The satirist claims, with much justification, to be a true conservative. Usually (but not always – there are significant exceptions) he operates within the established framework of society, accepting its norms, appealing to reason (or to that which his society accepts as rational) as the standard against which to judge the folly he sees. He is the preserver of tradition, the true tradition from which there has been a grievous falling away.
"A Modest Proposal" - Jonathan Swift's famous tongue-in-cheek appeal to solve the problem of Irish poverty by eating babies -may read like wild-haired looniness, but it works because Swift is being conservative, leaning in to established, traditional principles that all civilized societies profess (even if they don't always practice them so well): Casual cruelty is unacceptable. Indifference to mass suffering is wrong. Jordan Peele's great horror satire Get Out works the same way. It might look radical on the surface, but y'all, doesn't everybody think it's wrong to steal other peoples' talents?
That is the lens through which I am viewing current events, especially attempts to silence certain satirical voices. Are they edgy voices? Yes. But the main thing about them is the (should be) conventionality of their values: they hate lying, they hate cruelty, they hate hypocrisy, they hate unfairness, they hate tyranny. Don't we all? Yet the satirists are in trouble. And the "why" of their trouble speaks to Elliot's characterization of satirists as preservers of true tradition. They're in trouble not because they're infidels but because they're believers. Their accusers are the ones responsible for the "grievous falling away" and they can't bear to have been called out for it.
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