Carl Remick wrote:
>
> The Sydney Morning Herald
>
> Stop clapping, this is serious
>
> March 1 2003
>
>
> Sadly, though, Lehrer is of the opinion that while satire may attract
> attention to an issue, it doesn't achieve a lot else.
>
> "The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded
> myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the
> converted.
>
> "The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact,
> it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry,
> which is what they should be."
This is one of the more profound things I've ever read about satire (and I've read an awful lot since my dissertation was on criticism of Pope, which required reading also a lot of criticism of Swift, Dryden, Rochester, etc, which required reading a lot of general commentary on and history of satire). And of course satire and humor are two distinct categories, which can and do (but less often than is assumed) overlap. There is very little humor (beyond the title)in one of the most magnificent satires in English, for example -- Swift's "An Argument to prove that the Abolishing of Christianity in England May, as Things Now Stand, Be Attended with Some Inconveniences, and Perhaps Not Produce Those Many Good Effects Proposed Thereby."
"The audience usually has to be with you": Probably almost always. Humor and satire both depend on stock responses, and hence can _never_ be used to open up new territory. There is also almost always an implication in humor that if one does not see the humor one is inferior as a human being: Hardly a good message to send to someone if you want to make a friend of him or her. All the great satirists have been conservative or even reactionary. How is one humorous about the death penalty? Answer: By singing, "they never will be missed."
But the last point, "leave themselves satisfied," is more important perhaps than Lehrer recognizes. An army needs not only to recruit new members, it needs to keep up the morale of those already enrolled -- and titillation, confirmation in what one already knows (and is already angry about) is certainly of use.
Humor will never attract new "converts" to the left: it is more apt to "turn off" (to use the core slogan of opportunism) than attract those not already safely within the lines. But don't those already recruited deserve, and need, some satisfaction in their lives?
Carrol
P.S. Admiration for how humorous conservatives and reactionaries can be is merely a confused recognition of their success in appealing to mass prejudice.
>
> His favourite quote on the subject is from British comedian Peter Cook, who,
> in founding the Establishment Club in 1961, said it was to be a satirical
> venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop
> the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War". ...
>
> <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/28/1046407753895.html>
>
> Carl
>
> _________________________________________________________________