Let’s get this out of the way: Are there limits in satire? My answer to that is “No”. But we have to be careful defining satire in the first place.
Just like love or success – my two favorite examples – many people use the concept of satire to mean something entirely different. Doing so, they use “satire” without limits for purposes beyond the scope of satire.
In this post we’ll take a look at the dynamics of satire, its limits (which there shouldn’t be), and everything else you need to know so that you can offend yourself skillfully!
Satire has no limits, as long as it’s genuine satire, with a specific scope and purpose(more…)
Binary dilemmas are dilemmas that force you to choose either of two options. You could argue the term “binary dilemma” is somewhat redundant, in the sense that a dilemma usually only involves two options.
However, this is not always true; you could be facing a dilemma between wearing a red, a blue, or a white t-shirt. More importantly, I deploy the term “binary dilemma” to emphasize the particular social dynamics involved: Binary dilemmas are insidiously constructed in a way that conditions you to believe these are the only alternatives.
As a humoristic example of a binary dilemma, imagine a woman asking her boyfriend’s opinion on her new dress. If she phrases her question as “does this make me look fat or thin?”, there is no way for the hapless man to offer a pleasing answer.
If the example seems familiar, it’s taken from my post on the only game in town fallacy. However, whereas that post only focused on the fallacy, the focus of this post will be on avoiding binary dilemmas.
Moreover, the concept of a binary dilemma transcends a mere discussion between two people, having far wider consequences. Think of media, social media, social conditioning, misinformation, and ways to control public opinion.
Importantly, whereas in the example with the dress there is likely no intention to deceive, binary dilemmas are nearly always precisely constructed to make it appear as if there were no alternative.
A binary dilemma strives to convince you that there is no other alternative(more…)
Not all limitations in expression are censorship. Think of an academic essay where – except quoting others for specific purposes – you can’t say “lol” or “whazzup”. But censorship is all about limitations in writing and expressing. Censorship of thought, in particular, is an especially insidious process – and the ultimate goal of censorship.
Censorship of thought essentially refers to self-censorship – I will use the terms interchangeably in this post. A system or process that manages to censor thought has been so effective in “plain vanilla” censorship, that people – having become conditioned – no longer bother writing or expressing what they think would be anyway censored.
Therefore, censorship – like using euphemisms, which are also a form of censorship – is ultimately about thought control. Moreover, exactly like euphemisms, self-censorship is achieved with subtlety, sophistication, and ambiguity.
That’s precisely what makes it so dangerous. Like unintended misinformation, self-censorship can creep into your writing without even your noticing it.
Censorship is about raising a wall and teaching someone to stand before it. Self-censorship is about teaching someone to stand there even when the wall is removed (more…)
