Posted on 11/21/2010 12:18:00 PM PST by reasonisfaith
Clearly, ridicule and sarcasm are forms of humor. And everyone uses them. But they are used for very different purposes.
The flaw inherent to ridicule and sarcasm when used as devices for communication is that they can be used to convey either truth and sincerity or falsehood and maliciousness. The distinction cannot be made by looking at the content of the comments, so the person with malicious intent is seemingly licensed to claim, “I was only joking.”
This point about ridicule and sarcasm is important in understanding some things about the cultural war among liberals, conservatives, tea partiers and the ruling class.
For example, look at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. These guys function as messengers. Large numbers of people find affirmation of their worldview in what they hear from Stewart and Cobert. Stewart and Colbert rely on sarcasm and ridicule to convey what is taken by their audience to be truth. Yet this “truth” is not ultimately presented in a tone of sincerity or simple straighforwardness—it must always be packaged in, or concluded with, sarcasm or ridicule. The sarcasm masquerades as factual support and the audience is fooled by it to the extent that they are either shallow-minded or truth-phobic, or both.
Sarcasm is partly used as a way to hide from the truth. This particular tactic is rampant in our society.
The bottom line is that if you don’t accept the truth you’re going to spend all your time running from it and trying to paint your lies, and the lies of others, with the appearance of truth. This is the story of liberalism (progressivism). It’s the only reason the liberals in power want to kill free speech with Net Neutrality. They don’t want people to know, or even discuss, truth.
If you're a staunch “progressivist” you will always, to some extent, have to run from truth. And ultimately, from everything that is good. This includes looking to political correctness as a solution. And you will be plagued by a deep sense of under-confidence, a feeling that your worldview is inauthentic. Your first step in running from truth will usually start with "There's no such thing as absolute truth." So truth must be relative--what's true here and now is false elsewhere. The underlying assumption is that if there is no truth there can be no lies. But to accept this assumption requires lying to yourself. Yes, relativism is nothing more than a way to get away with lying.
If you accept constitutional conservatism and the moral and spiritual values of founded on truth, your reward will be a stark sense of confidence and authenticity. No more running away.
To progressives everywhere, I would suggest taking another look at the idea of truth as absolute. And strive to love truth, in the classical sense.
The vast majority of elected officials have succombed to the deceptive political elexir for which Washington, D.C. is the capital source. But not all.
I am convinced Sarah Palin's greatest asset (among many), and the reason she would be a exceptional president, is her honesty.
Another problem with progressives is that they affirm their worldview through the use of anecdotal evidence. (For example, the OKC bombing is used to balance out the entireity of Muslim terrorism.) The problem with this is that an anecdote, whether true or not, can be an exception to the rest of the evidence.
To expound upon your point, the OKC bombing is one incident, Muslims have used terror for 1,500 years.
Nice piece reasonisfaith. I agree that Palin's honesty and her ability to bring the views of millions into the national arena for discussion is the primary reason she is feared by the left as well as the mushy center.
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