Satire sells, Sincerity is Stronger

Yesterday, I received a touching and unique gift. My dad had taken the time to collect, collate, and publish (print-on-demand) a hardcover book containing all the articles I had published in the Daily Iowan newspaper (Iowa City, IA) when I wrote for them as a Columnist during my undergraduate years.

I was a cynical satirist, like George Carlin when he was older and more jaded, and that's when I was writing as an undergraduate! I was 20.

But being cynical then has given me perspective in later years.

I'm twice as old now as I was then, turning 40 this summer, and I've been working on finding a new approach to telling it like it is.

I think cynical, disrespectful humor itself is part of the problem, although it's been normalized for decades, immortalized, and put on a pedestal by popular shows beginning with South Park. But, sincerely speaking, is it helpful?

I think off-color humor arises when brilliant minds, like the creators of South Park, for example, or George Carlin, truly recognize that there are aspects of the world we live in that are downright dysfunctional.

We've normalized emotional abuse, narcissism, and hedonism, to an astonishing degree. The American Dark Triad? In fact, I can take my gas-guzzling SUV to a Starbucks drive-in for a triple macho-lotto frap-u-achino, and then get angry at the barista for not having sugar-free syrup, and hit all corners of the Dark Triad with the same stone!

There I am again, reverting to cynical satire. It's still true. But sincerely speaking, it's feeling powerless that makes me so frustrated and angry. But anger and frustration only festers, and it doesn't have a positive impact on the world. And I feel a kind of desperation to make a difference.

As lemmings, our collective behavior isn't only taking us over the cliff, but destabilizing the entire environment now. Other than being angry and cynical about that, there must be some emotion that can influence change. Satirical humor, going for the punchline, only offers vicarious satisfaction. It doesn't really satisfy because it doesn't really help.

I know there is a milieu of South Park-style punchlines about vulnerability and sensitive men which hit below the belt, going for the laugh by adding insult to injury. But it's long past time for men to think about what we feel, under the skin.

Re-reading the columns I wrote in the past inspires me to continue refining my approach, based on the emotional sincerity I have learned to value. I have been developing a new approach based on sincerity and vulnerability for the past few years. How do we talk about the hard truths we don't want to hear without angry and satire? What are those hard truths? Our lifestyles are harmful, hurtful, and irresponsible.

As a society, we are emotionally bankrupt, in the red with anger, which we mask with consumerism. That's not cynical. I wish it were. Just about everything about our way of life has to offer needs to change. I've been saying that for decades, since college.

But it's not what we say, it's how it comes across.  It's not how we say it, it's how it's received.

I think the time is ripening when more of us are willing to accept that hard choices are coming down the pike, and we are going to have to make them either the easy way or the hard way.

I think the global catastrophes and movements since the turn of the century are helping us open our eyes.

9/11, The Great Recession of 2008, Occupy Wallstreet, Keystone Pipeline, Trump, BLM ~ and that's just from an ignorant American's perspective.

In fact, 2019 had almost more political protests globally than any year on record, including Greta Thunberg's global climate movement. (The New Yorker, "The Story of 2019: Protests in Every Corner of the Globe.")

"Widespread demonstrations in 2019 speak to a broader need for a new social contract between citizens and state power."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-story-of-2019-protests-in-every-corner-of-the-globe

And then they stopped cold.

They were stopped in their tracks not by military force, censorship or silencing or imprisoning the protesters. No, they were stopped far more effectively than any intervention by force, by the biggest global event yet: Covid. How would the cynical guy I used to be have responded to that? No. Not going there.

But let me ask you, in all sincerity, did Covid help wake you up, or fall asleep? Did you spend the indoor days with electronic entertainment or self-reflection and quality time with loved ones? Did you pass the time by online shopping, or spark joy by buying less? How did it affect your desire to grow your own food, to monitor fossil fuel consumption?

That guy I was in the past was cynical because he felt powerless to change a world he could clearly see was off-kilter. I still feel powerless, but I am taking a new approach, one of sincerity.

Maybe, the world will change itself. Maybe it can change without the string of disasters getting pulled more taught. Maybe it has taught us a lesson already. There is hope for that, at least, because the alternative is rather dystopian.

Sincerity has strength that the force of anger lacks.

My former self & I would agree on one truth being self-evident: Globally, we have just begun to take our heads out of our … err … out of the sand.

That's a process that needs to be encouraged, gently, and cynical satire just for the sake of a laugh won't get us there.

What will?

Today, I am asking, "What would I say to people who are truly ready to hear?"

What can we say to those who aren't?

There's an expression: "Don't stir the pot too fast."

It refers to making homemade yogurt, but also to that other meaning of "stirring the pot" ~ questioning the status quo. 

When it comes to Global Change, stirring the pot is an art!

I find it best to do so with tenderness, sincerity, and "truth tempered with compassion."

Anger will scald the milk.