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Alexander Kozintsev
actual horrors of the German concentration camps," he wrote many years after the
war, "I could not have made The Great Dictator; | could not have made fun of the
homicidal insanity of the Nazis” (Chaplin 1964: 392).
Does harmony between form and content in satire ensue after the complete
truth about the prototypes has been revealed, as in the case of the Nuremberg
defendants (Fig. 40)? In that case we consciously infer the meaning by juxtaposing
the picture with our prior knowledge. Yet unconsciously we cannot help perceiving
the humorous form as a meta-message about the non-seriousness of the message
the artists tried to convey. This, of course, might disagree with the conscious de¬
sign, but objectively there is no disagreement. When murderers have been caught
and will not escape punishment, mobilisation is no longer needed, although call¬
ing for relaxation would be wrong as well.'* This may account for the somewhat
ambiguous impression the cartoon conveys."
Gregory Bateson (1972: 212) described the conflict between the message and
the meta-message as the “double bind”. This, indeed, is what happens when satire
seeks to reconcile psychological and rhetoric states that are antagonistic: mobilisa¬
tion and relaxation. These states can alternate but they cannot overlap. Nor can
they both be cancelled at once.
Humour, too, is based on a double bind. However, the humorous double bind
(friendly content in hostile form) is salubrious, whereas the satiric double bind
(hostile content in humorous form) is fraught with ambiguity and internal conflict.
Why? The answer is that humorous form itself is based on a double bind. Satire,
therefore, means a double double bind because hostility in satire is part of both
bona fide content and non-bona fide form. Separating the true hostility of the con¬
tent from the mock hostility of the form is as difficult for the recipient as attacking
seriously and in jest at the same time is for the artist. This, perhaps, is where the
main problem with satire lies.
‘4 Nothing in this picture except the caption indicates Schadenfreude, but in another, more grotesque
sketch by Kukryniksy the Nuremberg defendants appear stricken with panic (one of them even falls
headlong across the bar) and the last digit of the year 1946 is shaped as a noose (http://art-kukryniksy.
narod.ru/kukryniksy30.htm (last accessed on: July 27, 2014)). In Efimov’s cartoon, also made in the
Nuremberg courtroom, the clock on the wall is encircled by a noose (Efmov 1969: 158; http://mp3¬
kniga.ru/bibliofil/efimov-polveka.htm (last accessed on: July 27, 2014)). In his Nuremberg sketches,
Efimov portrays Goering as a constricting snake, and Ribbentrop as a rat (http://propagandahistory.
ru/243/Boris-Efimov---patriarkh-sovetskoy-karikatury/ (last accessed on: July 27, 2014)).
5 Psychological data suggest that a sudden reduction of anger may be followed by laughter (Tomkins
1984; Keltner & Bonanno 1997). In this case, however, amusement is suppressed by repulsion.