Sarcasm is corrosive

Photon Courier has a couple of interesting posts on leadership and strategy. I'm working on a longer post that addresses his main point, but he got me thinking on a tangent.

Quoting Field Marshall Lord Wavell:

"sarcasm is always resented and seldom forgiven."

"He (the general) should never indulge in sarcasm, which is being clever at someone else's expense, and always offends."

Like Photon Courier, I think Lord Wavell was on to something important here about leadership. To go further, what does it mean for our popular culture which is awash in sarcasm? Turn on ESPN or Fox Sports and you find sportswriters and second-rate comedians making jokes about sports, athletes, and fans. On the music channels they don't play many music videos anymore. Instead, they have a bunch of third-rate comedians and wannabees snarking about music videos. John Stewart ended up on the cover of Time for mixing history and sarcasm, (as though no fourteen-year-old had ever done that before). Political talk radio and sports talk radio are awash in people "being clever at someone else's expense". MSNBC has even brought it to the real news business (See Olbermann and Ron Reagan, Jr.).

Do people really like their daily corrosive bath? Is there any possibility that this constant flow of bile, cruelty and sophomoric humor will turn off some of the audience? (Has it already done so?) If it doesn't, what happens to standards of discourse and our habits of thinking?