It leads to misunderstandings, it’s passive-aggressive, annoying, petty, condescending, and whiny. It also adds zero value to communication, and many languages fail to include it entirely; you will never find a sarcastic phrase in Arabic or Japanese, for instance. If you have something to say, say it clearly and concisely.
I sincerely and unashamedly hate sarcasm and I wish for it to grow extinct as a form of expression.
If you want to use snark, however, you can do so easily without resorting to saying the exact opposite of what you mean. Thorstein Veblen was very good at unsarcastic snark, and he would copiously insult the elites of his time without them even noticing.
It would; we often make the mistake of thinking our culture is universal. Let me rephrase it; I have a fairly decent passive understanding of both languages, and I have never come across an example of sarcasm, in either language, that I can remember noticing. Snark, yes, there is plenty of snark. Sarcasm, saying “I am happy” and meaning “I am sad”, “You are so smart” meaning “You are so dumb”? No. Never. As far as I recall.
If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to present me with evidence to the contrary.
It seems very unlikely to me that a language as well-known as Japanese or Arabic has no such thing as irony and these guys somehow missed that. How confident you are that if you had heard it in Japanese or Arabic you would have noticed and remember that?
“These guys” took care to clarify what they meant by “irony” and “sarcasm”, these terms not being equivalent. If you backtrack and explore the branches of this discussion, you’ll see that their definitions are not equivalent to those I’ve used. They’re practically opposite.
As for sarcasm, [snip]I’ll take it here to mean “A sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt”
This is, indeed, in my experience, universal. Though I call it “snark”.
For the purposes of this discussion, irony means “A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used”, [snip] Although cultures stereotypically differ in their affinity for irony, I’ve never heard or read that any group completely lacked the capacity to produce and understand it.
I’m not saying they’re incapable of using what I call sarcasm (“A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used”), I just saying that, as a norm, they don’t, in the same way that a speaker of Japanese is not incapable of not addressing other people with the proper grammatical forms and honorifics; it’s just that, rather than disrespectful, it comes off as stilted and agramatical. It’s just not done, and it just sort of doesn’t work.
Grice’s analysis of irony as an overt violation of the maxim of truthfulness is a variant of the classical rhetorical view of irony as literally saying one thing and figuratively meaning the opposite. There are well-known arguments against this view. It is descriptively inadequate because ironical understatements, ironical quotations and ironical allusions cannot be analysed as communicating the opposite of what is literally said. It is theoretically inadequate because saying the opposite of what one means is patently irrational; and on this approach it is hard to explain why verbal irony is universal and appears to arise spontaneously, without being taught or learned
Either way, the post itself does not explicitly say that “A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used” is a universal feature of all languages. Some comments seem to confirm my postulations;
My limited experience in Japan was similar to Kel’s in Russia. Sarcasm (“That was just great” and the like) baffled people.
No one seems to have replied to that comment.
How confident you are that if you had heard it in Japanese or Arabic you would have noticed and remember that?
Extremely confident, though of course studies prove that, for most people, confidence in one’s memories does not correlate well with precision. Which I found puzzling, because in my case it did; I’ve only been confident on a false memory once in my entire life.
Extremely confident, though of course studies prove that, for most people, confidence in one’s memories does not correlate well with precision. Which I found puzzling, because in my case it did; I’ve only been confident on a false memory once in my entire life.
The fact that your memory almost never has false positives doesn’t say much about how often it has false negatives. IOW forgetting (or not having noticed in the first place) may be more common than confabulating (or having hallucinated).
True, that. Still, burden of evidence is not on me here; if anyone finds instances of that black swan and falsify my hypothesis, I’d be glad to hear about them.
Wait, so insulting people by using longer words than they understand (as far as I can tell this is basically what Veblen did) is okay, but simple insincerity-based humor isn’t?
And although occasionally people wield sarcasm as a hammer (mainly 10-year-olds who just discovered the concept) it is basically a form of humor: it works when it’s funny. I’m going to rephrase most of your criticisms (some of which make no sense: I mean, what about drethelin’s comment is “whiny”, for instance?) as a complaint about instances when sarcasm just wasn’t funny.
