Often used in a comedic way, sarcasm shows our dissatisfaction with the environment. For example, one could say “What a great day to go outside” as they stare at the rain droplets landing one by one on the window. Other times we use sarcasm through gestures like when somebody falls down and we slowly clap in response.
Sometimes it is used to hide criticism from the other person. It is considered in some situations as a method of coming across less critical than intended to someone. For example, a partner might say to the other “Wow, your room is really clean” instead of “Your room is unbelivably dusty”. Of course, frequent use of any type of irony is going to cause some sort of fall out between the partners, but this shows how important yet complex communication is between two people.
In order to understand sarcasm, we rely on the speaker’s face, tone of voice and maybe some knowledge about their attitudes towards what has been said. This means people with psychological conditions such as autism generally have a harder time grasping sarcasm. On a neurological level, the same areas in the brain are used to process social behaviours. The part of the frontal lobe that is mostly responsible for understanding irony and empathy is the right prefrontal cortex, as resulted from an experiment done on participants with brain lesions.
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence” wrote Oscar Wilde. Later others quote him as to make a point about how creativity can stem from humorously combining two paradoxal ideas.
While it can be agreed that sarcasm is a way to sharpen our mind, it is also rather hurtful. The word itself comes from Greek, “sarkazein”, meaning to tear the flesh. Highly sensitive people particularly have a hard time getting over the biting aspect of it while the passive-aggressive counterparts are dealing with an inability to be real about emotions and having a fear of confrontation at the same time. Theodore Millon noted that chronically-cynical people are pessimistic and have low self-esteem.
The differences across cultures are somewhat noticeable; people from more individualistic environments tend to be more sarcastic than those from collectivist cultures. In Japan or China, for example, sarcasm is usually used in order to insult and let others know that you look down upon someone.
All in all, in this century, sarcasm is present a lot in our daily lives, and we must know when to use it, keep quiet or express our ideas and feelings in other ways.
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