People are dumb and emotional for a lot of different reasons these days. I think that parsing today’s brand of humor/irony—verbal and written—requires a sort of

People are dumb and emotional for a lot of different reasons these days. I think that parsing today’s brand of humor/irony—verbal and written—requires a sort of detachment that most people lack and are losing with time if they ever had it. This is at odds with the fact that traditional humor/irony requires the participants to have some kind of shared understanding about the subject matter. You seem to be a smart enough guy that can make sense of what I’m trying to say better than I can express it. These days the worst thing to do in the face of absurdity is to draw attention to it. There’s just too many people living right now whose entire sense of self and security comes from subscribing to some absurd ideal that’s only tangentially—or at best orthogonally—rooted in a common interpretation of a the past (i.e., a tradition.) My approach when dealing with these kinds of people used to be “When they go low, step on their backs!” but I’m beginning to realize that doesn’t leave a good impression for my opponents who are arguing in good faith nor does it set a fine example for my colleagues, particularly the more naive ones. My favorite counter of late is something more like a barrel roll where afterwards I can either disengage or attack from a more sophisticated vantage point. Then I can only hope that a conscious observer can pick up on my attempt at being tactful, adopt it for their own use and spare themselves the troubles of the deeply troubled.