Practicing the (Dark) Art of Sarcasm

It’s long been said that the pen is mightier than the sword and in no use of language is that truism more evident than in the use of sarcasm.

The Energy of Sarcasm

By Victoria Pendragon

The energy of sarcasm, the feeling that fuels the power of sarcasm is anger, pure and simple. Not necessarily anger about or around the target of the sarcastic remark, just anger itself, anger that has been internalized and allowed to steep, usually for years, anger that has never been met face to face, never been dealt with properly, and so has had to find an outlet for itself; it does so at the expense not only of others but also at the expense of the person uttering the scathing remarks.

Effective sarcasm requires intelligence because it requires that you be able, at the drop of a word, to make instantaneous connections via well-primed neural networks, between words that were not uttered by you to the trove of information you carry about or around the subject of those words. Connections must also be made between un-uttered concepts that were merely implied by the stimulating source and a seemingly inborn sense of humor or irony that can be used to turn the original speaker’s words against him or her. This is no small feat and well-timed, succinctly phrased sarcasm is an art of sorts.

The use of sarcasm is addictive partially because it wins you admiration from others in the area who may share your point of view. It also grants you a feeling of superiority and few feelings are more addictive than that one. The problem is that all you’ve really done is draw praise from other angry people, people whose anger has been validated through your words, upping the overall anger level, which is rarely helpful from the standpoint of anyone’s personal growth. All sarcasm does is to end up feeding your own deeply disguised sense of inferiority and helplessness. Your cleverness may be undeniable but ultimately, you reveal yourself as being nothing more than a verbal bully.

Sometimes anger can be a valuable thing; righteous anger has wrought much change for the better in the world: the fights for civil rights of all sorts were born of righteous anger. Righteous anger is the mature manifestation of an appreciation for life coupled with a keen observation of reality; it is not addictive. But sarcasm, at its core, is low-level anger, the anger of unresolved hurts sustained in childhood, and it lacks the respect for humanity that righteous anger carries. Righteous anger is applied rather than expressed and it is used on an as-needed basis. Sarcasm is a verbal automatic weapon in the hands of someone longing for peace but unable to recognize that.

It is not easy to break the habit of being sarcastic for sarcasm brings immediate gratification but the energy of sarcasm will eventually eat you up alive for that is what anger does. Cancer, for instance, has long been recognized as a disease of unexpressed anger. If you use sarcasm on a fairly regular basis, if a sarcastic remark comes as easily to you as your next breath, you may be addicted. So notice. Watch yourself. Be aware. Feel what happens inside you when you hear the words that trigger you. Did your stomach knot up? Did your head hurt? Did you feel as if you wanted to deck someone? Is what you feel actually a feeling that you need to defend yourself?

Notice how you feel as you posit your response. Do those feelings grow stronger? Do they abate? Are they replaced by feelings of satisfaction or of, perhaps, of a sense of victory? Notice how you feel afterward; if others are present, what do you see in their faces? Then decide if that is how – and who – you want to be in the world.

Awareness is the key to most conscious transformation and even awareness after the fact is better than none at all. If you are addicted to sarcasm, it is as if your sarcastic response is there, immediately present on the tip of your tongue, as though you’d been waiting for just that opportunity. So at first, you may not be alert enough to stop yourself before the words come out of you like so much scattershot. Be cautious not to judge yourself. You are who you have become because of your life experiences. Only when you can be gentle with yourself can you learn to be gentle with others.

With practice, you will be able to sit back, observe what is happening in your mind, process it and allow yourself to use your considerable intelligence to formulate more appropriate responses. It has been my experience that the words of anyone bright enough to be effective at sarcasm can be neatly transformed into a far more powerful – and palatable – art form.

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This article was originally published on 14 Jan 2013