I used A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift to teach satire to high school students so I’m familiar with the difficulty that that literary device presents to some people: “Mr. Shroyer, I can’t believe you’d teach us it's a good idea to eat children, Mr. Z. maybe, but not you!”
I say that here because I want you to be sure, that what follows, is satire. Any resemblance to situations and people living or dead is coincidental. No animals were harmed in the making of this satire. Contents are the sole responsibility of the author and not station management. I don’t really have a friend of a friend whose house burns down. Not yet anyway.
Here’s the satire:
The house of a friend of a friend of mine burned down last week. Arson. They know who did it. It’s not the first time the arsonist has written his name, ALL CAPS, in gasoline in the yard. The fire battalion chief said on the scene that he thought that once the fire burned through the attic, where it appears to have started, it would quit burning, satisfied that because that’s where years of paper documents and pictures had been stored, it would stop. But it turned out that the fire had an appetite for more.
After it burned through the attic it attacked the second-floor bedrooms and their separate bathrooms. Still, the battalion chief said, an attic and the second floor surely would be enough to satisfy the fire that had been begun by an arsonist who likes to write his name in ALL CAPS in the grass so that everyone knows who is in charge. It was at that point that neighbors of the friend of a friend of mine arrived yelling nasty things at the firemen like, “Why don’t you put out the fire?” and nastier still, like “You really ought to put out this fire.” The nerve. Neighbors’ sensible questions evolved into outright demands. Neighbors were trying to prevent the firefighters from not doing not doing their jobs. With orders from the battalion chief, the firefighters then began to shove away neighbors who were shouting, “We don’t like fire,” as they tried to form a bucket brigade. Men in uniform slammed the neighbors facedown onto the sidewalk, and worse.
The firefighters, following firefighting orders to stand down and stand back, watched as the blaze crawled down to the first floor. One fireman whispered to another that perhaps they ought to do something to stop the fire. The other fireman said, “Orders, man, we could lose our jobs.” They did nothing to stop it; the fire burned the entire house to the ground. The friend of a friend of mine lost everything.
Afterwards, in an atmosphere exacerbated by the media, there was some controversy about the fact that the fire was allowed to burn unabated. Neighbors of the friend of a friend of mine started following firetrucks around, blowing whistles and yelling and, on the scene of more arson, insisting loudly that rather than cause fire to spread they ought to prevent it. Some neighbors sang.
The next day, at a press conference in front of the mayor, a former mayor, the police chief, a diverse looking group of unidentified people who might work in an office, or in the shop, and a firetruck, the chief of the entire fire department defended the battalion chief. “If an investigation is warranted,” he said, “we will conduct it.”
The mayor defended the fire chief. “For people to attack the very people who defend our houses from chaos,” he said, “is un-American.”
The former mayor called for restraint by the people who don’t want to see more houses burn down. The former mayor said that we need to open a conversation with the arsonist who writes his name in ALL CAPS in the grass of every house he burns down. “That’s how trust gets rebuilt. By speaking plainly about everyday life: costs, freedoms, and better government. Not by shouting. If we want a politics that actually delivers for people, we can’t only talk to arsonists who already agree with us,” the former mayor said. “We have to go everywhere, meet arsonists where they are torching – even when the venue isn’t friendly, and answer hard questions.”
“Mayor Steve,” a reported yelled from the back of the room.
“Sorry guys, no questions today,” Mayor Steve said, “My plane is waiting. Just remember everybody, no shouting.”
That’s the end of the satire. For those of you in the back of the room daydreaming about a sunset or the Super Bowl, the point of the satire is to say that by compromising with evil you acknowledge the legitimacy of evil.
Music: "Burning Love" by Elvis Presley