In an ideal use case, one employing sarcasm would take the other’s point to a logical conclusion, but to do it in such a way that the hidden incongruity is exposed. This is where the humor arises (Isaac Asimov’s definition of humor is “a sudden change in point of view”) and it is often the most direct way to point out the logical flaw.
Unfortunately, the Internet lacks tone of voice, so sometimes it’s unclear when someone is being sarcastic. I don’t see that as a problem with drethelin’s comment, though, so obviously it’s possible to do it well.
In an ideal use case, one employing sarcasm would take the other’s point to a logical conclusion, but to do it in such a way that the hidden incongruity is exposed.
The problem is that using sarcasm assumes that the opposition (and it’s always an opposition; sarcasm is offensive and antagonistic) is blind to the faults of their argument, and that you’re teaching them something they didn’t know. This can backfire if the incongruity just isn’t so, and the opposition would have been easily able to explain it to you, had you used a normal communication mode. By using a sarcastic tone, you’re creating obstacles for the opposition to normally argue with you.
It is possible, and in fact advisable, to use “reductio ad absurdum” without a sarcastic tone, because the absurdity should be able to stand up for itself.
Sarcasm about one’s own feelings (“I’m reeeeally enthusiastic about this!”) does not employ reductio ad absurdum, it’s just obnoxiousness for the sake of obnoxiousness.
The problem is that using sarcasm assumes that the opposition (and it’s always an opposition; sarcasm is offensive and antagonistic) is blind to the faults of their argument, and that you’re teaching them something they didn’t know.
I think you’re ignoring the potential for friendly antagonism, here. Both good-natured ribbing and cruelty can employ sarcasm.
I’ve only taken to “good-natured ribbing” recently; it’s an acquired skill that does not come naturally to me; it’s conspicous consumption of overabundant defenses, and I think there are less wasteful ways of showing personal strength or demonstrating the studiness of a freindship.
The usefulness of conspicuous consumption is closely linked to its wastefulness. The broader point, that conspicuous consumption is necessary or desirable, is too long to productively discuss here.
Why not? He was, at the very least, accusing you of obliviousness in not remembering that there is the already-present karma system to perform the function you require. You can choose to not feel offended, like a giant mecha can ignore small arms fire harmlessly bouncing off, but the bullets were real.
Much as I enjoy being compared to a giant mecha, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. My comment was in fact conspicuously oblivious to the function of the karma system. Pointing that out was funny. And I can’t think of a way to make that joke without the use of sarcasm that wouldn’t fall flat.
It wasn’t, because I’ve spent a great deal of time arguing that the karma system is deficient in serving that purpose. Bringing it up, in that context, was equivalent to ignoring everything I have been saying about it. I thought your not considering it was obliviousness, but acknowledgement of what I was trying to do and exploration of other alternatives.
It wasn’t, because I’ve spent a great deal of time arguing that the karma system is deficient in serving that purpose.
Pretty sure that happened in response to the comment being made, not prior. In any case, the point stands that it might not be deficient in serving my purpose.
Technically this is probably true. But only because I’m not likely to look.
Not replying to Ritalin because he argues misleadingly and with sockpuppets about literary matters, but I’ve read a great deal of Japanese literature and it never occurred to me that there was no sarcasm in it, and quite the opposite (especially in satirical or humorous works, as one would expect, like I Am a Cat). Heck, they do sarcasm just with the honorifics—switching from a normal -kun or -san to -sama, or worse, -dono/-tono. (If one doesn’t like literature, one won’t have to go long in watching anime to spot sarcasm; KyoAni seems to have a lot of sarcastic male protagonists...)
It can be a combination of some of those things. It isn’t always all of them.
True, but that’s what the cluster labeled “sarcasm” looks to me. Atypical examples don’t justify the dismal centre.
It communicates a lot, which certainly adds value to some of the people doing said communicating.
