I’ve never been much for new year’s resolutions. I often view them as desperate and ultimately doomed attempts to become a better person merely because the ceremonial passage of the years has made you realize that (in cosmic terms) you have very little time left on earth. I wonder, If this is something you wanted so badly to change about yourself, why do so on January 1? Why not make the change as soon as the problem is identified? I know that this is a hyper-critical position, and I get that the first of the year can be both a convenient and meaningful time for someone to make a life change. In a way, the cynicism of my opening sentences illustrates a problem I’d like to fix in myself. At the risk of being arrogant, I think of myself as a clever and funny person, and I believe my sense of humor (like most people’s) solidified in my mid-to-late teens. For as long as I can remember being purposely funny, I have been making ironic, hateful jokes. My main new year’s resolution (yes, after bashing the concept of a new year’s resolution it now turns out that I have more than one!) is to be more vigilant about these satirically offensive jokes.
I’ve realized for a while that the insincerely offensive remark is a comedic cop-out—a sort of rubber chicken of edgy humor—but I honestly have a hard time stopping myself. Part of what makes the ironically hateful joke so appealing is that (for a person who wants to believe all their remarks are well received) there is really no discouraging listener response. It’s a win-win. If people laugh at your appalling comment it’s because they realize you’re being satirical and appreciate your sardonic wit, but if people don’t laugh it’s because they understand you’re not "being funny" in the traditional sense but being poignant and intellectual. In this way, the shocking, disingenuous crack can be both a sword and a shield. A sincere joke must be funny in its own right; it must involve clever wordplay or a relatable observation of the human condition. But an insincere joke is free to fail, because it’s not supposed to be funny—it’s supposed to be thought-provoking and button-pushy. People who make ironically hateful comments can therefore become defensive when others are offended by their jokes. They can think, Why would you be mad at me? I’m on your side. I agree that the kind of person who honestly says these things is terrible. That’s why I say them.
The problem is that what starts out as an effort to point up the backwardness and stupidity of those who say seriously what you’re saying in jest ends up becoming a reflexive, knee-jerk tendency to make a faux-serious offensive remark at every available opportunity. The reason for this degeneration is, at least in my case, two-fold. First, it’s extremely easy to make an insincerely offensive comment. Unlike an honest-to-God joke (of which I’ve conceived maybe a handful in my entire life, and none of them were particularly good), an ironically hateful joke takes absolutely no effort. Because a genuinely sexist, racist, ethnocentric, or homophobic comment is usually reductive and indefensibly stupid, an ironic version of the same comment is allowed to be ironically reductive and ironically stupid. Second, there is something deliciously evil about the insincerely offensive remark. It allows you to say something you’re not supposed to in a way that minimizes the risks associated with actually saying something you’re not supposed to. In effect, you get to be every bit as bigoted as the target of your ridicule (indeed, you may well end up saying more hateful things per day than the average bigot) while simultaneously seeing yourself as above reproach. It’s a tantalizing opportunity that exists in few other contexts. You can’t assault someone ironically, lie on your tax return ironically, or skip work ironically—no matter how badly you might want to actually do all of these things. But we tend to give carte blanche to people who make insincerely offensive jokes (or at least, thankfully, the vast majority of my friends have done so for me).
Curiously, although we’re willing to indulge people in their ironic hatefulness (read: Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report), we aren’t always good at distinguishing someone’s satire from their true feelings. One example jumps immediately to mind: Don Imus’ 2007 fall from grace for racially charged comments about Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. While dated, this incident sticks out for me because I was a big fan of Imus. I would frequently watch the Imus in the Morning simulcast on MSNBC before heading to class in my junior and senior years of high school. I remember finding him tremendously funny, largely because of his insensitivity. I also remember feeling distinctly aware of the fact that his insensitivity (like Colbert’s) was a put on. After all, he was a shock jock. Saying hateful things with a straight face was his bread and butter. And Imus’ comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team (like his comments about Pacman Jones a year later) didn’t strike me as a true reflection of his heart of hearts. In fact, looking back on these incidents now, they seem like precisely the kinds of comments I would make in a misguided attempt to be edgy and satirical (albeit to my private group of friends rather than on national television and radio).
This is the crux of the issue for me. The line between sincerity and insincerity can become bizarrely blurred—for the speaker as well as the listener. To the extent that hateful comments are meant to satirize the beliefs of others, there needs to be a specific group of "others" to satirize. I think this is why Colbert’s brand of disingenuous meanness is so widely accepted. He is clearly doing a send up of the archetypal conservative media personality (the Bill O’Reillys and Rush Limbaughs of the world). On the other hand, when a person’s ironically hateful comments are meant to satirize wrongheaded ideas and systems generally, the boundaries become fuzzier. It’s not a performance so much as it is simply saying something you don’t really mean. Not only does this require your audience to take your insincerity on faith (which the public refused to do with Imus), but it also lowers the net value of things that come out of your mouth. Irony or no, saying something hateful is saying something hateful. It’s meant to be funny because of its total lack of value, and so the well-executed insincerely offensive comment is by definition worthless and empty. In this way, the comedic offender can end up in a hazy, postmodern mindset where nothing really means anything. And when so many of the things you say are hollow and insincere, even your honest, heartfelt opinions are considered suspect. Your friends likely wonder, Is he being real right now or not? Even that brief moment of suspicion detracts from the value of your sincere thoughts and feelings.
Worse yet, I find that my persistent ironic hatefulness sometimes leaves me wondering what I really think about certain things. In order to effect a palatable, Colbert-style satire, you need to have a straw-man that is the object of your ridicule. However, my feelings about many of today’s controversial social issues are so complicated and ambivalent that they can’t be easily siloed. By way of example, when I make an ironic comment about a friend’s "white guilt," I’m mocking the (far-right) conservative position that white liberals’ political decisions are motivated by guilt over racist traditions in America. But in truth, I don’t totally disagree with every aspect of that conservative position (although I would never use such a loaded and pejorative term in seriousness), and I’m honestly annoyed when a liberal friend addresses a complex, multi-dimensional issue by making sweeping and dismissive allegations of racism. (Although racism is very much alive today, and I consider myself far left of center on racial justice issues, I often feel that these generalizations are counterproductive and can bring meaningful discussion to a halt.) So when I make an ironic comment about "white guilt" am I really being ironic? Am I being partially ironic? Is there even such a thing as partial irony?
This is where I feel I’ve ended up, and this is why I want to stop (or at least significantly scale back) my irreverent jokemaking. On top of the fact that these comments are often not funny even when they’re known to be insincere, they have a sort of brain-warping and soul-destroying quality to them. Ironically hateful comments don’t help me better understand my position on complex issues; they further muddle my thinking. This isn’t to say that I want to become totally serious. That’s not me. But I believe it’s time to start thinking more critically about the things I say, and to start saying what I mean more often than what I don’t mean. I feel like this brief reflection has been a good starting point.
There is a danger in taking topics and oneself too seriously. For example, I've never known you to be full of hate. Moreover, humor can put things into perspective quickly and creatively. With this talent, you are full.
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