make sure that everything necessary to understand your posts is in your posts.
25
@Maria Rebuilding brands is a good idea, although challenging in today's media.
Public education needs to talk about this.
"The truth is that the nature and proper scope of satire remain an enormous problem, ..."
That is not the "problem". The term "satire" like other literary terms, such as "comedy" and "tragedy", is vague and ambiguous. Smith has framed his "problem" so narrowly that he sees a "problem" where there is only vagueness and ambiguity.
If he wants precision and certainty, Smith should not be looking to art and literature for it. Try mathematics -- although Smith might be disappointed there too. See:
"How mathematicians think : using ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox to create mathematics" by William Byers.
8
We do not understand or respect the enormous power of the devices we use and what they/we are doing to ourselves. Articles and thoughts like Mr. Smiths' are just the beginning of the need to develop digital literacy.
8
If speech were merely the expression of abstract ideas how easy it would be. But speech is also—and maybe more often—a tool we use to manipulate others, at times for pernicious ends. The expression of ideas should always be absolutely free. Manipulation, though, is more problematic. The challenge is finding a way to distinguish between free expression and harmful manipulation.
7
@617to416
So you're arguing that free speech should be allowed, provided it is abstract and ineffectual.
However, when speech is effective enough to lead to action, it should be banned.
I give up. I can't figure out whether you're serious or joking.
14
@Norman
Supreme Court decisions from the era of labor agitators and communists in the 1920s dealt with this issue and pretty much came to the conclusion the our first amendment mostly protected ineffectual speech.
1
@617to416
I think the challenge is for a society to nurture informed and discerning citizens who are more concerned with the accuracy and truth of what they post as opposed to how many "likes" they'll get. Also, to be open to an opposing point of view - to regard someone who doesn't agree with you as not your enemy, but a person who may have a point or a better idea.
7
So this is how the curtailment of free speech happens. Not with obvious authoritarians openly attacking our freedoms, but with a soft voice, carefully argued, complete with regret that times have changed, necessitating the prohibition of a certain kind of speech. Once satire is banned, what next? Ridicule of authority all together? Regrettable, but necessary? No thanks.
149
I, for one, am not willing to let the likes of the late night TV audiences nor those who still watch Saturday Night Live, determine what I can and cannot read or see. The solution to bad speech is more speech.
24
@Philip Getson
I'm assuming (hoping?) you are equally discerning when it comes to the likes of Fox News viewers. Last I heard it was Trump who wants to loosen libel laws and denounced the media as an enemy of the people. I've yet to see anything similar on SNL or Colbert.
24
@Cambridge50
The way to get non-authoritarians on your side is to explain your plan for ensuring that the cost of "free" speech is borne by the speakers, or at least by most of society, rather than by the targets of the speech. An insurance tax so that victims of hate crimes can be compensated for any assault endured due to repeated speech that incites moronic brutes (or anyone) to perform their agreement with that speech physically? A govt-sponsored media organization to counteract hate speech with tolerance exhortations and a reminder of criminal penalties that will result from assault? A monitoring system to assess when derogatory speech has reached critical mass sufficient to 1) harm its targets, or 2) endanger them, or....? What is your solution, even partial? -- or is it the same old yes, that's really too bad that women/jews/blacks/gays/some new category...got beat up again.
Quaint and futile? No way. Satire, while ailing, remains alive here in the UK via the magazine Private Eye along with the BBC One satirical news show "Have I Got News For You," plus the "The Now Show" on Radio 4, among others.
"The Thick of It," which brilliantly satirised British government until 2012, now seems prescient amid the chaos and imbecilities of Brexit.
12
@Demetroula Thank goodness for British satire! SNL was funny to me when it did silly comedy (Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner) but their political satire has often fallen flat, unless they can impersonate someone who comes across as silly (Will Ferrell as George W. Bush).
Mr. Smith views satire--a classic form of humor--with remarkable humorlessness. He dourly seems to have seen it, in former times, as a virtuous form of cultural critique worthy of defending. Now he believes it no longer serves that virtuous function in a world filled with virtual misinformation.
Mr. Smith's critique misses the key element of satire: It's funny.
It's the humor of satire that draws us in, the contrast between the insanity of the satiric world and the only slightly less insane real world. If we catch the joke, we smirk at the ridiculousness of it; if we're momentarily caught by it, we laugh at our own gullibility.
Is there bad satire that bewilders the gullible, that adds to the stream of confusion in our world? Yes, of course there is. Should we abandon good satire because bad satire exists? Of course not.
