Sarcasm

I read a good many news and feature stories from major media outlets.  Virtually all of them are on-line.  Most allow for the digital equivalent of letters to the editor.  I am (too) often drawn to these comments as much or more than the original story.  I think the reason is that opinions are usually more interesting than facts.  Facts are usually of binary form, being either correct or incorrect.  Opinions can run the gamut from compelling to stark raving insane; they cover more human geography.

Worse yet (for me at least), the comment sections often allow you respond to the commenters.  Thus, when someone says something particularly egregious, and these sites are magnets for egregious, it's possible to respond.  Generally, the response posts are not what one would call profound.  Something along the lines of, "Your mother wears military style footwear" would be seen a both erudite and refrained in the context of response posts.  I'm not sure how many words I've typed so far as either a commenter or respondent but it's probably roughly equivalent to what I wrote as formal papers during at least a year or two of college...and I was a philosophy and English major.

For those of you who don't know me well, I have what is a sometimes unfortunate talent for argumentation.  The talent extends to formal logical constructs of fact and argument as well as back and forth human conversation.  Within that overall talent lives a subset of the "back and forth human conversation" part.  That subset is sarcasm and sometimes it might even be accurately described as biting sarcasm. 

Sarcasm can be funny, illustrative and fun if used carefully.  It's much easier for some people to "get" sarcasm than it is for others.  Understanding which people are which is part of using sarcasm carefully.  I will appeal to George Will for a fit example of sarcasm.  Once in what was a bit of a hostile interview, the interviewer continually interrupted George in the middle of his sentences.  Eventually Mr. Will had enough and at the end of one such interruption he paused, looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "I'm sure there are many things on which we disagree.  However, I think we can both agree beyond doubt that I am the world's foremost authority on the end of my own sentences."  And that ladies and gentlemen is the correct application of world class sarcasm. 

There have been and still are too many times in my life when I don't use sarcasm carefully at all.  Sometimes that's in response to commenters or articles.  Even though these are sometimes biting, I usually receive digital validation from small numbers of people, rooting for my position and in some cases, maybe even my biting tone.  (...Maybe it's really "numbers of small people.") It's usual for me to get several "thumbs ups."  Occasionally, I'll get ten or twenty thumbs ups...Rah.

There's a reason I'm explaining the ad hoc digital commentary community.  The other day I read an article on a book that's recently been published in Great Britain.  The book is "Mum's List."  It's the story of St. John (Sinjin) and Kathleen Greene and their 2 boys.  The very very short version of the story is that Kathleen Greene passed away a couple years ago of cancer, leaving her husband and two small boys.  She had been doing well with her disease and then suddenly relapsed.  From the time of her relapse to her passing was about three weeks. 

Once when she was sick at home during her last three weeks, her husband brought her in some tea.  She took off her oxygen mask and looked him in the eye for a quite awhile and then she spoke.  She told him that she wanted him to take their boys to Belize.  The two of them had planned to retire there.  She said that at least in that way, a small "bit" (her word) of her would get there.   After that, a flood of other things followed, including urging her husband to fall in love again and re-marry, to kiss their boys good night twice each night, once for him and once for her and a host of similar thoughts and wishes.   Eventually there were 200 items in all.  Sinjin and his boys are now learning to continue to enjoy life with mum as they work through her list.  Kathleen did a beautiful and sacrificial thing as she used her last days to plan with her soul mate for their family's life without her.

I was moved after reading the article and I will likely buy the book at some point.  I breezed through the comments and thankfully there was nothing...egregious.  Some people used their favorite, "sorry for your loss" language and others spoke Hallmark sentiments.  It didn't really matter though.  Everyone was looking for a place to put the tremendous, staggering beauty that existed in the telling of the story of family Greene. 

It occurred to me that maybe I could help a couple people who were posting comments see this for what it is.  Toward that end, I wrote this:  "That's what love looks like."  This comment was not the first by any stretch.  (First comments usually get a lot of reads and responses.)  In fact my comment was a thousand or so removed from being the first.  Typical in this scenario might be a few thumbs ups and maybe a comment.  Those five words have received well over 500 thumbs ups to date.  When I last looked, there were 17 comments including one woman who accused me of being Shakespeare (note sarcastic use of "accused"), another who slightly confused the issue by offering me condolences on my loss.  However, they were all beautiful and represented hearts that groan for the love that Sinjin and Kathleen had for each other and that they were kind enough to share with the rest of us. 

I would have to conclude that love spoken in five words or five thousand can crush the impact of all clever, sarcastic argumentation and flood the people who read it with the overflow of the response of their own hearts.  Put another way, better is one word spoken in love than all clever arguments spoken and written throughout all time.  Without love, I am nothing.