… I’m having trouble phrasing this. When you say “communication” you’re thinking of all those social thingies and dominance games When I say “communication” I’m thinking of “conveying facts and arguments”. Let me then rephrase it; sarcasm doesn’t enrich your argumentation, it doesn’t make you right, it only signals that you’re confident that you’re right, which is a very unreliable and therefore worthless datum on whether you’re actually right. In the larger context of social games, however, I can see how it can considerably “enrich” or rather “sophisticate” the interaction, but I’m a simple guy and I like talking straight.
Technically this is probably true. But only because I’m not likely to look.
What’s wrong with sarcasm?
It leads to misunderstandings, it’s passive-aggressive, annoying, petty, condescending, and whiny. It also adds zero value to communication, and many languages fail to include it entirely; you will never find a sarcastic phrase in Arabic or Japanese, for instance. If you have something to say, say it clearly and concisely.
I sincerely and unashamedly hate sarcasm and I wish for it to grow extinct as a form of expression.
If you want to use snark, however, you can do so easily without resorting to saying the exact opposite of what you mean. Thorstein Veblen was very good at unsarcastic snark, and he would copiously insult the elites of his time without them even noticing.
This sounds dubious to me.
It would; we often make the mistake of thinking our culture is universal. Let me rephrase it; I have a fairly decent passive understanding of both languages, and I have never come across an example of sarcasm, in either language, that I can remember noticing. Snark, yes, there is plenty of snark. Sarcasm, saying “I am happy” and meaning “I am sad”, “You are so smart” meaning “You are so dumb”? No. Never. As far as I recall.
If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to present me with evidence to the contrary.
It seems very unlikely to me that a language as well-known as Japanese or Arabic has no such thing as irony and these guys somehow missed that. How confident you are that if you had heard it in Japanese or Arabic you would have noticed and remember that?
“These guys” took care to clarify what they meant by “irony” and “sarcasm”, these terms not being equivalent. If you backtrack and explore the branches of this discussion, you’ll see that their definitions are not equivalent to those I’ve used. They’re practically opposite.
This is, indeed, in my experience, universal. Though I call it “snark”.
I’m not saying they’re incapable of using what I call sarcasm (“A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used”), I just saying that, as a norm, they don’t, in the same way that a speaker of Japanese is not incapable of not addressing other people with the proper grammatical forms and honorifics; it’s just that, rather than disrespectful, it comes off as stilted and agramatical. It’s just not done, and it just sort of doesn’t work.
I’m really seeing a problem based on a lack of consensus in common usage, here. (“such a broad definition will make it very hard to judge whether a culture lacks verbal irony”)
Either way, the post itself does not explicitly say that “A figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used” is a universal feature of all languages. Some comments seem to confirm my postulations;
No one seems to have replied to that comment.
Extremely confident, though of course studies prove that, for most people, confidence in one’s memories does not correlate well with precision. Which I found puzzling, because in my case it did; I’ve only been confident on a false memory once in my entire life.
The fact that your memory almost never has false positives doesn’t say much about how often it has false negatives. IOW forgetting (or not having noticed in the first place) may be more common than confabulating (or having hallucinated).
True, that. Still, burden of evidence is not on me here; if anyone finds instances of that black swan and falsify my hypothesis, I’d be glad to hear about them.
Wait, so insulting people by using longer words than they understand (as far as I can tell this is basically what Veblen did) is okay, but simple insincerity-based humor isn’t?
And although occasionally people wield sarcasm as a hammer (mainly 10-year-olds who just discovered the concept) it is basically a form of humor: it works when it’s funny. I’m going to rephrase most of your criticisms (some of which make no sense: I mean, what about drethelin’s comment is “whiny”, for instance?) as a complaint about instances when sarcasm just wasn’t funny.
In an ideal use case, one employing sarcasm would take the other’s point to a logical conclusion, but to do it in such a way that the hidden incongruity is exposed. This is where the humor arises (Isaac Asimov’s definition of humor is “a sudden change in point of view”) and it is often the most direct way to point out the logical flaw.
