Satire

This morning I introduced my Brit Lit class to satire. I'm prepping them for Swift's classic "A Modest Proposal." Our text has a good introduction to the idea of satire. I had them read that and complete a guide. Then at the end of class yesterday I gave the the topic "In your opinion, what is the greatest problem facing our country or culture today" to write on.

Then today we began discussing satire and the topics they chose. Of course, many were reluctant to share their ideas, but we did manage to come up with three issues - environmental concerns (global warming, endangered species, fossil fuels), lack of morals and values, and idiocy.

To get a discussion going, I used an example from an original satire one of my students wrote last year (that is what these students will be doing when they finish "A Modest Proposal") - enacting the death penalty for smokers. To drive the point home I gave this example - my father died at 67 of lung cancer from about 40 years of smoking. Under this policy, he would have been killed in his late teens for smoking. Why? It would have saved roughly $250,000 in medical expenses accrued from his chemo treatments and his final nine day stint in intensive care. It would have prevented close to the same amount of money being spent on cigarettes and winding up in the hands of the tobacco companies to make more cigarettes. And finally, it would have prevented any second hand smoke from possibly affecting anyone else.

Then I gave several other examples - one dealing with the endangered species topic. I said that one of my favorite creatures is the shark, yet millions are viciously butchered to appease the Asian market for shark fin soup. Likewise, Asian's covet pills made from the horns of rhinos - or rhinoceri to be correct. As a result, many rhinos have been needlessly killed - just for their horn to be harvested. Now this pill the Asians covet is an aphrodisiac. And here I got to the vicious point in my impromptu satire - there are too many Asians anyway. The last thing they need to an aphrodisiac to make more - eat more egg rolls and stop killing our endangered species.

What I didn't realize, though, is that I have a student of Asian descent. He was shocked at this - though not angered, but I said that his shock is a key part of the purpose behind satire. I quickly explained that many sharks are killed in commercial nets - used by American fisherman. Or that many Americans pay extravagant prices to hunt rare animals on safaris. I could write satires on those. The idea is not to single out Asians as the sole culprit, the purpose is to ridicule some of their actions and beliefs to expose the cost behind them.

Satire, I explained, doesn't worry about stepping on toes or offending anyone. In fact, it wants to stomp on toes and offend as many as possible - to shed light on a serious problem, such as endangered species.

This was a reminder to me just how volatile the concept of satire is. I know in years past when I've read their original satires, I've often thought, if anyone else came across this and took their ideas literally, this student would be incarcerated or expelled. But that is a danger inherent, and vital to, satire.

And it isn't like I meant to offend or single one person out, for I proposed killing my own father. So I spared nothing to drive the point home.