Satire consoles those who already agree and changes nothing, while feeling like political action to everyone involved.
Cook described his London satirical club as modelled on the Weimar cabarets that had done so much to prevent the rise of Hitler. The remark is a joke against his own trade and a claim about mechanism: satire requires the audience to share the premise, so it can only reach people who are already persuaded, and the sensation of having struck a blow substitutes for striking one.
In practice
- A comedy monologue widely shared among people who agreed with it before watching changed nobody's vote.
- An internal newsletter mocking a policy releases exactly the pressure that might have changed it.