65: Satire

Hi, everybody, and welcome to Classical Stuff You Should Know. We are a podcast about classical literature, art, philosophy, architecture, still to come, and we are just trying to bring everybody into the classical world, which, I promise you, is far more accessible than you think it is. Plato is easier to read than people writing about Plato. Aristotle is as hard to read as you think he is, but it's very good.

Why all the hate? Aristotle is incredibly accessible. You think so? Oh, for sure.

I think he's really hard to read. You're smarter than me. No, you just slow down. Yeah.

Don't want to. Okay. Anyway. Have you been reading Purgatorio?

Have you started that one yet, Graham? Aren't you going to teach that? If we get to it. But yeah.

Just in the vein of accessible things that I thought would be really hard. It's almost me wanting to go back to the Inferno. Yeah, Purgatorio is easy. You're fine.

Okay. Anyway, today's episode will be led by Mr. Oh, sorry. The three of us.

I am AJ Handenberg. I teach 9th and 12th grade English here at Veritas Academy in Austin, Texas. I am joined by my two colleagues, Graham Donaldson. Hoi hoi.

And Thomas Maheby. Hello. And we are in charge around here. That's what we do.

I'm proud. Over to you, Thomas. Here are our bosses. Please ignore that last comment.

I guess it's in charge of the podcast. Oh, we are our bosses here. So today's topic. Is that why you're wearing a tie?

None of us. I'm sorry. So it was a great funny. Satire.

Oh, fair enough. So the original title I was going to give this is from Sater to Snark. But then I realized that. Anyway, we'll talk about it.

I just received a text from Ed Megby. Yeah, and I told you all that I would do that. So we're going to be talking about satire and snark and sarcasm. So gentlemen, as I was coming up with this topic, I was flipping through Facebook as I want to do.

And I came across this ad from The Daily Show that clearly wanted me to watch it. Would one of you all like to read with this? So this is a quote, I'm assuming, from one of their shows. I used to watch it.

I used to watch it. Are you all avid? I cannot stand it. Okay, great.

So then, Graham, what does it say? Amazon moving to New York is worse than bad. It's cliche. Amazon's been around for 24 years, and they're doing what every 24-year-old does.

Move to New York and gentrify a neighborhood. They could have at least spent a year teaching English in Bangladesh. So what is happening in this quote? It is like pointing out what the commentator or the comedian thinks is a social ill.

Amazon moving to New York and making it harder to live in the city because they're going to make it more expensive. And wrapping that up in something that is somewhat clever and funny by saying that Amazon is like a 24-year-old who is moving to New York and gentrifying neighborhoods. Yeah, so he's tanking something that he wants to maybe have a serious conversation about or feel something serious, Amazon moving to New York City, and is satirizing it. Satirizing Amazon's move to the city and saying that it's going to be due to this bad thing.

If they're going to do this bad thing, they might as well at least do one good thing that 24-year-olds do as a gap year in Bangladesh. AJ, is it funny? Kind of. I've taken it out of context, and it would probably be much funnier if we were actually watching the show.

I'm sure people laughed at it. I'm sure people laughed at it. That's probably the funny thing about teaching in Bangladesh. That's kind of funny.

So there is a cleverness to it. And the weight of saying like a 24-year-old company is like a 24-year-old kid. They're doing the same thing that a 24-year-old kid does. That's funny.

Yeah, and I'm vaguely aware that there's some famous quote that if you have to explain the joke, it's not funny. So I'm sure I suspecting it makes it hilarious. But sure, I'm sure in being cold, it was laughed at and then probably moved on from there. I did not watch this episode, but it likely was the culmination of some sort of segment.

That there was information about Amazon moving to New York, and then this quip offered either at the end or at some point to wrap up the segment. So, Graham, you used the term satire to describe this. Would you all agree that this is satire? Satire, as I understand it, is you're either making something extreme or you're using a little silliness or absurdity, but you've got a social point that you're trying to make.

Whereas, if you don't have a social point, if you're just trying to be cutting, I don't know what we call it. Maybe sarcasm. No, sarcasm is a little bit different. But satire usually has some kind of good or some kind of message that they're wanting to show.

Whereas, it can be humorous, but there's no message. It's just something terrible. Here's a dude who walked into the door of a dryer. Or saying a joke of something that is truly, truly horrible because people don't know how to deal with the horrible thing you said other than just sort of laugh nervously about it.

So, like, the dead baby jokes or the Holocaust jokes. That's not satire. That's saying horrible things because they're so terrible. We don't really know how to deal with hearing something terrible other than just sort of nervously laugh at it.

So, I'll just read off this as a definition of satire. The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and their topical issues. So, expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices. Is satire a particularly new thing?

Nope. Nah. How far back do you think it is? They had, what was the famous gin?

There was something to do with when there was a bout of drunkenness happening in England. And there was a famous, was it Swift? Swift was a famous satiratician that talked about gin consumption in England. Sure.

