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...
