How (and Why) to Write Satire

Satire ... The "Stupidity Tax"

Wikipedia:

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.  

When one writes satire, which I do, it is inevitable that someone, most often the target of the satire, will object. Whining and complaining, moaning and groaning ... splashing about in a puddle of tears. Generally, I feel little sympathy for them and there's a reason why. The technical demands of the Art Form, which I will explain, require the caterwaulers to be engaging in some activity that, reasonably speaking, merits their being targeted. Satire ... is a "Stupidity Tax."

Seldomly are the belly-achers the innocent victims described by their laments.      

Use Your Words

Human beings are incredibly social creatures. As such, we live together in groups. And, communal living affords us a litany of advantages that derive from specialization and expertise-development. And, the result of such expertise is our species' ability to survive, and thrive, in an untold number of hostile environments. 

That said, nothing is free. 

One of the downsides of such hyper-sociability was the emergence of The Mother of all Venn Diagrams - billions upon billions of overlapping and entangled lives, each impacting, and being impacted by, countless others. In such circumstances, trespass was/is inevitable.

And so, in an effort to minimize the number of said trespasses, each of us conforms to a litany of social behavioral norms.    

Indeed, many of these social behavioral norms are so important to our individual and collective survival that they became part of our genome, forming the very pillars upon which a universal human morality was constructed. Unfortunately, there are always a few Free Riders who are happy to derive a portion of the benefits without paying their portion of the price. Such individuals are cheaters and are extremely corrosive to the cohesion of a society. Hence, built into the genetic code of all humans is an innate desire to punish them, often violently. 

Of course, not all violations of social behavioral norms are motivated by a desire to cheat. Some are attempts to correct legitimate injustices that have become, deliberately or indeliberately, features of the existing social order.

So, how does one distinguish the former from the latter?

In the olden days, there was no need. The opinion of the guy with the longest sword prevailed. Might was right. At some point, though, our ancestors happened upon an alternative to murder and mayham: Public derision. Humiliation designed to kill an idea, rather than the mind that conceived it. The birth of satire was a means of drawing blood without resorting to blood-letting. 

Theater of The Absurd

The first job of a satirist is the identification of suitable subject matter and, as one quickly discovers, there is an extreme constraint upon one's choices. Simply, satire lives and breathes upon the absurd. One can try to write satirically about a non-absurdity but it won't be funny, becoming instead what doggerel is to poetry ... technically, but pathetically, going through the motions.  

So, this begs the question: What constitutes an absurdity? Wikipedia:

An absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable ... It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning "out of tune," hence irrational ... Absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning ...

Plato often used "absurdity" to describe very poor reasoning, or the conclusion from adopting a position that is false and reasoning to a false conclusion, called an "absurdity" (argument by reductio ad absurdum). 

Aristotle, my greatest intellectual idol ... well he, errr: 

... claimed that absurdity in reasoning being veiled by charming language in poetry, "As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it … But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes unnoticed."

(By that he meant ... well, he was talking about other poets, not me. OK?)

Absurdity is arguing that a thing is true when it self-evidently is not. It is ignoring the evidence of our eyes to convince ourselves, and others, that what is ... isn't, and that what isn't ... is. It is ridiculous emotional over-reactions to the mundane and the attempt to invest the mundane with sacred relevance. And, it is the attempt to elevate evidence-free sentiment above empirically-based logic.    

The Bark Has To Have A Bite

Humor, of any kind, rests upon psychological phenomenon closely related to threat identification and one's response to it. Indeed, smiling (in relation to mirth) constitutes the baring of one's teeth ... a defensive reflex when faced with potential peril ... followed by an appraisal and dismissal of danger.

When comics attempt to elicit a laugh, they must first build tension ... and then release it. Fail at either and the joke simply isn't funny. This phenomenon is often witnessed amongst young children. They hear a joke, laugh at it and then think they'll start creating their own to elicit a similar response. What they don't yet grasp, to their parent's chagrin, is that a joke can't be about anything they want. It has to possess tension-creating relevance to its audience.

