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There's a great program on NPR right now about snark - a New York film critic discussing how it's weakened and broken down national civil discourse, and how real humor ought to be reinstituted along with actual civility.
To me, snark is a byproduct of the breakdown of trust in political, business, and personal relationships, and a self-defensive response to mean-spirited nonpartisan (not just political; the term is not limited to public office) rhetoric. I don't think it came first in the breakdown of discourse ... but I do think it has contributed to further breakdown, greatly. One example is fandom; I started out just a fan enjoying things. I got involved in debate, which started gamely and graciously enough among a certain number of people. Other people joined in, threw out their opinions and either refused to listen to ours or put them down dismissively, and put off a LOT of us fans after a while of this. Some of us turned mean and snarky in our turn, probably putting off new people who hadn't offended anybody. But I see this as a very small (and less important, obviously) microcosm of political and academic everyday discourse. Sound bites rule the day; we can't be bothered to listen to longer proposals - witness the complete disinterest in John Kerry's explanations of his health care and economic ideas in 2004 (which now look pretty damn good). People simply could NOT be bothered to pay attention. I'm not trying to make this political - I'm just grabbing something I know to be true from the air, you understand.
I blame the Internet, much as I love it. Anonymonity and shorthand typing leads to shorthand thinking, in my opinion. Do you guys remember when you could compose business e-mails and convey humor or gentle sarcasm without throwing in a LOL or an ASCII smiley face?
When the show is online later, I'll snag the audio link and post it here.
To me, snark is a byproduct of the breakdown of trust in political, business, and personal relationships, and a self-defensive response to mean-spirited nonpartisan (not just political; the term is not limited to public office) rhetoric. I don't think it came first in the breakdown of discourse ... but I do think it has contributed to further breakdown, greatly. One example is fandom; I started out just a fan enjoying things. I got involved in debate, which started gamely and graciously enough among a certain number of people. Other people joined in, threw out their opinions and either refused to listen to ours or put them down dismissively, and put off a LOT of us fans after a while of this. Some of us turned mean and snarky in our turn, probably putting off new people who hadn't offended anybody. But I see this as a very small (and less important, obviously) microcosm of political and academic everyday discourse. Sound bites rule the day; we can't be bothered to listen to longer proposals - witness the complete disinterest in John Kerry's explanations of his health care and economic ideas in 2004 (which now look pretty damn good). People simply could NOT be bothered to pay attention. I'm not trying to make this political - I'm just grabbing something I know to be true from the air, you understand.
I blame the Internet, much as I love it. Anonymonity and shorthand typing leads to shorthand thinking, in my opinion. Do you guys remember when you could compose business e-mails and convey humor or gentle sarcasm without throwing in a LOL or an ASCII smiley face?
When the show is online later, I'll snag the audio link and post it here.