I think it was for the eating babies, the modest proposal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a far, a really, really old one from ancient Greece. There's a movie made up about it.

I think Chirac was built on this. Oh, the women. That's a Greek, that is comedy. So, this is fun.

So, in my original conception of this topic, as I said before, it was from satir to satire, or from satir to snark. And so, we talked about this before at the Great Dianusia, at the competition every year, there would be three tragedies and a comedy that would be submitted. Well, in addition to those, so the tragedies were taken seriously, the comedy wasn't taken as seriously, and it took, I think, 20 years. It took some amount of time before the comedy was added to the cycle of the competition.

Well, an additional piece was added, and those were the satir plays. And so, the satir plays were more like, I don't even know what to call it, like burlesque, like a, it's just mocking, yeah. It's body. Body is the right word for it.

B-W. Yes, and in the same way that the Great Dianusia is the celebration of Dionysus, essentially this play is, I believe the satirs were creatures that supported it, that were for Dionysus. Oh, satyr. Yeah, S-A-T-Y-R.

I keep thinking you're saying satyr like the Jewish satyr. Oh, I'm sorry, no, no, S-A-T-Y-R. Oh, the satyrs. Yeah, satyrs, satyrs, okay.

I thought you were saying satyr like the satyr dinner. No, those are the little wooden creatures that have the feet of a goat and the body of a man. Those are satyrs. Thomas.

Oh, is that Mr. Thomas, yes. Oh, how are you? So the satyr plays actually had satyrs in them.

That's why they were called that. And they're mocking, so the only extant satyr play we have is about when Odysseus is hanging out with the Cyclops. What's the name of that Cyclops? Oh, no one.

Yeah, no one. Yes, that whole scene. Yes, so there's a satyr play about that where it's essentially the satyrs who are helping Odysseus, but accidentally, it's kind of funny, but not really. It's one of those things you lose in translation.

But that term satyr is not where we get the term satyr from. Oh. Yeah, so anyway, that's my fun tangent to say. I thought a thing that was wrong.

So, yes, it's popularized by essayists in England, in Europe, but it comes from even before that. Quintilian kind of created the words to describe, oh, where's his name, Luce? Of course, I'm going to lose it. He eventually created the term, but what he was describing was a specific literary technique.

So in the same way that Shakespeare would write in iambic pentameter, satyr had limits to the verse, to the rhyming. It was a specific type of literature. It was a form. It was a form of literature.

But that obviously is not how we use the term now. All that to say, it's very old. You're getting at the important pieces of it, that satyr is not just you laughing at a thing, but it's to point out the problem with a thing. So I think of satyr for a modest proposal.

There's another famous example of it. I'll read, this is a great book, Liturgy of the Ordinary, which is not a classic, but it's a very good book, by Tish Harrison Warren. One of my favorite scenes in literature is when the Ludputins in Gulliver's Travel think that because Gulliver keeps checking his clock, it must be his god. It was Swiss clever commentary on his era's worship of time, hurry, and efficiency, which applies just as easily to us today.

So a form of satire. This is my tiny black square god that I keep looking at. I didn't want to make that comment, but here we are. So Gulliver's Travel would be an example of satire.

It is mocking the English because they keep looking at their clock. They're obsessed with time. Another famous example is Monster Cozle by Jonathan Swift. It's funny, y'all know.

Yep, it's where he's talking about Irish. Yep, what to do with the Irish. Yep, so they have lots of Irish people, and they're all very hungry, so a thing to do with them is to eat the babies and to make handbags out of the skins, and it's weird, but it's obviously not meant as literal. He's wanting to showcase the fact that the English just do not think of the Irish as humans.

Yes. And the bureaucracy can sometimes be undefeated and do normal things. So is satire... What do y'all think about satire?

It's incredibly powerful, and it's incredibly difficult to do well, which is interesting to say because we're so inundated with that kind of ethos on the internet right now. The internet is filled with that kind of humor, as your meme that you sent to us pointed out, or the little joke that you sent to us from the Daily Show pointed out. So the fact that there's lots of it nowadays still doesn't belie the fact that it's difficult to do. I think it's tiring over time.

I don't think it has a lot of staying power, and so it needs to... And it feeds off of outrage and anger, which has its own consistency, its own longevity problems. You sort of need to move on to the next thing. It's vampiric.

Yes. It proffers nothing new. It feeds on other people trying to do things. So in this case, Amazon's move.

Amazon is doing a thing. This thing criticizes that move. So because of this criticism, it by very nature cannot be proffering its own... Usually not proffering its own ideas.

Yes. So it's vampiric. But when we talk about Deliver's Travels, or The Modest Proposal, or pick some other example of satire, political satire, are those things helpful? Are they good?

I think especially in certain situations where direct voicing of criticism is impossible. So I think of... Was Animal Farm written in a time when you could not criticize... No, the British is fine.

