Satire

Satire is a form of humour that is supposed to provoke, or prevent, change. Ultimately its aim is to get people to think about the way things are and how they can change things for the better.

Satire can push the boundaries, but that isn't its aim. I have a problem with humour that sets out to push boundaries, or simply to laugh at a situation, without doing something to change it.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit after watching and reading so much about humour. Humour is constructive if it is a catalyst for positive change - otherwise it can be really destructive.

DARE GREATLY
by Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts;
Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
Or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena;
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
Who strives valiantly;
Who errs and comes short again and again;
Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause;
Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement
And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly
So that his place shall never be
With those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.