Satire, Irony, Voltaire's Candide ...and John Locke's Letter
What is satire? Generally: dead-pan comedy mockingly emulating established power for the purpose of correcting the excesses of that power. Satire generally exaggerates the excess -- attempting to show how absurd that power is if taken to its extreme; in this way, satire implicitly critiques extremes and generally operates as a voice of moderation. You might think of satire as the court jester: a perhaps single, safe place to critique the king's excesses.
What is humor, after all, but the place we speak the things everyone is thinking but no one is allowed to say...or what is laughing but a safe place for our species to bare our fangs at one another.
Satire normally relies heavily on irony.
What is irony? Generally: inverted logic; the opposite of what was expected. You might think of how irony also shapes tragedy: Hamlet winds up doing to Ophelia what was done to him; Oedipus does everything humanly possible to avoid his fate of murdering his father and sleeping with his mother, and yet it's exactly that effort to avoid his fate that fulfills that fate: the exact opposite of what was intended.
Why did Enlightenment author's privilege satire and irony?
First, the Enlightenment privileged moderation, and satire generally revolves around exaggerating excess.
Second, In order for irony to work, the audience needs to understand both logic and the topic being inverted, so irony requires both intelligence or reason and knowledge for it to make sense. The Enlightenment privileges intelligence, reason and knowledge, so Enlightenment comedy is brainy.
Third, Enlightenment principles privilege
increased individual liberty and
freedom of speech most obviously when those in power, the current system, is
attempting to curtail those liberties and freedoms; in other words, when those
in power are likely to jail, banish or imprison those who challenge that power.
Because satire doesn't obviously advance an agenda or program of its own -- in contrast to, say,
making a speech or delivering a sermon, satire generally only critiques
and implies its own agenda/ideas
-- it is difficult for those in power to
crack down on satire because to do so is to admit that the satire has validity.
Satire's criticism is hidden beneath the fact that on the surface
it agrees
with whatever it is attempting to correct.
Finally, it's easier to keep an audience's attention if they are laughing than
if you are boring them with lectures and sermons.
To wit: Steven Colbert on the Citadel.
Candide
So, what was Voltaire trying to satirize in the 1750s, what does it have to do with lectures on John Locke, and what does it have to do with me in the 21st Century?
In many ways, The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby mirrors the same satirical thematic (and, actually, much of the plot) elements you'll find in Candide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAUI_0knfk
Other current examples: Reno911!, The Colbert Report, Tina Fey imitating Sarah Palin, The Simpsons, South Park, Team America, The Onion etc.
On college campuses and comedy:
The Atlantic: "That's not funny! Today's college students can't seem to take a
joke."
Salon: "We are addicted to the rush of being offended."
A NYT rebuttal to the two positions above.