I do know that sometimes when you cannot criticize the government, you can write satires that are lightly veiled, and because they can't directly get you, you're like, I was writing a story about dogs. You're like, it's clearly about us. And you're like, not about dogs, man. Or even more that the audience that you're writing to...

So in Animal Farm, I'm just trying to think that the subject who is reading the work of satire might not be open to an essay that says the thing you're doing is wrong, or the way you're thinking is wrong. So instead, you take a roundabout way, and you use humor, you know, dark sense of humor, but you get someone drawn into a story so that they will read something that they wouldn't have read if it had been stated outright. What's the power of narrative, right? I can give you a moralizing sermon, or I can tell you a tale that has the same morals, and typically the tale will be more effective.

Yes. So satire is... No, satire is powerful. So for example, you know, we were just joking about looking at my phone, so like Black Mirror, that television show, is satirical.

It's talking about our relationship with technology. I think sometimes where satire gets... Where, um, when satire is doing something witty, but you fundamentally disagree with the underlying social point that they're trying to make, I feel like people get frustrated with that, right? So I don't want to really divide it into left and right, but people on the left wouldn't find a clever person on the right making some sort of satirical joke about a silly thing that the left does.

They wouldn't find that. That's just not funny. Like, they would move into seriousness and the other way around, like if someone on the left is doing something. Like, if you have two people at odds, and they're both cleverly satirizing somebody else, there's no fruit in doubling down on doing that better than the other person.

So at some point, you need to stop making jokes and sit down and say, okay, what should we do about Amazon? Or what should we do about X? Yeah, and it's probably reductive to what they're actually doing as well. Yeah, if you were someone who loved The Daily Show and worked for Amazon, you're like, well, there's actually really good reasons why moving to New York City is a good idea.

You're going to feel like you are on the outside of this joke and that, like, you know, modern television culture or internet culture is now against you because they found the whipping boy of the moment and it happens to be you, but don't worry, they're going to move on to the next whipping boy of the moment and Amazon can continue to do its thing. Well, that's the other thing is because it's vampiric, it often doesn't have that same saying power, right? We, like, the modest proposal doesn't have that. I mean, it's interesting, but interesting as almost a historical piece.

It doesn't necessarily say that there are a couple of lessons you can draw from it, but I don't know that it has the same power or something else right in the same time period. So satire, I guess, by definition, must be more for the time. Yeah. It's a specific issue.

Right. So it is more for the exact time period. So it's helpful as a historic study to say, at some point, the Irish were treated very poorly, but now we've moved past that. It won't say the same things.

Just as this joke, a month from now, or once Amazon moves, it will fall completely flat. Or once it maybe proves right that Amazon actually brings a lot of social good when people are saying it's going to bring a lot of social bad. That joke's not going to age very well. So, yeah, satire is a really of the moment thing.

So it's a classical satire. So all that to not answer your question is okay. We still haven't answered that. I think your answer is no.

Some form of no. The thing is, there's also the way that one does it. So there is sort of charitable satire, and then there is an uncharitable satire. And this example, I think, of the Amazon thing is not a very charitable satire.

There is no room for any kind of Amazon to... It is very definitely this speaker against Amazon. But when you have one of the little buttons, when you have something that is clearly a fantasy creature laughing at humans, there's something a little bit charitable about that, because you're saying, we all do this. Whereas that guy is saying, Amazon's doing this, and they're the worst.

Or like Black Mirror, right? Black Mirror is more charitable. We all do this. That's like, let's fix this problem, rather than like, Ohioans.

Yeah, so when there's... It draws a clear distinction between me, the joke teller, and people on my side, versus you, the butt of the joke. That, I think, is a sort of corrosive type of satire that is... When it's in vogue, and it is in vogue right now, is a very destructive thing.

But the person that has care and concern about all of humanity and lumps themselves in the joke as well, I think it has a lot more... That charitable satire thing a lot better. So, yes, this is helpful. So I'm going to complicate things by making a few different terms.

Graham, this is kind of an off-hand question, but I think it's an interesting one of again, satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. So again, ridicule, ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices. So there is a target, there's a thing that you're trying to pull out in that situation. It is classical in the sense that it's existed for a long time.

While it was not a Seder play, Aristophanes, The Clouds, it is satire. In The Clouds, it's about this father and son. The father wants his son to join, essentially, the academy, but they have a different name for it, and so his son won't do it. So the father ends up joining.

He meets a fictional version of Socrates, and Socrates goes on for pages and pages about these, like, goofy, unnecessary questions that they're answering at the academy, such as, what is the length of a gnat to jump? You can solve it by heating wax and putting wax on the feet of the flea so they can jump up, and they can track the distance of the gnat jumps. Ooh, but that probably interferes with the gnat's distance in the logic, right? So there are many different examples, and the whole point is to make fun of Socrates and his academy.