We need humor precisely because it isn't about virtue and usefulness (although it can be both virtuous and useful). We need humor for its anarchic joy that lets us laugh in the midst of despair. To quote the late great Vaclav Havel: "Those who have retained the capacity to recognize their own ridiculousness or even meaninglessness cannot be proud, and cannot be enemies of the open society. Such an enemy is the person with a stubbornly serious expression and fire in his eyes."
Laughter remains the best medicine.
237
@Carl Skutsch
Except when it hurts.
1
@Carl Skutsch "If we catch the joke, we smirk at the ridiculousness of it; if we're momentarily caught by it, we laugh at our own gullibility."
This is a healthy response to good satire. The problem, as Mr. Smith lays out, is that un-funny satire -- or even occasionally funny satire -- has become cover for spewing lies and hatred. He isn't suggesting we abandon good satire, but that we stop considering satire in general as safely walled off within its own rhetorical category.
9
@Carl Skutsch
Speaking of satire, humor, the Onion (and Presidential pardons):
"1989 -- George H.W. Bush pardons convicted murderer and rapist Willie Horton in recognition of Horton’s invaluable service to his 1988 election campaign."
Solid. Gold.
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Satire has always been both funny, and a great way to make a point. The problem with satire in the internet era is Poe's Law, that without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exagerrated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views. I would have considered a story about an economically right wing president promoting fossil fuels by claiming that wind turbines cause cancer as obvious satire prior to 2016.
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@Len E
Excellent point.
I wonder, for example, how something like "The Producers" would be perceived if it surfaced for the first time in this era; would it be considered supportive of the Nazi ethos and/or the often underhanded nature of financing theatre? And this despite the great pains taken to make it funny?
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You forgot Reagan’s assertion that trees cause pollution...
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@Glenn Ribotsky
Nazis were not considered a fit subject for satire at that time. The Producers was flayed by the critics and died at the box office. It only found its audience first on college campuses and then with a second release.
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There is one topic of satire that will never end - and that is the fact that each of us is a sentient collection of atoms with a sense of self, inhabiting a rock that’s currently spinning at 1,000 mph while it moves at 67,000 mph through a space whose being, origins and future we can hardly comprehend; and all the while we commute to work, reading newspapers with articles about the end of satire next to ads for retirement advice, ritzy vacations and easy dishes to cook this weekend. If that’s not highbrow comedy, nothing is.
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@Remarque. And of course, Python did it in ‘The Meaning of Life’ with a song explaining our place in the universe...ending with asking for a woman’s liver. Which may prove the idea that sometimes satire is invisible unless really exaggerated.
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@Remarque That's"black" comedy aimed at something bigger than social foibles. Not satire. Hmm, maybe a sort of existential, cosmic form of dramatic irony.
An excellent satirical take on the whole censorship-identity rights tension. For five minutes, I thought he was serious.
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@Duane McPherson. I hope you are right.
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@Duane McPherson
Brilliantly said, if you were being serious. Likewise if you were being sarcastic.
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@Duane McPherson -- Not knowing if the author is being satirical or if you are being satirical is quite troubling. What can be known anymore that is objective fact? Am I really confused here, or am I satirizing the notion of confusion to make a point that is not at all clear? Am I pretending to wonder whether you are being serious or not?
Too smart by half, I'm afraid, and too dumb by the other.
Of course there is good satire and bad satire; if Mr. Smith is describing the death of bad satire, this is not a bad thing. In order for satire to be successful, the reader needs to be in on the joke; e.g., "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a good example of this. But when the reader is not in on the joke, is "duped," then the satire has failed and crosses the line into misinformation or fake news. Satire can exist in our age of rapidly changing technology, but it also means there is a lot of very bad, failed satire, too.
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@Theodore Stone
Whether or not Modest Proposal was understood as satire the bottom 20% of Ireland's population was culled by starvation 120 years later. There was no famine in Ireland and two million people were made to disappear because they had no value in Ireland's food export economy.
They Modest Proposal was a mirror of who and what we are, no more no less. Looking back at Swift's proposal I still don't know whether one can call biblical style prophesy satire. Even as Swift wrote his proposal 120 years before the starvarvation, one hundred seventy years after the economic genocide most of us still won't acknowledge the Irish starvation was a deliberate massacre of men women and children whose only crime was poverty and occupying land that would become valuable economically.
Three hundred years after Swift's proposal we may want to call it satire but it still tells us who we are and what are our real values.
