What Do People Think About ‘Satire’?

Sophia McClennen, professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature said that Jonathan Swift and Benjamin Franklin used satire and parody to poke fun at society and politics with the agenda that humour increases awareness and propels change. She says that “What satire does is reveal the folly of the human condition and most, but not all, of satire, has a political angle to it. Satire is different from typical political humour because it demands critical reflection on the part of the audience, so the laughter isn’t the end of the joke.

According to the 18th-century human-hypocrisy lasher Jonathan Swift, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own. This is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world and that so very few are offended with it.” It sometimes would be gloried in its ability to provoke anger and push people into pools of resentment and sometimes, shame. It may often hurt the feelings of people with a focused precision that is more defensible and less stereotypical if left open to animosity and attack.

As freedom-of-speech protesters fight back against the forces of suppression and silence, satire’s power and purpose is being distorted to serve a broader political cause. Ironic humour is fundamentally dangerous and splendours in the fact that as history shows, its provocations have to be handled with care as well as cleverness and claim no right to total genuineness or righteousness. Mohamed, a Canadian born Professor of the 17^th century says that “Satire at the top of the hierarchy strives to be art with all the associated complexity and intellectual ambition. Free speech is always a balancing act and one should take the likely consequences under consideration.” According to The Globe and the Mail, “Balance does not come naturally to satire. It is an exaggeration for effect, a caricature that purports to be a heightened, clarified reality but maybe just as easily be narrow-minded distortion. If there is a kind of precarious balance, it is often of the Swiftian kind-most people do not see themselves as the targets, either because the satire is specific to the ludicrous, contemptible individual, abstracted into a generalized vice or separated off into mockery of an outside group. Or, simply, because humans by nature are disinclined to see themselves as complicit in the misdeeds of others.”

John Mullan’s view about satire is pretty pessimistic. The Professor of English at the University College of London says, “Satire is negative. Great satire wouldn’t get written if there wasn’t something wrong to write about.” Satire is as rife with hate, condescension, prejudice as it is with the finer, and higher intrinsic worth of hypocrisy-bashing. Satire needs the liberty to thrive and an audience that is primed to understand. Therefore, to the ones who feel targeted and or think satire is grotesque, nasty and harmful; we’re not going to convince them. We’re just teasing.?

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