Who Killed Sarcasm?

Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer.

Bring back Sarcasm. It?s really quite refreshing.

Is there anything more boring than somebody banging on in endless detail about a TV show you have yet to see? An old pal was bending my ear recently with descriptions of some new low-brow reality-show obsession. One particular character had caught his attention: When he described her as ?a blousy, braying, tackily dressed plastic surgery victim,? I simply could not resist. ?Must be like looking into a mirror,? I said, with a concerned look.

The TV enthusiast winced visibly and strode off. He was later heard telling pals that I had been ?hating? on him. Suddenly I felt a chill wind. Could it be that sarcasm, one of the greatest achievements of mankind?or ?unkind? as I prefer to call it?is in danger of extinction?

From the Greek sarkasmos, meaning to sneer at or taunt (and derived from a term for rending the flesh), sarcasm is one of the building blocks of civilization. The ability to express an unwelcome observation in a wickedly passive-aggressive manner is, at the very least, a great alternative to old-fashioned fisticuffs, or rape ?n? pillage. When I think about those ancient Greeks and the carte blanche they enjoyed to say horrid things to one another, I get quite jealous. For example: If you were strolling through downtown Thebes and you ran into a pal who was looking particularly soiled and unkempt, you might say, ?Going somewhere special?? to which the other Greek might good-naturedly reply, ?Oh! You and your flesh-rending ironic observations!? It?s sad to think that such a remark would, in our squishy and oversensitive age, be met with accusations of ?hating.?

If sarcasm is dying?it?s now such a rare commodity that when the Republicans decided to insert a little snark into last week?s proceedings, they were obliged to exhume an octogenarian entertainer, hello!?what, pray, will become of the little children of today? Sardonic irony is as critical to healthy child development as vitamins and tick-checks. Raising your brats on an exclusive diet of sincerity is a recipe for disaster. The current mania for relentless positivity and self-esteem building leaves me convinced that we are in real danger of turning out an entire generation of inspirational speakers.

I am happy to say that I was barraged with sarcasm during my formative years. My teachers specialized in subtle-but-withering verbal assaults. Many incidents spring to mind: After jackhammering my way through an entire page of Ulysses in a robotic monotone?how was I supposed to know that James Joyce expected the reader to insert the lilts, pauses, and commas intuitively??my English teacher announced that he was overcome by the ?sensitivity? of my reading and would need to ?nip out for a fag? in order to compose himself. While the entire class roared with laughter, I flinched and cringed. But I eventually recovered. Better to be verbally humiliated than whacked upside the head, an outcome that was also on offer, and the benefits of which will doubtless be the subject of some future column.

My home life, I am happy to report, was equally sarcasm-riddled and sincerity-free. When I began to embrace the satins and velvets of glam rock, my parents began pointedly tracking the movements of any traveling circuses and keeping me posted on their whereabouts. ?

Pops and Mamma saved their best sarcasm for each other, often after drinking vats of homemade sloe gin. Like many dudes of his generation, my dad had a tendency to treat his kids, the fruit of his loins, like some random encumbrance that fate had been seen fit to inflict upon him. My mum was quick to nip this line of thinking in the bud with a little gin-fueled faux-gratitude: ?It really was so good of you to take me in off the street, especially with these two children in tow. Have I ever thanked you formally??

The magic of sarcasm finds exquisite illustration in a naughty new book titled Dear Lupin ? Letters to a Wayward Son. English upper class ne?er-do-well Charlie Mortimer wisely saved the lifelong correspondence he had received from his unflaggingly sardonic writer dad Roger Mortimer, and has now compiled it into a thigh-slapping mini-tome.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=bbc0e0999a2acf3c8a7abcfc4a99b5fa

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