Unfortunately, the Internet lacks tone of voice, so sometimes it’s unclear when someone is being sarcastic. I don’t see that as a problem with drethelin’s comment, though, so obviously it’s possible to do it well.
The problem is that using sarcasm assumes that the opposition (and it’s always an opposition; sarcasm is offensive and antagonistic) is blind to the faults of their argument, and that you’re teaching them something they didn’t know. This can backfire if the incongruity just isn’t so, and the opposition would have been easily able to explain it to you, had you used a normal communication mode. By using a sarcastic tone, you’re creating obstacles for the opposition to normally argue with you.
It is possible, and in fact advisable, to use “reductio ad absurdum” without a sarcastic tone, because the absurdity should be able to stand up for itself.
Sarcasm about one’s own feelings (“I’m reeeeally enthusiastic about this!”) does not employ reductio ad absurdum, it’s just obnoxiousness for the sake of obnoxiousness.
I think you’re ignoring the potential for friendly antagonism, here. Both good-natured ribbing and cruelty can employ sarcasm.
I’ve only taken to “good-natured ribbing” recently; it’s an acquired skill that does not come naturally to me; it’s conspicous consumption of overabundant defenses, and I think there are less wasteful ways of showing personal strength or demonstrating the studiness of a freindship.
Do you have a point?
The usefulness of conspicuous consumption is closely linked to its wastefulness. The broader point, that conspicuous consumption is necessary or desirable, is too long to productively discuss here.
Linkie?
I’d be interested in this discussion, or a link to an existing one.
So drethelin’s comment earlier, the one that provoked this whole discussion, offended and antagonized me? I don’t feel offended.
Why not? He was, at the very least, accusing you of obliviousness in not remembering that there is the already-present karma system to perform the function you require. You can choose to not feel offended, like a giant mecha can ignore small arms fire harmlessly bouncing off, but the bullets were real.
Much as I enjoy being compared to a giant mecha, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. My comment was in fact conspicuously oblivious to the function of the karma system. Pointing that out was funny. And I can’t think of a way to make that joke without the use of sarcasm that wouldn’t fall flat.
It wasn’t, because I’ve spent a great deal of time arguing that the karma system is deficient in serving that purpose. Bringing it up, in that context, was equivalent to ignoring everything I have been saying about it. I thought your not considering it was obliviousness, but acknowledgement of what I was trying to do and exploration of other alternatives.
Pretty sure that happened in response to the comment being made, not prior. In any case, the point stands that it might not be deficient in serving my purpose.
It can be a combination of some of those things. It isn’t always all of them.
It communicates a lot, which certainly adds value to some of the people doing said communicating.
Technically this is probably true. But only because I’m not likely to look.
Not replying to Ritalin because he argues misleadingly and with sockpuppets about literary matters, but I’ve read a great deal of Japanese literature and it never occurred to me that there was no sarcasm in it, and quite the opposite (especially in satirical or humorous works, as one would expect, like I Am a Cat). Heck, they do sarcasm just with the honorifics—switching from a normal -kun or -san to -sama, or worse, -dono/-tono. (If one doesn’t like literature, one won’t have to go long in watching anime to spot sarcasm; KyoAni seems to have a lot of sarcastic male protagonists...)
True, but that’s what the cluster labeled “sarcasm” looks to me. Atypical examples don’t justify the dismal centre.
… I’m having trouble phrasing this. When you say “communication” you’re thinking of all those social thingies and dominance games When I say “communication” I’m thinking of “conveying facts and arguments”. Let me then rephrase it; sarcasm doesn’t enrich your argumentation, it doesn’t make you right, it only signals that you’re confident that you’re right, which is a very unreliable and therefore worthless datum on whether you’re actually right. In the larger context of social games, however, I can see how it can considerably “enrich” or rather “sophisticate” the interaction, but I’m a simple guy and I like talking straight.
Again, I challenge you to.