Hahaha, Hi Ariel, welcome to the 'pit (at least as a lurker, but you might as well join, having pretty much identified as a fence-sitter at Almost Diamonds and having pissed off both Greta Christina and LeftSidePositive).
To explain to everyone else: Stephanie Zvan had invited guest posts from her commenters, to fill a gap while she's away. Ariel wrote one, "Satire or Some Gun Control, Please".
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamo ... ol-please/
Starts with a short bit from Wikipedia on satire, then her commentary starts:
Let me add: satire can be a formidable weapon, effective in achieving its aims, but also deadly.
When I was young, we were using it constantly. The communist regime in my country, although economically bankrupt, was still in power. ... There was, however, an unofficial weapon: informal everyday joking and laughter, not exactly satire as a genre of literature, not an art perhaps, but to a large degree playing a similar social role. It permitted us to see the regime as not only economically, but also morally bankrupt. It helped us to view the communists not just as dangerous oppressors (which they were, to be sure), but at the same time as ridiculous figures, as parrots whose official mumbo-jumbo was not worth taking seriously. It promoted change. It gave us fresh air, so much needed and desired!
Not only ideas were ridiculed. No, we laughed at people as well. In many jokes the party dignitaries were mentioned by names. In effect the concrete persons were made looking grotesque, inadequate and silly. Yeah, I guess it could hurt them a lot. But it brought also a lot of relief to us, who had to watch and hear these very people without being able to do anything to oppose them. (For balance I should add perhaps that we laughed at ourselves as well. One of my favorite examples from this category is: “Q. Why does the cat have four legs? A. To be able to reach the garbage heap quicker than you, asshole!â€)
My aim in the above remarks was to give you an idea of where I come from. In short: my background predisposes me to see humor and satire as old friends. I have an instinctive sympathy for satire and laughter. I’m not in principle opposed to satirizing real people. And let me stress that this goes beyond politics and public affairs. Imagine a kid who feels deeply in his soul that he has been mistreated by a stern teacher. Imagine (not a far stretch of imagination, I hope) that the kid is not the teacher’s intellectual equal and he is unable to produce good, convincing arguments favoring his position. So … with the tongue stuck out, he spends a lot of time meticulously drawing a caricature of the teacher on a school desk. My instincts tell me to defend the kid, to rush with arguments supporting him. Hell, it’s not only politicians and public figures that can be satirized! I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for this schoolboy. Too many times the kid was me.
This said, the time has come for “yes, butâ€, dear Greta Christina, hasn’t it? ...
Later in her OP she puts a limit on her support for satire:
... Satire can be a deadly weapon. It’s not just that the satirized person will not like it (obviously she will not). The point is rather that it may bring a lot of humiliation, confusion, pain and demeaning of the person’s very identity. I’ve already said that in principle I’m not against satirizing concrete people. I’m also not convinced that satire should be restricted to high profile public figures (sometimes we use it successfully in more restricted contexts and I can see no reason to reject such applications). But there is a price to be paid, and only too often I’m not ready to pay it. ...
She hit a nerve. The first 12 comments are LeftSidePositive foaming at the mouth and Ariel replying; maybe someone can freezepage it, it's amusing to read. Then mythbri weighs in, there's a little back & forth, then LSP's back, in fine form, in several posts. Stephanie finally pops in at #17 to lightly rap LSP on the knuckles (while not commenting on Ariel's OP or the argument in the comment thread):
Stephanie Zvan wrote:LeftSidePositive wrote:You should be fucking thanking me on your fucking knees for clarifying so many points of your embarrassing ignorance.
Um, no. If you want thanks for educating, do it in a way that doesn’t encourage resistance to your points. You can try to educate (or win an argument or whatever your goal is here) by browbeating, but don’t ask/tell anyone to thank you for it while you’re doing it here.
At one point, Ariel comments to LSP:
Ariel wrote:On the slymepit you can find tons of graphic and verbal material ridiculing various people. From my point of view, the primary question is whether producing and propagating this material was justified, or harmful, or ill willed, or desirable – that sort of issues. The question how we name this material is secondary. The pitters are saying that the material should be called “satireâ€; they are adding that satire is human traditional activity, that it is noble, just, … whatever. What do you do? Basically, there are two options.
First: Check the dictionaries and textbooks! Let’s see whether what they do is really Satire™, as defined!
Second: let’s look at what they are actually doing and let’s try to assess it, under whatever name. It may be even shmatire or ghrhfhehre if it suits us.
You chose the first way....
I prefer the second option. Instead of checking the dictionaries, I will want to know the effects, intentions and motives of their actions. If these effects, intentions and motives turn out to be wrong (or right), that’s the end of my search. On this second way dictionaries are of no help. If they said that it’s justified because it’s a satire, I would simply ask them “you mean, because of what exactly?â€; and then I would start considering the detailed justifications they provided, thinking whether they justify their actions. That’s it. ...
LSP's replies include, in walls of text between things like "you willfully obtuse fucking idiot" and "don’t be a passive-aggressive wankstain", that she agrees with a quote that it can only be satire if there is "objective truth" or "vice", which OBVIOUSLY there isn't when the Slymepit is doing it:
I have already told you at great length that those who use satire incorrectly (from the Slymepit to Rush Limbaugh) do so with a vested interest to try to claim moral high ground.
and
The Slymepit is ridiculing people for being female, for being unattractive, for being fat, for being old. These are not vices, and thus cannot be satire, no matter how much they are defended as such.
Furthermore, when they are claiming to be satirizing actual vices–they are lying through their teeth and misrepresenting (or outright making up!). There is no truth to the claim that those vices apply to that person, so it’s useless to call it satire. Call it lying. It’s not that difficult. It’s faster, easier, and strips away their main strategy of defense.
Well, okay then! Come on over to the dark side, Ariel, and ask whoever you want, whatever you want...and be prepared for a lively discussion on topics such as, say, justification: who determines it, and how. :)
