Sarcasm's Pit

Early in a thread attached to an article on nuclear proliferation in Common Dreams, "KS" submitted a comment saying that the use of nuclear bombs is okay, and that they're "safe and effective." Several comments later "N" posted a counter-comment saying, yes, and he had also heard that decapitation was the best treatment for head lice. Thereupon KS returned and said he was sorry that N had missed his "dripping sarcasm."

It is almost certain that N had not missed the sarcasm at all, and that KS knew that he hadn't. So I suppose they were just trying to jazz up the discussion with a few pokes of some cattle prods. But then you never know, and meanwhile why resort to such means?

This illustrated what appears to me to be a frequent problem when people are talking to each other online, and that is the use of sarcasm (under which heading I include being satiric, ironic, and sardonic). For me personally sarcasm is a peril even when talking face to face. It's all well and good to show how clever one is, but I've always thought that in a conversation involving anything close to seriousness, sarcasm has no place. It disrupts clear communication by disguising the speaker's intent and therefore clearing the way for misunderstanding to set in. And that can be an especially big stumbling block online because there a person doesn't have the advantage of being in a setting in which he can at least hope to gauge intent accurately by noting such nuances as facial expressions, verbal inflections, and tones of voice.

In addition, online places, especially comment threads and chatrooms, are subject to the presence of entities called "trolls," whose views run absolutely counter to the general tenor of the discussion, and they state these views quite seriously and the higher the shock value the better. Yet, if the trolls disguise themselves well enough and appear to be otherwise rational, their most unacceptable statements can be indistinguishable from ordinary sarcasm.

Finally sarcasm is like a fishing hook. It has barbs, and barbs means inflicting pain on the listener.

So it seems to me that in the interest of clear and non-lethal communication, online sarcasm should be avoided if at all possible. .

In this weblog and elsewhere I never intend to be sarcastic. I take pride in being unsophisticated, which among other things means being the literal sort. I sincerely mean everything I say. But such are the vagaries of language and carelessness that once in a while I may trip up and fall into that pit nevertheless. But not often, I hope.

In person I'm not quick and sharp-witted enough to use sarcasm anyway, and even the ability to change my written words at my leisure doesn't enhance my "talents" or my inclinations in that direction in the least.