Philosophy Radio! drlabasham777's Podcast
Society & Culture:Philosophy
Introduction, Social/Political, Philosophy of Religion; The Art and Wisdom of Satire: Abortion Remarks
Here we discuss the idea of satire through an illustration. You have to remember the content of the illustration is irrelevant to the method that we are interested in looking at. I want you all to learn about satire. It is an extraordinary, powerful and remarkably enjoyable method of making your point. Satirizing typically has three elements: (1) pretend to take a position you don't believe in, (2) offer reasons to accept the position you don't believe in a way that makes the position look stupid, and (3) become emotionally panicked and hysterical and discredit yourself by taking that position, so that people will think of those who take that position seriously (the one you do not believe in) look emotionally panicked and hysterical. This is called satire and satire is one of the most powerful abilities of human communication and the human mind. Why? Because as it has been said "nothing can survive laughter".
Our example here is not an endorsement of a position. I don't care, for this discussion, what this guy thinks, I just care about the manner of his satire. We should care about the method he uses to promote his position. In this case it's about abortion but it could be about anything this is a gifted, intelligent satirist goes after, whether we agree with them or we disagree. We can all agree what he did is very cleverly done here and we can all see the three features of satirizing a particular position concerning abortion. I bring it to our attention so that we can examine this method, not his apparent actual conclusions. Satire is the art of seriously important comedy.
Cheers~
Dr. Lee Basham
PS. The photo is of Norm Macdonald, the greatest, most intelligent satire comedian of the last 100 years. OJ Simpson, the famous football player, killed his wife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SSVIg4Noqc
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