It's surprising how, in an election year, most of us are gullible literalists. We tend to believe what we're told. In fact, the more false rumors are repeated -- such as Barack Obama's being a Muslim -- the more we tend to believe them.
Not so Angus Stocking. Maybe it's his being located in western Colorado that's made him take things with more than an ounce of sandstone. He's fond of using deadpan humor, saying one thing and meaning something else. His ironical frame of mind, like that of many a satirist and reverse-psychologist, could wake us up to underlying truths. On the other hand, as I said, most of us dumbly believe what we hear literally, be it ever so outrageous.
This witty drop-in is a great example of its subject. Stocking tells us medical studies reveal that people unable to detect sarcasm have brain damage. Go believe this, and you'll believe I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Much as history might suggest that four-fifths of Americans are cerebrally challenged, it ain't so. If you go along with Stocking and his "belief system" (B.S.), you're missing his point.
In certain ways -- and I'm not being flip here -- Stocking misses the point. He confuses sarcasm with irony. Stocking's commentary is about irony, our failure to discern the difference between what is said and what is true, what is appearance and what is reality. Sarcasm is a particularly non-humorous, bitter, virulent kind of irony, as when Mark Anthony calls Brutus "an honorable man" again and again in "Julius Caesar" and thereby ends up totally discrediting Brutus and finally overthrowing him.
Despite my professorial nitpicking, Stocking's essay is thoroughly honorable. Friends, enemies, and public radio people, I urge you to lend Angus Stocking your ears!
Review of Sarcasm
James Reiss
Posted on March 26, 2008 at 07:22 AM
It's surprising how, in an election year, most of us are gullible literalists. We tend to believe what we're told. In fact, the more false rumors are repeated -- such as Barack Obama's being a Muslim -- the more we tend to believe them.
Not so Angus Stocking. Maybe it's his being located in western Colorado that's made him take things with more than an ounce of sandstone. He's fond of using deadpan humor, saying one thing and meaning something else. His ironical frame of mind, like that of many a satirist and reverse-psychologist, could wake us up to underlying truths. On the other hand, as I said, most of us dumbly believe what we hear literally, be it ever so outrageous.
This witty drop-in is a great example of its subject. Stocking tells us medical studies reveal that people unable to detect sarcasm have brain damage. Go believe this, and you'll believe I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Much as history might suggest that four-fifths of Americans are cerebrally challenged, it ain't so. If you go along with Stocking and his "belief system" (B.S.), you're missing his point.
In certain ways -- and I'm not being flip here -- Stocking misses the point. He confuses sarcasm with irony. Stocking's commentary is about irony, our failure to discern the difference between what is said and what is true, what is appearance and what is reality. Sarcasm is a particularly non-humorous, bitter, virulent kind of irony, as when Mark Anthony calls Brutus "an honorable man" again and again in "Julius Caesar" and thereby ends up totally discrediting Brutus and finally overthrowing him.
Despite my professorial nitpicking, Stocking's essay is thoroughly honorable. Friends, enemies, and public radio people, I urge you to lend Angus Stocking your ears!