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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (137536)	6/22/2004 6:42:48 PM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sometimes, cnyndwllr, sarcasm, intended as nothing more than dark humor, seems to come off as one's true intent as is accordingly interpreted wrongly by those who do not understand the uses and abuses of sarcasm. I am a sarcastic person. I also indulge in satire. I many times indulge my passion for exaggeration. Those who know me also know how I argue and what kind of posture I assume when I am in an intellectual debate. Those who don't know me think that I am deadly serious about every word that proceeds from my mouth or my pen. Those who don't know me take me entirely too seriously. Those who know me know when to laugh and when to deride, when to storm and when to duck, when to take me seriously and when to ignore me. I don't mind being ignored. I laugh along with those who laugh at me. I also laugh at those who take me much too seriously, including at times my wife and children. But I need to warn you, since you seem to take ALL of my comments much too seriously (or not at all) as the case may be: you should not take me seriously when I am being sarcastic and you should not take me sarcastically when I am being serious. But I must confess to you, alas and alak, that I am an honest man. I would not be so obscenely dishonest and slanderous that I would publish or say anything about anybody merely to get the better of him or her in a debate or to get him defeated in an election. At the same time, I will not hesitate, nor do I refrain from using all of the arts of rhetoric and debate when it suits my purposes. This is, I think, the essence of teaching and learning: to engage; to give no quarter; to force the issue; to insist on a proper use of the English language; to refrain from losing one's temper; to refrain from casting aspersions regarding one's character or lack thereof. Now, does that answer your question? I exaggerate. I use sarcasm. I indulge in understatement and overstatement. I try to get the advantage in every argument and once I get it I try to retain it. But I do not deliberately lie. I am not deliberately dishonest. I may take advantage but it is never an unfair advantage. Now, the problem with attempting to carry on any kind of meaningful conversation on this thread or any other thread for that matter is that one "sees" only the words and not the face of one from whose mind the words emerge. If it was a conversation, one could "see" the face of the speaker and in seeing the speaker's face, one would be in a better position to "interpret" the meaning behind the words. Body language communicates as much many times as verbal and grammatical and rhetorical abilities and skills. If one sees the speaker while hearing his words, one has many other signals in the processes involved in human communication. But on this thread and in all other venues dependent on the written word, the real meaning of the word is many times misinterpreted because it is viewed only in the harsh literalness of the expression. In short, if you don't "know" who it is whose words you are reading, you may miss his meaning entirely, particularly if he uses words rhetorically, for affect, for effect, and for the mere pleasure of using words.