Plato, in particular, hated this play and thinks that it was part of the reason why Socrates was killed, and so there's that. But Aristophanes has a point that he's making, that people are wasting their time by going to the academy, and so people listen to him and avoid the academy. He's trying to do a good thing for that. He's trying to help people to not...

From what he thinks is good. From what he thinks, exactly. And the satyrists have to write from their own perspective, I think. I think every author has to.

And so the story ends with the father, I think the father is in fact kicked out of the academy. His son joins, and his son, he started off as a strong athletic man, comes out as this like weakened, for lack of a better word, nerd, who like can't fight for himself anymore and is no longer self-assured and well-spoken. And we said, welcome to the fold, brother. That's exactly right.

And that's where I came from. Our fourth member of the podcast. So in Aristotle's view, he is doing a social good by putting the satire out, by warning people about the academy. And if he had just gotten up and said, hey, the academy's bad, it wouldn't work.

People wouldn't have listened to him. But by him giving this funny example that people can laugh at, it is more persuasive than if he just said it. Yeah, but I mean, history has to bear itself out, right? Like, is the academy actually ultimately bad or good?

So there's tons of satire talking about the dangers of abolition of slavery. I'm watching the Ken Burns Civil War documentary again. And there's tons of, of the time satire talking about the dangers of the abolition of slaves. If we free the slaves, here's all the satirically crazy things that are going to happen, ha, ha, ha.

And you look back and you're like, you're wrong. Like, that satirist was incorrect in his reading of history at that moment because the abolition of slaves was a good thing. So in many ways, like, history will determine the winners and losers of satire. And of any ideas, right?

Yeah, and of any ideas. I don't, yeah, of course I don't disagree with that. I feel like it was a very similar point I raised on our long ago episodes about rhetoric, that these are tools that can be, I mean, this is what you all came back with to say that they are essentially amoral, that you, that these tools exist and that these ways of arguing exist and you should have a good argument. But even if you don't, if the other person has an evil argument and they're using strong arguments, you want to be able to also use strong arguments, right?

You want to be trained in rhetoric also. That being said, I think what we were talking about before where you are drawing a clear line between you as a joke teller and in the butt of the joke, I don't think I can think of many reasons where that is a good because at some level you're doing the plank in your eye, speck in their eye. They're kind of a sentiment. Yeah, then I'm superior in the way that I've figured things out.

There's no humility that you have to your place in time and history. And that's my problem with it is when it is insulting others, you are doing criticism in an insulting way. And if you said that's why Socrates got killed, well, it maybe meant satirizing a culture as a whole in which you are included. That comes across as self-deprecation rather than insult.

And there's a big cast between the two. And that's why I have a problem with The Daily Show because they sort of present themselves like they're poo-don't-sink. And I think that's why The Daily Show is very different than Colbert Report because I feel like Stephen Colbert had a better... He was a lot more charitable in his satire because he was roping himself and everybody in on this in his shtick.

Even his shtick, his character was a satire. He put himself into it. I feel like that had more... I don't know what saying how is the right word because The Daily Show is still around and it has lots of people but I feel like it's got this edge to it that I find I can't tolerate it.

So let me... So this is where... The armature of what's good and bad but I just can't get over the fact that they're drawing those hard lines and... Yeah, you're the guy with the microphone so you need to decide the right one.

We paid for this platform. We're going to use it. So when I said it wasn't complicated this is where we'll start. So satire, again, it's pointing to something that is in fact wrong.

It's pointing to stupidity or vices. Let me offer another word, sarcasm. Sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt. And I think that's what you're talking about.

Yeah, there's a difference. So with satire, there's a thing that you actually think is wrong and you want to point to that. With sarcasm, all you say is I have anger. I'm mad.

I'm going to express that anger. Yes, and that is definitely to invoke cultural... Like, you don't have to teach our kids sarcasm. Our students know they can identify sarcasm when they see it.

Oh, can they? Yeah, exactly. It is the language currency of the internet. But it is also...

So the etymology of sarcasm, it comes from a Greek word but it means to cut, right? It means to tear flesh by the lip and rage or sneer. But to tear flesh, I think, is apt for what sarcasm accomplishes. It wasn't used until the 16th century, though, as a word in itself, as sarcasm itself.

I'm going to bet they had it before then, though. Sure, that literally meant to tear flesh by the lip. Like, it was not written until the 16th century. I mean, I think sarcasm existed.

Not necessarily the word, but I think people were sarcastic. Sure, sure. But all I'm trying to say is that the idea... So when we read things today that we call classical, there are things that have been preserved over time.

And so some of those things that have been preserved over time are satirical. So there's some value that people saw in them such that monks for hundreds of years wrote it down over and over again that exists for satire that doesn't exist for sarcasm. Yeah, I think that's right. Maybe that's the way I'll say that.

