Limiting Satire? - Professor Gad Saad, always misunderstood.
One of my favorite thinkers today is a very interesting professor who migrated from Lebanon many decades ago. As an evolutionary psychologist Professor Gad Saad has some fascinating ideas to share with anyone that is ready to receive his message. His prefered style however, is one that may not be as common among intellectuals, since he is a true master of Satire.
I realize that good and evil is a matter of perspective in most cases, and that not everyone will align with his world views. However, to me its clear that most that get angry at him, do so, because they completely misunderstood him, and for no other reason.
Today as I was perusing the twittersphere (my favorite trolling landscape), I embraced for a facepalm as I saw people attacking him for calling Candance Owens a Trump supporting white male. People from both the right and the left of the political spectrum felt offended by his tweet, but for different reasons of course.
I happen to find people's inability to understand him both hilarious and sad. Meaning, that I don't believe his satire to be crafted with the intention of confusing people in any shape or form. I wonder however, if I'm alone on this opinion, or If most people who genuinely follow him would agree with my observations.
I wonder also how he would fare on the Steem ecosystem. Would he be misunderstood here too? Would people flag him to oblivion because they did not understand his jokes? - I find his brutal honesty refreshing, and not only because I agree, but because he does not beat around the bush. There is a lot of value to that, wouldn't you say?
If he thinks someone is a complete idiot, he will voice it without calculating the cost. Maybe to his own detriment, as he has had to hire security to keep him safe on campus more than once. I'm not aware of anyone else who is as vocal against extremism than him in today's discourse, someone who is less PC.
Love him or hate him, you have to give him credit for his cognitive consistency. I've never seen him flip flop with the idea of gaining popularity, like so many other "intellectuals" have, and for that fact, I probably respect him more than most others.
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Well, all what is happenig there about racism is insane. Better explain the satire before being harassed on-line? Nevermind.
By the other way, i have written a good advice to my friend Jerry Banfield , i hope you support me in this...
Everything today revolvs arround being politically correct....its sad to see people dont even try to understand the context..
I find his style refreshing, but I may be part of a minority.
I never heard about him, but he seems to be cool. His tweet is such an obvious joke that any offended reaction to it is embarassing. Idiocracy.
Average iq is lukewarm at best when certain topics are concerned.
hahahha you always crack me up, and the best part is I think you are not trying to be funny. It's natural for you.
I will admit I'm not familiar with the professor or his satirical approach, but the following thought came to mind after reading your post.
I think in today's world if you do not have very defined position on something then you are ridiculed by the mob. Since he is using satire then I would assume most don't understand immediately he gets attacked because the mob percieves that he does not have a defined stance on a particular issue.
Also you are clearly in the minority if he is forced to hire security from time to time haha.
Oh yes, such is the high price of being agnostic a true agnostic. I think in this sense neutral positions of balance get the raw end of the deal .
In life everyone will not understand you but if majority of the people don't understand you, then something may be wrong with your method of dispatching information. Unless the message you're passing across can be easily understood, there's no point sending out such message if majority of the people that will read it will have a different interpretation of what the message actually means. The essence of communication is for the message to be understood, if that is not achieved, it's purpose is defeated.
I think the effectiveness of satire depends on the context. If someone doesn't realize that the statement made is satire, they misunderstand what the statement was actually trying to say.