Holy Jonathan Swift, humanity hasn’t changed a lot in the just under 300 years since Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.”
Perhaps anticipating the hoi polloi might not get the satirical point he was making, Swift had his essay published anonymously in 1729.
That turned out to be a bit unnecessary. While perhaps the very people Swift was supporting took it all too literally, this biting satire was understood all too well by the upper class types Swift was lampooning with it.
Swift wrote that the impoverished Irish might climb out of their economic despair by selling their children to the rich, who could then eat them. The point he was making, with hyperbolic absurdity, was not about selling children, but rather that the British generally treated the poor, and specifically the Irish poor, with unnecessary disdain. Their treatment, in Swift’s opinion, was no less ridiculous than his modest proposal.
We offer this history lesson because I enjoying writing satirically and/or with sarcasm, but I am told when my stuff gets cross-posted on social media, some people don’t get it. I’m trusting the handful of regular readers who come here by habit, not due to social media prompts, understand satire and sarcasm when they see it.
But, I will elaborate hoping to educate the rest of the readership.
Example: I recently wrote about NASCAR having a street race in Johnstown since we are Chicago’s smaller sister city in terms of crime and tourism. Good God, people, give me a little credit. I don’t really expect NASCAR to show up here to stage a race.
The point was that the Chicago event was not all the NASCAR spin masters made it out to be — in reality was more like spats on a pig — and that Johnstown is not the low-crime, tourism Mecca that our propagandists imagine it to be.
I’ve done a bit of internet research and see that people on Twitter help those who move their lips while reading to recognize sarcasm by including a hashtag-sarcasm. Other hints on social media in general apparently are (SARC) or an upside down smiling face emoji.
Again, if you read something here you can’t understand, please find a literate adult to translate for you. We’re not into emojis or hashtags.
And, while you are at it, look up the meaning of drama queen. There seems to be a big dose of psychological projection at work here, with one notable drama queen unable to self-recognize and instead accusing others of the behavior.
By the way, the above paragraph was not sarcasm.
Finally, to quote Joe Biden, “God save the Queen!”
If you recognized that last sentence as sarcasm, welcome to the enlightened club.
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