Because, again, sarcasm is A, highly contextual, and B, offers nothing. Whereas at least satire can offer... If satire is, like we've been talking about it, historically correct or in tune with maybe justice. When satire is in tune with justice, it has staying power.

Sarcasm is never in tune with a virtue, I don't think. Because sarcasm is not meant to convey a virtue. It's not meant to point to an actual problem. It's just the means of expression, right?

Yeah. Yeah, now I'm in my own philosophical question. Can sarcasm ever points to a virtue or ever be a tool in aid of virtue? I think it is a broken tool in aid of virtue.

You can use sarcasm to point out that people are doing something stupid. Or call someone stupid if they're being stupid. But there are better ways and more honorable and more just. That's my question.

There are better ways to do it, I think. I think sarcasm would be ever honorable and just. I would say probably not. I don't think so either.

It's just kind of fascinating. How so? Well, I just said that. I mean, great.

Why tolerate it? There it is. Thank you. So that is a question that, listener, I hope you will let bubble for the next couple minutes as I alleviate.

Oh, good word. To add more nuance to our discussion. Yes. All over.

And then a third definition. So, listeners, I'm sure you've heard many times, I have not kept a commonplace book until now. So I am following in, I believe, Graham's footsteps by using note cards. Dude, you give up video games and TV and look what you're producing.

I'm trying to not have jealousy. That's your boxes. You don't need jealousy. You just need some control.

All right. That sounds so hard, though. Yeah, well, it's worth it. Virtue is its own reward.

So part of this is Graham's recommendation of using note cards. The other reason, so a commonplace book, this will probably be an episode at some point in the future because we never actually talked about it. It's basically a collection of quotes and ideas online about how to get started with a commonplace book that is organized like this. Which you took from Robert Greene, Freudian Laws of Power, and whatever it is.

Laws of War. No, I'm just saying it. Oh, I see. Art of Subjection.

Who had like a massive stroke recently. I know, yeah. He's recovering, and he's finished his last, his graded, what he thinks is his magnum opus book. I can't remember what it's on.

It's like Human Nature, I think. Oh, is it? Fascinating. I like him.

He's good. I read Mastery. I couldn't get through Mastery. I couldn't master myself to do it.

It was good. It was good. The new one is The Laws of Human Nature. There you go.

I need to get back and read those things. There's just so much to read. I got sidetracked by Nelson Tilly. I'm on Antifradio.

Oh, that's good. I'm still on Black Swan. Tangent. Fool very misses.

I like that a lot. I read it, and I'm not rich. Because it's not just about knowledge. Okay, so all I have to say, again, Ryan Holiday has a very helpful article on how to get started with a commonplace book like this.

I recommend it. I'm using a system that is tabbing things in a book, which is why Literary of the Ordinary has like 50 tabs in it. It's incredible. Shiptish.

What do you all say about snark? What's the difference between snark and sarcasm? Not much. I think the lack of care of something coming back is maybe the big difference.

I don't even know. Can you read that definition of snark again? You know you're dealing with snark when you attempt to respond to a comment and realize there's nothing you can say. The remark doesn't mean anything, though it still hurts.

And the person saying it doesn't care enough about what they said or anything else for that matter that would allow you to criticize them back. Yeah. I think the addition of snark is that last part of the person doesn't care enough about what they said or anything else for that matter that would allow you to criticize them back. With sarcasm, you could criticize them back.

You can express contempt back and forth. Because the sarcastic person cares? Or just to say, sarcasm is just an expression of contempt. You can sarcastic back and forth.

Can you give me an example of snark? Did you have one? I'm looking, but I can't find it. I found another definition of snark.

It's a combination of two words, snide and remark. Yeah, yeah, snark. Which means a sarcastic comment. It's a literary device that is meant to be sarcastic speech.

Depending on the subject, the audience, and the speaker, snark can be taken as sophisticated, witty, or asinine. It says it can be a wonderfully witty blending of cynicism and sarcasm. And it says, here's an example from Hamlet, Frift-Rift ratio, the funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. So all the food we had at the funeral is now on the marriage tables.

Because the marriage falls so soon after. Right. So in that case, I think that would probably fall under sarcasm. I'm having a hard time telling the difference between snark.

So if it's blending of cynicism and sarcasm, then the cynicism would be the part that separates it from sarcasm. Okay, so just kind of hating on everything? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's also, I feel like maybe, like sarcasm is a gateway drug to cynicism and snark.

Right? Like, if you're the sarcastic world. Yeah, I don't know if you know, I think satire can have the noble purpose of us understanding our own foils. So I really do think Black Mirror is, I haven't watched a lot of the episodes, but every time I've watched them I've been profoundly troubled because that's...

And audience, if you are planning on watching that show, which is of adult matter, typically, skip episode one. It doesn't bring as much to the table as you need. I have a different opinion, but I understand the argument why episode one isn't very good. It is really, really, really difficult to palate.

