Guilty, as charged.
Snark and sarcasm are very powerful, passive-aggressive tools to show how supremely intelligent, talented, and attractive you are. (See what I did there?)
It doesn’t translate well to the page, as I am well aware. You have to point out the mockery, else a reader may take it as an actual feeling. I should know, because I’ve done it too many times already (even a couple of times in my new book, Scene Change: Why Nonprofit Arts Organizations Must Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact, coming in 2023, published by Changemakers Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing).
And in the pointing out, the writer tends to undercut the joke by making it appear to be some version of “-splaining” (writer-splaining, maybe?), often looking like a Big Richard, if you know what I mean.
An old and famous version of sardonic point-making is Marc Anthony’s eulogy in Act 3, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me,
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
Most writers are not Shakespeare. Especially in the nonprofit community.
For years, I have written about toxic stakeholders in nonprofit arts organizations holding their beloved companies hostage for personal gain. Toxic donors might leverage (or “blackmail,” if you will) a company into turning their “gift” into a walled-off fancy room where the hoi polloi cannot bother them by existing. Toxic corporations and foundations begun by toxic robber barons may give to “artswash” their hot mess of respective reputations. Toxic board members bestow outrage when their beloved Eurocentric season of art starts to diversify into works by those people. Giving circles, salons, donor-advised-funds, and other quasi-cabals can often feed into the toxicity and corrupt even the most genuine of well-meaning donors into bad behaviors.
While toxicity, unfortunately, is in ample supply at nonprofit arts organizations, it is not prevalent. A vast majority of donors are not toxic. But the few and vicious, however generous with their cash, require more time than can be justified to an already-stretched staff and board. The “care and feeding” of donors (as a development director with whom I once worked put it) can easily derail all the good works a nonprofit arts organization can do in this Pre-Post-Pandemic Era.
“Crossing the line” is just another phrase meaning “being human.” In these days of social media pixelated, opinionated diatribes; deep and dangerous chasms between groups who may even have the same goal in mind (a free country, for example); and alternative facts (or “lies,” as we used to call them) getting in the way of a real conversation about the future; the United States is a loud and demonstrably uncivil place. It’s okay to get mad about that; even to be impolitic and forceful. Just don’t alienate the people who might want to help by appearing to be, as the British say, “too clever by half.”
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, the arts, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru.If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. You don’t have to, of course, but if you can afford it and find some value here, please provide the desperate need for caffeine.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.BIG NEWS: Alan’s new book, “Scene Change: Why Nonprofit Arts Organization Must Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact” will be published within the next 8-9 months by Changemakers Books. Stay tuned for information on how you can buy a copy.
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