To be tension-creating, it must possess an element of controversy. And, the reason it will be controversial is because there exists a conflict about its meaning or interpretation. Hence, humor inevitably touches upon the taboo, causing people to reflexively bare their teeth pending a more in-depth appraisal. Satire, a sub-category of humor, is a war waged about the meaning of things relevant to the public-at-large, most typically: Politics; culture or economics. It is a criticism of the forces shaping The Commons and the social behavioral norms to which we are, or will be, subject.

Creating tension in satire involves stripping an absurdity of its clothing so as to force people to look at it nakedly. Inevitably, this requires an explanation of how it became clothed in the first place. And therein lies a critical insight, an insight that explains why ideologues, of one kind or another, ALWAYS attempt to repress satire: There's something wrong with their ideology, a fact that would become obvious upon scrutiny. And so, they attempt to prevent scrutiny by preventing scrutinization.

In times past this might have entailed imprisonment or being burnt at the stake. More recently, it involves de-platforming, social media swarming and ad hominem attacks meant to kill the messenger so as to kill the message. But the argument remains: If there's nothing deficient about an idea, what's the harm of examining it, publicly, in bright light and from every angle? Those who have nothing to hide ... hide nothing.

The releasing of tension ... well, that's pure art. A comic, and what I would argue is the comic's closest cousin, the poet, employ performance and literary techniques that control semantic emphasis and timing. Executed masterfully, one elicits the intended emotional response, laughter or tears. Less-than-masterfully, rotten tomatoes. It's not an easy life but we satirists and poets, thankfully, are highly remunerated for our troubles.      

Art Is The Lie That Tells The Truth

Have you ever strolled through a park in the summertime and seen one of those caricature artists creating drawings of people? A good caricaturist can quickly create a caricature that, while cartoonish in nature, somehow seems to capture the essence of a person.   

Here's how they do it.

First, they identify the three most distinctive features about one's face, those things that most differentiate one's face from the norm of human faces. Then, they massively hyperbolize those features. So, if one has slightly larger ears than normal, they'll end up with ears that would make Dumbo the Elephant envious. Lastly, they minimize, to almost non-existence, every other feature. 

That's it.

Interestingly, people can identify a famous person depicted by a caricature faster than by looking at a photograph of them. The reason is that the photograph contains massive amounts of information that must be processed but which does little to help distinguish one person from another. So, if it's meaningful, force-multiply it. If it's not, leave it out as its inclusion just creates a distraction.

This same principle is intuitively utilized by comics and poets, art forms requiring that recognition and comprehension of complex ideas be achieved quickly and with limited information exchange. Metaphors and symbolism are the semantic shortcuts utilized by both.         

Such hyperbolization is, in reality, a distortion of the Truth. But it is a distortion meant to isolate the essence of a thing for the sake of making a point, for such reductio ab essentia increases focus and yields a clarity of understanding often absent in more realistic renderings of the same subject.  

Art in general, and satire in particular, is not meant to be a 'transcript in a Court of Law.' It is meant to be a trigger that inspires further, and more complex, thought. As the organizers of the Ig Nobel Prize once stated, "Even light-hearted satire has a serious 'after-taste' ... [so] first make people laugh, and then make them think." 

As Pablo Picasso once quipped, "Art is the lie that tells the truth." Great satire is full of hyperbole and exaggeration ... because it's trying to get you to focus on the fundamentals.

Don't Be A Bully

Sarcasm, irony and wit are the elements that make the pen mightier than the sword and their employment in the service of legitimate critique is widely tolerated, and often admired. Gratuitous meanness is bullying and is frowned upon by all but the most psychopathic. Personal character assassination is rarely required in satire and resorting to ad hominem attacks in an effort to score cheap points is the mark of an amateur.     

