Satire, Comedy and Mental Health. Coping with the Limits of Critique

Satire, Comedy and Mental Health examines how satire helps to sustain good mental health in a troubled socio-political world. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue that combines approaches from the analytic philosophy of art, medical and health humanities, media studies, and psychology, the book demonstrates how satire enables us to cope because its ambiguous combination of critique and entertainment negotiates a balance between care for others and care of self. Building on a thorough philosophical explication and close analysis of satire in various forms – including novels, music, TV, film, cartoons, memes, stand-up comedy and protest artefacts – Declercq investigates how we can adopt and adapt aesthetic strategies from satire, especially comic irony, to cope with the fundamental limits of critique to change the world. In so doing, the book presents a compelling case that, while satire cannot hope to cure our sick world, it can certainly help us to cope with it.