Dearest reader,
You are the highest caliber of person "I've ever known." Your responses, ideas AND thoughts "captivate me" always. There is no group of "friends" that I'd rather have than one composed of people who "truly understand" me.
"Sincerly,"
Drone.
Now that I got the serious business out of the way let us move on to today's topic: Sarcasm.
Sarcasm has had a bad reputation for a lot of years because of one quote that cannot adequately be traced back to its origin. That quote is: Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. From my very lazy research it has been credited to Oscar Wilde, a writer who was known to rarely ever directly state anything. Because of this damning quote sarcasm has been relegated to a lower form of life. Sarcasm is like a career alcoholic in a seedy bar in a dead end town. Kinda old, kinda purple, perhaps missing an eye. No one pays sarcasm any notice or gives him any credit. He's just that creepy guy who gets kind of "handsy" when young impressionable ladies are around.
Let us ask the question then, what is the highest form of wit? satire, irony, the directly stated truth? Truth is funny yes but there is no device or effort required to create the truth. There is the necessary act of dividing funny experiences from non funny experiences but stating what is comically true is reliant on the outside world. Further, there is no real effort or "sense of humour" required to differentiate between funny/not funny and if there is, it is very minimal.
Satire and irony if not regarded as the highest forms of wit are certainly near the top wouldn't you agree? If we look to the definitions of both of these words they contain the word "sarcasm." How then can sarcasm be both the lowest form of wit while being associated with the highest form of wit? To make a dated reference it's as if Sarcasm is stuck inside the movie Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy. In that movie Eddie Murphy is the prince of an African country who comes to America where he is regarded as a useless inept pauper.
You might be thinking "Well, sarcasm is generally mean spirited thus it makes people feel bad about themselves (the opposite of humours intention) To that I have several responses.
1) As the great Kurt Vonnegut has said there is nothing funnier than watching a healthy man fall flat on his face. There is an entire industry built around deriving pleasure from someone else's pain. Certainly sarcasm may not be fun for the person is it used on but anyone else in proximity of its use will surely be amused.
2) Satire is an art built upon a foundation of sarcasm. It's intended use is to expose and shame people into correcting their behavior. In most cases sarcasm is used in the same way. If a husband asks his wife "Did you remember the dogs leash?" and she says "no, I forgot it." while clearly holding a leash in her hand, she is being sarcastic. The husband, an imbecile or an unobservant tit just wants to bother his wife with a useless question and is deserving of criticism. If he recognizes his error he will be less inclined to ask a question that will be a source of embarrassment for him next time.
Now you might be thinking "Well, sarcasm isn't used in the grand way that satire is. Satire strives to change the way that society thinks through making broad observations about critical problems. How can sarcasm, a device used to ridicule your husband/wife/children compare? Well ladies and gentleman, serial killers are not born they are created. They are created through terrible/absent parenting and a life's worth of bad life experiences. Following this line of thinking idiocy is born and developed through years of training. As difficult as it is to be an educated aware person, it is equally difficult to be completely ignorant.
Sarcasm then is not just a tool to imply that the guy that "helped" you at Bestbuy is an idiot rather it is a non violent way of correcting idiotic behavior in the home. By challenging idiocy early and often you can discourage its proliferation throughout the adolescent mind. A sarcastic mind is a thinking mind because it first must consider what the normal answer would/should be before it can flip the script. So let us celebrate and embrace sarcasm. We need to raise its stock in how it is perceived by humans. It is not a device of hate, it is a tool of love. A tool that promotes intelligence and change. Embrace the change, embrace sarcasm.
