[Satire] How Self-Satire Can Act as Catharsis

How Self-Satire Can Act as Catharsis

Satire is often the most elegant way to interrogate society’s excesses, its shortcomings, its inequities, and its self-aggrandizement. Great satire hits a nerve. The use of humor may seem to soften the blow, but it lands a blow nonetheless on the subject of its scrutiny—individuals, governments, cultures, and systems. Best to punch up, not down, of course. What about punching within? For me, in writing my forthcoming novel Intemperance, it began…