That's a social media one with the pig? Yeah. I would not start with that one, but I hear what you're saying. And the other reason why I've only watched a couple of episodes is because I just don't want to consume what they're talking about.

But because it's showing the Black Mirror is showing a mirror to our own actions. Anyway, that's besides the point. So I feel like satire does have a social and noble purpose at times, especially in times of profoundly going the wrong way. But sarcasm was something that I myself had to have really worked on in the past bunch of years because I was an incredibly sarcastic teacher because it feels so good to be sarcastic and the fruit was so low when you're dealing with teenagers.

Now, I say that now looking back because it's a terrible thing, but I think a lot of young teenagers of our generation fall into that trap with sarcasm because the kids tee you up and you can take those opportunities and you get a lot of social feedback like the rest of the students think you're awesome. But it's terrible. Why is it terrible? Because it erodes the relationship with that child.

It runs the flesh of whoever you're being sarcastic. And I remember even realizing like I was sitting at one Society of Classical Learning Conference many years ago and I think Jamie Smith was presenting at it a long time ago. This was when we were in, I can't remember where we were in, it may have been Austin many years ago. And I remember having this profound realization that if I'm going to be a good teacher I actually have to love the students.

I actually have that quote written in my comments. And I meant it. And at that moment I realized I need to not be sarcastic because it's cheap wins and maybe you could couch it and you're giving them a teaching moment but you're just embittering people to you. And I feel like if you go, the more sarcastic you are the more students I think are going to eventually dislike you.

And then you're going to move into more cynicism because you're going to say all teenagers are terrible because all the ones I know hate me. And you realize you are the problem not the students. So I really think that sarcasm is like a gateway drug to cynicism and snark. And sort of salts the earth for actual affection and love.

So I guess we'll continue with this. So Ryan Holiday has a chapter on Trust Me I'm Lying on Snark and all these hoes come from that. So I'll offer these and then we can talk and go from there. Snark is not the response of the masses to the inane devil speaker politicians.

It is a defense mechanism for writers who having nothing to say are absolutely terrified of being criticized or derided. Snarky writers reflect a primal fear, the fear of being laughed at. Snarky writers don't want to be mocked so they strike first by mocking everyone in sight. So I think it's a piece of what you're getting to that it's born out of insecurity.

I think for sure. I think that's what I'm getting to with that. Following that, there is a reason the weak are drawn to snark while the strong simply say what they mean. Snark makes the speaker feel the strength they know deep down they do not possess.

It shields their insecurity and makes the writer feel like they're in control. Snark is the ideal intellectual position. It can criticize but it cannot be criticized. So that's your point of it being very dangerous I think is the point I'm driving to with this.

It's corrosive. It just eats away and built and then... AJ said before that it's... So you were talking about satire but it is because satire depends on there being something else.

Satire can't exist on its own. It must be pointing to something else so there is that. But I don't know what I'm saying. Snark depends on there being things to be laughed at.

The goal of satire is to correct those things. The goal of snark is to deride them. Yes. So the goal of snark is to be able to put yourself in a position of authority superiority whatever to the thing that you are judging.

And not necessarily with an eye to correcting it or amending the behavior only to insulting the behavior and making yourself be strong. When snark wins... So snark only can exist when it has something to mock. And so if it's mocking virtue if snark wins then we're going to produce less virtuous men and then what snark can be snarky about?

Well snark's just going to have to pick up other snarky battles with other snarky people. You can deride Christian morality all you like but when the world is bereft of it then what? So this was in the definition of satire that it's pointing to vices. So it's mocking...

The ideal of satire is to mock a vice. That's a good point. So you might disagree with Aristophanes' view of the academy. Yes, but was he getting at something when he said that there's a type of knowledge that...

A pointless knowledge that ruins it. I think 100% he's on to something with that. Now, I disagree that it was Socrates and for what it's worth I was presenting it in the worst possible light while Plato blamed it for Socrates' death. The play was not popular.

The play did not win any award in the competition. It was not laughed at. It was not enjoyed by those who were there. So people really knew Socrates knew it to be untrue.

But I do agree with the criticism he's making. I do think that they were Sofists that he could say those things about but they weren't famous enough. And so you need Socrates. So satire can mock a vice.

Yes, but snark... Can snark only mock virtue? Can snark mock vice? I think snark mocks anything.

So snark does not distinguish between virtue and virtue. It's just its own ethos of... Whereas satire is vampiric, but perhaps good, I think snark is a bully. Yeah, I totally agree with that.

In the absence of anything else to mock, you just punch them. That is exactly what it is. We talked with this a long time ago about Aristotle and different types of friendship. And that book ends with, that section of the Nick Mocking Ethics ends with him talking about the different types of government that correspond to those different types of friendship.

And he talked about how democracy leads to less virtuous people. That the incentives of democracy will not promote virtue because everyone... It's just terrifying. Yeah, it is.

