How many of you are told by adults, like your counsellor, teachers, or parents, to use sarcasm at a minimum level? According to many, this form of expression of wit can arouse defensive or angry reactions amongst people who might be sensitive, eventually souring relations with friends, acquaintances or family members.
Sometimes, sarcasm is a natural response to specific situations where you feel the need to express your opinions or feelings with contradictions. It has a psychological, social, scientific and intellectual aspect to it.
Besides the social obligations that advise us to minimize the use of sarcasm, take a moment to think about the benefits. After all, being part of this generation, we have learnt to carve an individualistic path. Thus, we have also learnt to go beyond these social obligations.
I feel that sarcasm being the method of expressing content with irony, can help learn self-control and anger management instead of plain meanness and a prominent form of hostile behaviour. This is because the intellectual mechanism can act as a thin veil between your feelings and expression.
In the context of a verbal battle, if a person puts you off with nasty comments, instead of aggravating the situation by showing rage, it is better to use sarcasm as it provides you with a higher intellectual ground than the other person. Especially when the person does not or takes a lot of time comprehending sarcasm.
From a psychological perspective, if you notice the person unable to comprehend sarcasm, that gives you momentary satisfaction when seeing the “intellectual deprivation”. Oscar Wilde rightly said, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence”. The subtlety of sarcasm can depend upon your tone or facial expressions.
To give a relatable example, if someone cracks a joke but fails to insinuate the intended sense of humour amongst people, they generally say, “Very funny, was I supposed to laugh?” Most of us can comprehend such generic statements. To exemplify further, this includes, “Very impressive, can’t you see my excitement?”
Personally, political sarcasm catches my attention frequently, especially the statement made by Hillary Clinton when she said, “He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end in chapter 11.” The statement was concerning Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
Many of you might be getting confused with satire, but that is usually concerned with evoking a subtle sense of righteousness, with hardcore criticism about wrong, with a bit of tinge of humour. But sarcasm can come up in colloquial contexts, with the sole purpose to insult by using contradictions of what is true.
The use of sarcasm can indicate an individual’s ability to add some humour to scenarios beyond day-to-day life, such as government politics, professional platforms or, for that matter, it can even be scientific. Statements like. “I am going to miss having you around to blame for the quality of my work”, and a setting in which someone claims, “If we change the gun laws, we change behaviour.”
The sarcastic response was, “If we change the thermometer, we change the weather.” There is a common misconception that the amount of general knowledge defines intelligence. Still, in reality, it is defined as using that knowledge with wisdom, especially when combining it with humour. In literature, in many pieces of work, sarcasm is used to provide the audience with certain comical relief.
If you all have watched “Vampire Diaries,” you might be able to relate to this example. The two vampires, Stefan and Damon, are discussing an intense issue regarding their blood meal, just when Damon says, “Aren’t you worried that, one day, all the forest animals are gonna band together and fight back?”
Damon uses sarcasm to mock Stefan about his morals since Stefan feeds on animals, and Damon uses blood bags from hospitals to satisfy his hunger. Usually, Stefan tends to have higher moral ground and exhibit compassion.
A perceived human trait by Damon, who, on the other hand, does not like to express emotions. So keeping in mind Stefan’s compassionate nature Damon asks him with sarcasm if he is worried about the feelings of the animals that he feeds on.
To conclude, sarcasm can have psychological, social and intellectual benefits by helping us control ourselves by expressing contempt with the help of a thin veil, known as humour or verbal irony. This can help us give psychological relief without breaching any social norms.