Posted by The Happy Tutor
The discussion of an earlier piece, Can Blogging Approach the Condition of Art?, seems to continue every day. Skimble today suggests -- ultimately, I think wrongly -- that satire can and will be co-opted. Style... can be imitated and co-opted without regard to content. In the last comment I almost made a joke about Louis Rukeyser's new 2004 TV show "Wealth Bondage and Wall Street Whip."
Let me answer with unwonted directness. I didn't always run a bordello, and I didn't begin writing satire on the internet. I worked for a Global Colossus and in fits of moral insanity, things would occur to me -- images, fables, taglines -- I would laugh so hard I had to write them down, and then found them so funny, I had to share them with top management -- the victims. At 5:00 pm, I would stuff their inboxes, one after another, in the mailroom, like a man planting landmines. Afterward, I would lie awake all night dreading the dawn. The next morning the memo would pass from hand to hand, up and down and around. People would avoid me. No one would meet my eyes. Groups would watch me as you would watch a man about to leap from a ledge -- or still falling in midair. Did the higher ups ever mention these memos? No. Did they ever retaliate? No. Did they ever forgive? Perhaps. Who knows. I know that years later my colleagues remember the memos word for word. A prior boss kept them in a safe off premises -- as if to protect himself in some way.
Satire, real satire, comes from a deeper stratum than humor, wit, jokes, travesty, irony, sarcasm, lampoon, or comedy. Satire is soul murder. It says it aims to heal. But so does Chemo. Satire does to the soul what Chemo does to flesh. It kills you from the inside out -- all in a good cause, of course, to cure the cancer before it spreads.
You can fake the manner, but not the death blow. Read Pope, and he will say that you should never mention the butt of satire by name, much less hyperlink. Yet he and Swift could not resist. There is a divine madness in dealing death. It comes from the great god Pan or Dionysus. Sadists enjoy torturing the body; the satirist, the soul.
In ages past, the malefactor was literally bound, broken, and branded by a public hangman who was a good man, with a good job, who loved his work. He did the deed up high so the howling mob could enjoy the show. The criminal, if spared death, would carry that brand on his hand or forehead forever -- a pariah. Satire is a form, my friends, of marketing. It creates The Brand of You.
If you want to imitate, begin by strangling cats, clipping the wings of living birds. Driving a penknife through the back of your adversary's hand when he reaches for the cards. Until you can kill a soul without flinching, kill it in delight, watching the eyes go dark, knowing that the wound will never heal, you are not a master of our Noble Trade. Dryden knew. This is not a matter of opinion. To have tasted this pleasure is never to forget it, nor to mistake it for any other. To feel the blow connect, in a single phrase, to see the arrogant eyes go from surprise to darkness, is sweeter than any pleasure I have ever known. Mayakofsky called it, "the bliss of the knife."
To satirize those weaker than yourself is -- for me as a Catholic -- a mortal sin. A soul for a soul. But to take down those who are Tyrants -- that is a high and noble calling, an act of justice pro bono publico. He who does that is Jack Ketch, the famous hooded hangman, a public hero, toasted in every tavern, with fans who delight in his technique, and who look forward to the next performance. "To delight and instruct" was the Roman's justification for poetry -- as for judicial torture.
The smile of the satirist is that of the wolf or the hyena. And in laughing, even in reading this, you are complicit. Around the satirist forms the pack, the mob, the vigilantes. Satire is rough justice. When it comes to the Teevee studio it will be on the day they televise their own lynching. On the Scaffold will be the Owner of the Media Corp, followed by the advertisers for that show, followed by the Moderator. Now, if the Networks like the ratings, and clone that and do it up right, and do it again and again, fair enough. I will be happy to demonstrate the art in slow motion. They can take the fear away with jokes and antics. But when their time comes, the eyes go wide then dark. (All of this without touching a hair of the butt's head, or violating a single rule of law, or even mentioning a name.) After all, it is only a story about a horse, or a whale. A legal fiction. All drawn from the best Latin models.
Yes, do you think I am unaware that I am sick? Why do I wear a mask? Why did I go onto the internet if not to protect myself and those I love -- even to protect the victims -- from this madness? The tension builds and I go onto the internet to relieve it. A day or so passes. Then it builds and builds. It grows stronger with each catharsis. I see the face before me like a Jack O' Lantern. All I want is to feel the soft rind yield to the decapitation strike.
Others have shared this diseased taste, but none have admitted it since Swift. Satire is a career open to talent. Back after this....
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