But anyway, we talked about this back then. Democracy was his best. So he has six different options and democracy is fourth, I believe. It's the best of the actually possible options.

The first three are like supreme power by a noble leader. The philosopher king. Yeah, exactly. So I'll have to say that I think this is just a further example of that of when there's not a control over who's writing or who's putting out ideas, you make snark, you make sarcasm available, possible.

And it is enjoyed, because it is funny. And it does feel good to laugh at someone else's expense. But I think it's worth thinking about what that leads to. It leads to clickbait.

I mean, it leads to... Then that's the point I'm trying to think. This is where I'm going. It leads to clickbait and it leads to articles that are snark all the way down.

And it leads to a huge disincentive to actually stand up and say what you believe in. But I don't think that's necessarily true, because I think eventually you'll reach some sort of tipping point where everyone's going to say, well, screw the snarky internet. Someone's got to be the adult and actually say something, give a solution to a problem. You think so?

Yeah, I think you're starting to see that. I think you're starting... But the thing is, it's... Well, like, you know, sort of out ourselves as being fans of the Rubin Report.

Like, if you look at those... If you look at those view numbers, like on a Rubin Report video, I've seen that two hours. A two-hour lecture with Eric Weinstein or with Jordan Peterson or with any of these people that he's got, you're having 700, 800, 100 million views. And the viewership of those numbers between sort of other...

Something that would be another comparable news-making organization, anything that's having, you know, long-form discussions which are only 16 minutes of talking heads on CNN. Like, the numbers are not even comparable. So what I'm trying to say is that people seek substance. News media has sort of followed into the internet snark wagon to its detriment.

And we're starting to see the backfill coming of people that are wanting actual real conversations on the internet and in real life. And the popular culture, the news media culture hasn't caught on to it yet. They've kind of... I think sarcasm in snark intoxicates you because you get such feedback, immediate feedback, and such sort of like a small little jolt of social currency that fades.

And so the only thing you need to do is get another sort of jolt of social currency. Again, it's a bully. Yeah, it's a bully. It is the vape of the internet.

Are vape bullies? No, vape is like you get your immediate hit of negating, right, and then you're trapped. Yeah, and that's actually true. Yeah, and then because...

Because the world's... The internet is all about eyeballs, right? Like, snark, I think, got eyeballs. And, you know, the history of Gawker, right?

That's a fascinating history. There's Ryan Holiday who wrote a book about it. Yeah, so this book, Trust Me, online, was written in 2012, and then Gawker's bankruptcy, I believe, in 2017. Because of the craziest thing, Hulk Hogan's sex tape and then the lawsuit that was sponsored by Peter Thiel.

I mean, that story in and of itself is just bazonkers. Ryan Holiday wrote a book called Conspiracy. You can read that if you want to. There's also a Netflix documentary.

Oh, really? Oh, what is it? I don't know. I just watched it.

Is it worth watching? No, no. The New York Times Review is something to the effect of that this documentary is supporting freedom of speech, which allows bombastic documentaries like this where in its best form is pointing to a vice, which is a good thing. You should be able to laugh and make fun of and acknowledge things that are wrong.

And we should not, yeah, be able to laugh at them, not with them. This is a tangent that might be a feature. Anyway, I've talked in my leadership class many times about Friendship of the World being enmity with God, James 4.4. And there's a difference between that satire and then actually just reveling in whatever that vice is.

And I think it's a line that high school students need to really be thoughtful about. They think they're satirizing it when really they're just enjoying it. But virtue-signly enough, they know it's supposed to be wrong, but in reality, they just love being in it. Yeah, we all do that.

Yes. So satire is helpful. Also, I think there's something helpful. This is, I guess, the second point, that the smaller your group of people, I think the more helpful satire is.

As perhaps an unhelpful, I don't know, as an example of this, you know, while Sarah and I, my wife and I do impact a perfect marriage, we did have what some might call a fight, a conflict of some sort the other day. Can't even. Yeah, can't imagine. And since I was on the microphone, obviously it was all her fault.

No, I'm just kidding. It was all my fault. But to approach the forgiveness in that situation, this is the problem you all were addressing in the first 20 minutes of this episode, that satire can be bad, especially when it's public, especially when it's online. So the smaller the community, the more helpful that satire can be.

That's the same thought. And then the third is that, yes, snark is entertaining, but we're the ones who feed that. And so what we get for feeding the desire for snark is more snark. So Graham called it clickbaiting a second ago, but just think about that.

What that literally means is that we are feeding it by clicking on it, that we are, people are getting paid advertising money because we are attracted to snark. And then that creates more snark on the internet. So let's see what we should be thoughtful about that and what we consume. Because if we are enjoying snark, then we will live for more.

And I think it, I think that triples the soul something to that effect. So I think those are the main ideas. So this is why you were uncomfortable with reading William Blake. Oh, sure.