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@Theodore Stone The boundary of what separates good satire from bad must then be one that is in constant motion based on the capacity of the population as a whole to think critically. A trend analysis of the movement of this boundary over the past 40 years would be quite telling.
My right to be offended, to be made uncomfortable is being taken away. My right to have my ideas challenged so that I might change or expand my thinking is being diminished. Cocoons are being woven by the likes of Fox News and Twitter and Facebook, by university safe rooms and trigger warnings to protect me from thoughts that might just nudge me to re-evaluate the echoes of monetized thought control.
If the Founding Fathers had not been offended...
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@Wm Foster I don't think you understand either how safe spaces or trigger warnings are meant to work. Nobody means to live in a safe space all the time; it's a temporary retreat where people can recharge because in the wider world they face frequent (I'm tempted to say "constant") petty insults that in the aggregate dispirit and exhaust them. I recommend reading Claudia Rankine's "Citizen" for further clarification of this point.
As for trigger warnings, nobody's stopping anybody from reading or watching or listening to anything that has a trigger warning on it. But have a little compassion for, say, the person who has lost a child and can't face a storyline about a dying child just then. Or for the war refugee with PTSD who doesn't deserve to be blindsided by explicit violence. Granted that sometimes TWs veer into the absurd, the commonest ones are a form of kindness to suffering people.
Nobody is dragging you into a safe space and no trigger warning prevents you from reading or watching or listening to whatever you want.
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@Jolanta There is already a safe space for people who are trying to find a way to live with their traumas. It's called a therapist's office.
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@Jolanta We used to try to learn about things on our own, and when faced with disturbing stories and images we would turn them off. Can the person who lost a child note what a story is about and not watch it? The trigger warnings imply responsibility on the people providing the information to protect other people from bad feelings. Normal life involves feeling bad and learning how to deal with it. If that requires therapy for someone, we should do all we can to help her access it. But mostly people should pay a little more attention to what's going on around them (not just in their online world.) We don't need to drag anyone anywhere, but people need to take some responsibility for themselves.
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There is a general trend toward ingenuousness, for both good and bad, at the moment, that is perhaps attributable to proximity. Satire thrives at a distance - which is to say that it is best practiced on the page, screen, or stage, where there are layers of remove both from its audience and from its object. This way, it can define the terms by which its criticism is delivered without direct challenge. Social media, new media and the ur-media that has allowed for these phenomena have recalibrated this distance. We may still think we are removed from those whom we are critiquing, but with a little savvy and a smartphone, these objects of critique suddenly become subjects who can respond eloquently and, even more problematically, humanly and vulnerably. Satire seems less nice when the object of the satire says, "Hey, that hurts." Which is now quite possible. This is the age of enablement and empowerment, whether that's through the access to social media or the access to weapons. Maybe it's unfortunate that satire is less welcome, but maybe it's fortunate that what is called for in its absence is a more open, human and vulnerable attempt to connect, rather than critique. Because the person being satirized isn't simply "out there" any longer. We're all audience and performer; reader and writer; producer and consumer. "They" are sitting next to "us" now, which makes satire quite a bit less comfortable. Or hospitable. Or polite. Or kind.
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Mr. Smith says that "American progressives roundly condemned the decision, saying that it played into an American imperialist agenda".
Really?
Perhaps I'm just out of touch, but I don't recall ANY progressive saying this, much less most of them. This would be a stronger essay if Mr. Smith named and quoted one or three people, rather than putting words into the mouths of people who aren't named and hence can't defend themselves.
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@Dan Styer Simply search for "We are not Charlie" and you'll find what you are looking for.
I think the thrust of the piece is very important. Satire (at least as it was practiced in the past) seems to be at its end. It worked in an era when things moved more slowly and the capacity for anyone to generate disinformation was limited at best. Given how unbelievable actual news has become the line between reality and farce is disturbingly blurred.
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@MPD
I completely agree with the insights this article puts forth, and that satire is at its end. This saddens me greatly, as I sit in my History of Comics class and realize that 100 years ago, the media was formed on making fun of the government and its institutions. I grew up on Mad, National Lampoon, and my father made us read from all the great great British satirists. Will satire be repurposed, and will it come again? I can only hope we don’t all lose our senses of humor....
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@Tucky
One hundred fifteen years ago Twain was was writing his greatest satire and Ambrose Bierce was writing his dictionary. We didn't read it with understanding then and we don't read it now. Too many of us fail to understand that the bible is not history but human commentary and if we really look closely much of it is as relevant satirically as when it was written. The Onion was properly named as we peel off the layers to see what is inside all too often the tears strart to flow.
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