This is a very astute observation but I’m fairly certain what you are describing is normally refferred to as fascetiousness. Sarcasm uses hyperbole and intonation to make the falsity of the statement blindingly obvious, partly for humour but mostly to avoid having to directly refute it, either because it’s so stupid that doing so would be boring (“let the market decide” can’t solve every problem) embarrassing (no I’m not cheating on you), or because the speaker hopes to convince everyone this is so (see previous parentheses)
They do kind of merge together in multi-person arguments though, particularly on the internet where one person sarcastically dismissing a troll will leave everyone flippantly resurrecting their position long afterwards. Under the theory outlined above, this might be considered a kind of warding, like leaving heads on spears round your territory: “look, that argument has been dealt with, don’t bring it up again or we’ll quote you mockingly”
This is a very astute observation but I’m fairly certain what you are describing is normally refferred to as fascetiousness. Sarcasm uses hyperbole and intonation to make the falsity of the statement blindingly obvious, partly for humour but mostly to avoid having to directly refute it, either because it’s so stupid that doing so would be boring (“let the market decide” can’t solve every problem) embarrassing (no I’m not cheating on you), or because the speaker hopes to convince everyone this is so (see previous parentheses)
They do kind of merge together in multi-person arguments though, particularly on the internet where one person sarcastically dismissing a troll will leave everyone flippantly resurrecting their position long afterwards. Under the theory outlined above, this might be considered a kind of warding, like leaving heads on spears round your territory: “look, that argument has been dealt with, don’t bring it up again or we’ll quote you mockingly”