Satire is conservative because it suggests the modern idea of human nature that Hobbesian absolutist politics took over from original sin. People are bad so they need to be controlled. Bourgeois republicanism inherited this idea from absolutism along with its notion of sovereignty, seemingly its opposite (it leads to populist absolutism, where the people are said to rule, except that they are represented by elites who rule over the name in their name and claiming their authorization, as in the social contract idea that Rousseau got from Hobbes). Of course, satire (which did exist in the ancient world, for instance, Aristophanes) only implies this kind of conclusion when tacitly linked to an absolutist epistemology. That is, you see satirical portraits of various people and you are supposed to draw the conclusion that everyone can be satirized. Leading either to paranoia (everyone except me!) or a Christian republicanism where all are condemnable but forgiven, and this serve as the reason why we must tolerate one anothers foibles.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 03:54:48 +0000