Peter Kilander wrote:
> We on the left will have few
> weapons or coping mechanisms left without them. If deprived of sarcasm, I
> don't think I'd be able to deal with the likes of Dan Quayle.
Why do you want to "deal with" Dan Quayle? If our audience is each other, Quayle doesn't enter our conversation. If our audience is made up of "ordinary people," they fall into two broad categories: those who are apt to come into contact with anything we say, sarcastic or non- sarcastic, and those who aren't going to even know we exist. Most of the former group already reject Quayle -- it's Clinton and Gore and other liberals that we have to wean them from. As to the latter group, can we reach them at all at this point, sarcasm or no sarcasm.
Now I enjoy irony greatly -- I suppose that was my main object of study professionally for a number of years. I enjoy jokes at Quayle's expense, or Clinton's. I just don't see where, concretely, the political use of irony comes in. I'm willing to be persuaded, but the persuasion has to come from an analysis of political practice, not from an analysis of irony as such. Show me where and when irony has significantly affected the political practice of reasonably large numbers of people.
Carrol