Satire and cruelty?

Satire is a form of writing used to make fun of the societies weakness, it can be funny but is destined to create excitement to the audience, yet it's not searching for entertainment. In class we read this short story called "A Modest Proposal", written by Jonathan Swift, using satire to an extreme. Talking about his idea of using babies from poor families as food, treat the babies as cows or pigs. "The skin... will make admirable gloves for ladies and summer boots for the gentleman." (p860). Reading those pages made me realize how serious and cruel the text was, but at the same time its was impossible to hold a laugh. Reading the story became a joy, I don't considered my self cruel but I was so eager to see how the story ended I understood satire is a successful technique authors use. I decided to research about Jonathan Swift past text and he is consider a " the foremost prose satirist in the English language" with stories like Gulliver's Travels, The Battle of the Books and a Journal to Stella. 

In page 33 of the book I read a passage that remember me of Swift's story, "Thirty thousand men, woman ad children were crushed to death under the ruins. The sailor chuckled: "There'll be something worth picking up here..." Talking about disasters and laughing made me remember of what I read before in the Modest Proposal. Can satire and cruelty connect? If you want to achieve a correct satire text you need to be vicious? 


"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song." Byron, Lord