Indeed, poorly crafted satire often backfires, making the satirist him or herself look like the fool. Re-read Plato's quote: Absurdity is about gross unreasonableness and irrationality. But two wrongs don't make a right and one lunacy employed to defeat another, is self-defeating. If logic, reason and rationale are dirty words, you do not possess what is required to be a satirist.

Subtlety

Perhaps the most difficult skill for humorists (and artists in general) to master is subtlety. But satire is more about chuckles than guffaws. 

Of course, with subtlety comes the danger that readers will miss something the satirist intended to be humorous. And so, there is always a temptation to explain the joke. Actively engaging an audience, however, means that they must be involved in message interpretation. They HAVE to do some work. If nothing is required of audience members other than the ability to speak English, they will be passive message recipients and their level of engagement, low. All artists come to a point where they must trust their audiences to "get it" on their own, to make the leaps, connect the dots and come to conclusions. You can lead a horse to water ... but the horse must drink of its own accord.

Such engagement dramatically effects an audience's reaction. That Eureka Moment when people "suddenly get it" ... is an insight. This occurs in a part of the brain called the Right Anterior Superior Temporal Gyrus (RASTiG). The RASTiG is also involved in a network of neurons that produce a sense of self. Triggering an insight is powerful mojo as it feels like the stimuli (whether a song, poem or joke) is one's own.

Knowing where to draw the lines is, admittedly, difficult and is a matter of artistic instinct and intuition. And, knowing one's audience. The reality, of course, is that some audience members won't get every reference or understand every quip. So, at some point, you have cross your fingers ... and hope that they get enough.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

There is an old expression: "It's not what you say, but how you say it." As a poet, you might think I'd be supportive of such assertion as poets would be the most obvious beneficiaries of the cliché. But I think the expression makes a hash of a critical underlying dynamic, so ... I coined an alternative:

What you say x How you say it = That you said it

What you say and how you say it, matters. But the effect of your saying it will be the passing of judgement. When you judge another, as is the case with satire, others will judge you for being judgemental. Satire entails passing judgement ... and finding fault ... with another's thought processes, beliefs and behaviors. The inescapable implication is that you believe your thinking is so markedly superior to theirs that it justifies sarcasm. Most charitably, this is arrogance. Less charitably, it is an assault. An assault so premeditated and consciously conceived that it rises to the level of Art. That's pretty nasty.

So, your sarcasm had damn well better be justified and you had damned well better be able to justify the chutzpah that gives you the right to elevate yourself while demeaning another.

This segues to another expression, one upon which I cannot improve and one which I believe all aspiring satirists ought to consider before picking upon their pens: "Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt."

Miscellaneous Tips

Following is a few writing tips that are applicable to all forms of writing, including satire:

Include Patterned Language. Our brains are pattern detection and pattern comparison machines and when we detect a pattern, our brains secrete dopamine in response. Dopamine is the neurochemical responsible for: Creating Focus; Holding Attention; Formation of Long-Term Memory; Anticipation of Reward; and, the sensation of Wanting. I deliberately dope my writing, ensuring that my readers never go more than a few lines without getting some neurological candy. How?

• "Three is a Pattern and In Pattern There is Meaning." Use three, but only three, examples (unless you're listing something with other than three parts, like the months of the year).
• Poetic verse is language-patterns on steroids: Meter; rhythm; rhyme; and, alliteration. Employ some of these poetic devices even when writing prose. Alliteration is especially easy to work into the mix.
• Another pattern might involve a chiasmus (or other kinds of parallelism): Two parallel lines in which the order of the subject and the object are reversed; 

  • Ask not what your county can do for you, ['your country' (subject - actor), 'you' (object - acted upon)
  • Ask what you can do for your country. ['you' (subject - actor), 'your country' (object - acted upon) 

Flow. There are usually numerous ways that the information in a sentence may be organized. Some ways flow better than others. Simply, the words easily progress from one to another in a pleasing fashion. Before publishing, go back and re-read your writing several times ... quickly. You may feel like you're tripping or hitting roadblocks in certain lines. How might you re-organize the words to improve the flow?