Yeah, so to fill the reader in on our conversation, after our William Blake episode, we had a long conversation about the appropriateness of bringing that material, which by any, even a charitable reading is heretical and bad for the soul. We discussed if it was appropriate to ever bring it for students and in what case it would be appropriate to bring it in front of students. And having read it on air, is that something that we should also avoid, I think was the question. And so we just discussed it a little bit of background, so, you know, fill in the listener.

Yes, so a piece of that question, and it was addressed in the episode, so you all heard that, of should we present these things to, well, should we read them, I guess, in the first place, and then should we present them to students? And so, or should we present ideas that are contrary to, you know, we are, the three of us here are Christians, should we present something that is against the Christian worldview to our students? And the answer is yes. Like, of course we should talk about and present things that are contrary to what is true.

But it matters how we do that. And so... You shouldn't be snarky about it. You shouldn't be snarky.

Oh, this is a great point. And then, yeah, because I think people like Christians can say, okay, fine, I'm going to expose non-Christians to theories of evolution or Richard Dawkins or William Blake or things that are, but I'm going to do it and be a real snarky toot about it. Like, I don't think you're helping in that sense. That's a great point.

And I even would go as far as to say, I don't think you're helping if you're satirizing it. Depends how. I guess it depends how. So, again, sarcasm or snark where you're only expressing contempt, that would be, because you're not actually or he's espousing this lifestyle of like indulging in pleasure is self-actualization of my eternity or whatever nonsense he says.

And then you can even show that to be the sort of absurd thing that it is. It's like, this is what skeezy old people do to try to kill younger girls and they think they're virtuous because they're developing their, you know, the universe is telling them to indulge in their pleasures. And we all can sort of, if we think about that in ourselves, we're like, oh, I mean, that's what I should do. And then we imagine like a creepy 50-year-old man at a nightclub doing that.

We're like, oh, that's gross. So maybe that's a proper way to satirize. And that's, I guess, or also you could just, I don't know what I'm saying, present satirical works. That doesn't sound quite right.

Is Doreen Gray not satirical? It's not satirical. Yeah, I'll have to think about that one some more. But so those are kind of those three pieces.

So satire can be helpful. Not always helpful, but it can be. Snark, I would say probably never. It's not helpful, but it's entertaining.

And that's, I guess, the tension to leave with. I'm probably going to click on some clickbait later today of like taking down some political figure and laugh at it, but it's not actually did for me. I don't know that it can ever, I don't know how much longevity there is to snark. I think, say a blog, like a blog based on satire might last because it is pulling us to our greater virtues, whereas one that is only snark will get tiresome very quickly.

Maybe. I worry about that. Oh, like clickbait, that's the thing, it's a clickbait, it's a one-off. I never return to a clickbait.

I'm like, that was so good, I'm going to come back here later. That never comes across my mind. What Gawker got in trouble was is they were snark, but then they were then doing like investigative snark. They were imploring people to go out and look for things to be snarky about.

And then when they did that with Hulk Hogan's private sex tape, and then wrote, was probably a very popular snarky article about how hilarious to talk about this sort of wrestler and then this very personal thing. Like they were blinded to the, the fact that they were getting socially rewarded for their snark completely blinded them to any kind of like privacy ethics. So in that sense, I don't think snark burns itself out. But there are people who are carefully snarky that have longevity.

Yeah, and say, so Gawker edits, before it went, 23 million visits per month. Like it wasn't a small website. Yes, exactly. So it doesn't work.

But they're bankrupt. Rather, they're gone. Yes, but that's because they made someone rich angry. That's the reason they're gone.

But that's the point. It's like, you live by the sword, die by the sword, right? That's kind of maybe the argument. So it's, you kind of hope that the snarky go full-throated into it because then they'll get, the people will turn on them.

It's a cleverly snarky that can continue to get away with it. I don't know. That's insidious. I think that gets closer to satire.

Yeah. Anyway, it's fascinating. I mean, it's definitely the online world we live in. Right.

Okay, this has been another episode of Classical Stuff You Should Know. You can tweet at us at C-L-S-S-C-A-L-Stuff if you want to. On the Twits, you can email us at classicalstuff.net. That's our website, classicalstuff.net.

You can email us at classicalstuff.net. Classicalstuff.net. Classicalstuffacademy.net. And you can still email us donuts if you want.

You'll get one of those Christmas Krispy Kremes? Yeah, they have them. So, hey, happy holidays out there, everybody. This might come out a little bit past Thanksgiving.

It's still pre-Thanksgiving for us and record it. We are probably getting real close to Christmas as we post these episodes. So, hey, get in that Christmas spirit. Really get out there.

Boys, I've honestly discovered the Christmas spirit sort of recently again for myself. So, thanks, everybody, for listening to classicalstuff. This is AJ, Graham, and V's signing off. Bye.

Bye.