Week 8: Satire Out of Anything II: Punching Up, Sideways, and at the Marker

Week 8 — delivering last week's target, deadpan, with an escalation that knows exactly where to stop

12 April 2027

Swift’s A Modest Proposal is still the reference case for satire that follows an absurd premise through to its logical conclusion without ever breaking character. This week takes last week’s target and delivers it the same way — sharper where it earns it, and cut wherever the joke was carrying weight the commentary should have carried instead.

Outline#

• reviewing last week’s targets against a simple test: does the joke survive without the delivery
• cutting anything that’s funny but says nothing
• sharpening anything that says something but isn’t funny
• where this heads next: from commentary to something that claims to be profound