Show, Don't Tell. This is especially important in narratives. Instead of saying, "He was surprised ...," say, "His eyebrows arched ..." Let the reader figure out what "eyebrows arching" infers. A reader engaged in message interpretation is an engaged reader.

Avoid Word Salads. Many writers try to sound sophisticated by employing a litany of long and fancy-sounding words. The more syllables a word has, the longer it takes to process ... which may adversely effect the flow. This doesn't mean "don't use long words," but rather "don't use them deliberately." Choose the most semantically effective word ... while considering how it also achieves some of the other effects mentioned above. But ... FLOW COMES FIRST ... if it screws up the flow, change it.

Punctuation. "The Power of Prosody is in the Pause" ... and the power of pause is in the punctuation. Choose your punctuation as carefully as you do your words, it dramatically effects the flow.

Quill's Ire

Below are a few satirical posts I've published here on Steemit.

Note: I am a Political and Cultural Centrist. I supported Obama in both his election and re-election but, had he not been term-limited, I would not have supported him a third time. The reason was his appeasement of the Far Left Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party, which resulted in the cowing of Mainstream Democrats and an effective take-over of the party by "Post-Modernists" ... the political/cultural/economic decendants of Marxists.

Just as George Orwell wrote "1984" to critique the growing excesses of his own side (English Socialism), I do something similar, critiquing the growing excesses of the side to which I would frequently be sympathetic.

In the last election, I reluctantly supported Trump. Such support was not "for Trump" or "against Hillary" (I disliked both candidates) ... it was "against what would come with Hillary." My Mom used to tell my brothers and I, "You don't just marry a girl, you marry her family." Within 24 hours of the Democrats' electoral defeat, Far Left pundits were already arguing that they had not lost "because they went Left, but because they didn't go Left enough." I could easily list two dozen Democrats, with whom I have personal relationships, who voted Republican for the same reasons as my own. Each party must control its respective lunatic fringes ... and Democrats, you're doing a terrible job.

While the following articles are satirical examples of my writing, as per the purpose of this post, I have also published numerous other similarly-themed non-satirical essays and articles.

1. Ideologues, Activists and the Theater of the Absurd + "The" ... a poem. This post was satire highlighting some of the absurdities claimed by Post-Modernists and the rhetorical tricks they use to camouflage their insanity.
2. "Social Justice Warriors" Are Warriors Too ... And Therefore "Veterans." This post satirized a Social Justice Warrior who was arguing that they, too, ought to be referred to as "Veterans" ... which, as a Veteran, makes me see red.
3. STEEM at $1,000 in 6 Months - Interview with @Anarcho-Zealot {Witness} Steemit TODAY, Podcast No. 37. This post was satire directed at Political Anarchists, specifically those involved with cryptocurrencies, and in particular, STEEM/Steemit.
4. Bring Back the Bullies >>> Some of Us, Self-Evidently ... Need an Ass-Kicking (ComedyOpenMic #39) This post was satire (based upon a true story) directed at the Far Left and some of the behavioral peculiarities they're trying to force upon society.
5. "My First Date On Tinder" ... Writing Prompts Contest (Week 2) + ComedyOpen Mic #41 This post was cultural satire, lampooning the expectation of "finding a mate" (worth finding) on what is the world's second-most-tasteless dating site, Tinder. (Ashley Madison takes the Gold.)
6.  STEEMFest 4 ... "The Whales vs. The Minnows Chess Takedown" (100,000 - or 1 - STEEM Prize) This post was follow-up satire directed at Anarchists, the political philosophy underlying the creation of cryptocurrencies.
7. Confessions of a "Rapist. This post was a satirical criticism of the Far Left respecting their ever-expanding definition of "Rape." 

Quill

All images herein are QuillFire modifications of images in the public domain.

You guys know the QuillDrill. Be verbose ... but articulate.

And remember ...     

Go Love a Starving Poet     

For God's sake ... they're starving!