 |
| This entire post exists thanks to the fact that I couldn't just lay on the bow of a yacht without bragging about it to my friends. |
Today I was in the midst of a
rather sardonic exchange with a good friend when the wit struck a little too
close to home and touched a tender nerve.
The result was a backpedaling of both parties, one in embarrassment for
an overreaction in a friendly conversation and the other in embarrassment for
the truth exposed in the biting sarcasm.
Ultimately, the dialog concluded with the question of whether or not
sarcasm is healthy for the spiritual life.
The question itself alerted me to
the fact that I did not have a complete mastery of the terms at hand, as I
felt entirely comfortable using wit and sarcasm interchangeably. Therefore, my first mental excursion
was into the pages of Merriam Webster for clarity. Under the entry for wit, there was a section devoted to the
confusion of the different terms of the subject, proving immensely helpful, if
merely by suggesting the direction of the present essay.
I will first define the terms. Wit
is the perception of analogies between dissimilar things and expressing them in
quick, sharp, spontaneous observations.
Humor is the perception of
comical, ridiculous, or ludicrous elements of a situation and expressing them
in a way that makes others see your perception as well. Irony
is the implicit humor in the contradiction between what is meant and what is
expressed. Finally, sarcasm is a non-subtle expression of
irony that is used harshly or bitterly for the purpose of wounding or
ridiculing someone.
Having a better understanding of
the terms, I decided that I would answer a more interesting question: Between
sarcasm, irony, humor, and wit, which of these practices (if any) are unhealthy
to the spiritual life?
I begin with sarcasm. This, I believe, is the easiest
practice to expose for its objective
evil. The purpose of sarcasm is
ridicule. It is meant to be harsh
or to inflict pain. It seems,
therefore, that the motivation for sarcasm is necessarily uncharitable. No matter its secondary purpose (such
as the attempt to illuminate someone’s error for them), the primary method by
which sarcasm is employed is the infliction of harm on a person. In other words, while its motive might
not be rancor, its means necessarily are,
by definition. It is sideways
speak, where the less-than-subtle undercurrent of “you fool” accompanies each
word. This seems to directly
parallel the warning given by Christ in Matthew: “whoever says ‘you fool’ [to
his brother] shall be liable to the hell of fire.”
But unlike sarcasm, the other three
practices are not meant to cause harm to a person. They have other purposes. Irony is meant to point out humor in a discrepancy. For example, examine one of irony’s
common manifestations: satire.
Satire is defined as the use of irony to ridicule an institution or
political philosophy. Satire
points out a contradiction in an institution, and, even though it often seeks
to ridicule that contradiction, it is not meant to harm a person but rather an
institution. Pointing out irony in
an institution protects human beings from the institution’s shortcomings. Irony has a real potential for
good, and since it’s means is not (necessarily) the direct derision of a human
being, I cannot claim that it is objectively bad.
Humor seems even better than irony. According to its definition, humor is
intended to encourage two virtues: humility and empathy. First, it involves the recognition of
ridiculous aspects of situations or events, which is often only accomplished
through an exercise of humility.
Then, it seeks to cause individuals to empathize with one another. Both of these seem like laudable goals,
and I am left not only denying its objective evil, but I believe it to be a
necessary and healthy part of life.
Indeed, the Great Gilbert Keith Chesterton considered humor an essential
part of a healthy spiritual life.
When talking about angels (who, by the way, are not just holy, but experiencing the perfection of
beatitude), he said: “Angels can fly because they take themselves
lightly.”
Wit, the final practice under the
scrutiny of this essay, was the hardest for me to handle. When faced with the difficult
rediscovery of a term, I have a favorite practice: going to brainyquote.com,
typing in the word, and seeing what the Great Writers of the past have to say
on the subject. When it
comes to wit, the Greats are decidedly undecided. However, upon closer examination (and discarding certain
voices that I simply do not trust [can you believe that they dared put
Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and John McCain on the same page, right next to
one another?!]), it seems that many of those who distrust wit (particularly the
ancient Greeks, or at least their translators) seemed to suffer the same
confusion of terms that I did when I began this academic journey. Wit, as understood by Merriam Webster,
seems much closer to the trusted words of the Great Mark Twain: “Wit is the
sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have
any union.”
As Merriam Webster and Mark Twain
define it, wit is merely a synthesis of ideas. It brings two unlikely subjects together and expresses the
analogy with brevity. It does not
(necessarily) involve an uncharitable motive or means. It is an exercise of the intellect. A witty exchange is one that requires a
high level of mental aptitude, and usually reveals aspects of a subject that
would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Wit, therefore, can be both helpful and laudable.
I will now address a clear
difficulty to embracing irony, humor, and wit as helpful and potentially
healthy for the spiritual life, before now unmentioned except for brief
allusions in parenthetical remarks (you thought I missed it, huh?). These three practices, while helpful
and potentially healthy, also have the potential to cause harm. It is extremely easy for each one of these
practices to slide into sarcasm.
And to make matters worse, this potential varies with each
individual. For instance, the line
between humor and sarcasm is very thin when the object of the humor is a
particularly ill-humored individual.
An example would be the conversation with my dear friend that prompted
this essay: humor quickly became sarcasm, and harm was had by myself. A person with thicker skin and better
humor would have not been so easily offended, and the remark would have
remained within the boundaries of humor.
But, since it was I who was receiving the joke, the words became poisonous and caused
difficulty in communication. The
line between wit-and-sarcasm, humor-and-sarcasm, or irony-and-sarcasm is a dangerously
fluid boundary, which fluctuates according to the participants involved and
situations discussed.
Therefore, in this essay I conclude
that sarcasm is unhealthy for the spiritual life. It reinforces a flight from charity and necessarily harms its
recipient. The exchange of wit,
the use of humor, and the application of irony are practices that are
potentially spiritually healthy, provided that they are used with careful
attention to the persons involved and the situations being discussed. Like almost all things in the human
life, this answer was both unexpected and requires a heightened responsibility
in one’s daily interactions.
That’s how I know this was a
fruitful activity.
No comments:
Post a Comment