Impacts of Ridicule in Society

 

Addison highlights the power and potential of ridicule in society, but also states that misuse of its power can also cause negative impacts in our society. Thus it’s important that we recognize that the effects and impact of ridicule depend on its intent, context and use. Let’s take a look at both types of ridicule and it’s effects, negatively and positively. First, ridicule can have a positive impact when used in the  correct way, which can help to serve as a method of critiquing social problems and helps to challenge unique social ideas, for example, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” uses ridicule as its main strategy to highlight corruption, communism and the labor force rebelling against the oppressive government. 


Another  example is in the Nacirema piece, where ridicule is used to critique certain practices in society such as everyone devoting themselves to their body and to critique the anthropologists tendency to increase the perceived weirdness of other primitive cultures. But ridicule can also be used negatively, for example, ridicule can be found on the internet and social media, where it’s often used as a source of entertainment rather than causing change. Memes and viral videos targeting vulnerable individuals and mocking them for the sense of humor and entertainment can be found. Many memes about people looking ugly or racism towards a certain culture is becoming very common. Therefore, it’s important we realize that using ridicule isn’t the problem and instead it’s the intent, context the way of use behind that determines whether it can have a positive or negative impact in our society   


  

Comments

  1. Anonymous26 February 2024 at 03:49

    I liked how you organized the positives and negatives of ridicule, and bringing in outside sources like memes or animal farm.

    ReplyDelete

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