To avoid confusion, and in honour of their huffy acrimony, I offer a new name for these vitriolic commenters: ''huffies''.

Some huffies are malicious, and enjoy the anxiety or stress they cause. The Charlotte Dawson case is a good example of this. But other than policing offence, which is an ethical and legal quagmire, their malice is here to stay.

But other huffies are just grumpy citizens, whom outrage, haste or ideology have briefly deprived of reason. We are all guilty of this, particularly where our beloved hobby horses are concerned.

Which is why, in democratic civilisation, we need to be continually challenged: not simply to defend our beliefs, but to recognise others' beliefs more generously. At the very least, it is vital to be reminded of how partial and prickly we are; how easily waylaid from the important issues. But how? History offers a clue. One of the most useful tests of huffiness is well over 2000 years old, and was regularly taken by Greek and Roman citizens. Its designers were men like Aristophanes and Juvenal. In the 18th century, Swift and Voltaire tested Britain and France respectively. I am writing, of course, not of scholastic aptitude tests or public service exams, but of satire.

Put simply, good satire demonstrates human absurdity. Not by confronting ideas or characters directly with argument or description, but with caricature, absurdity, mockery. Falsely plausible ideas become obviously ludicrous, tolerable vices become laughable.

This can be done dryly, as in Swift's A Modest Proposal, which calmly suggested that the rich might eat the children of the poor. It can be done with more vulgarity, as in Aristophanes' Clouds, which had a sky-gazing Socrates crapped on by a lizard. To my mind, the best satire is droll, even with ridiculous concepts or characters: Voltaire's Candide being the perfect example of a joker card played with a poker face.

In fact, some satire is so straight-faced that readers cannot see the joke. Swift, for example, was abused as a heartless cannibal after A Modest Proposal was published. More recently, a study by Ohio State University reported that many viewers believed that comedian Stephen Colbert, from The Colbert Report, was not really joking when he mouthed conservative platitudes.

And this is not confined to the United States. I recently wrote a satirical column on Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, agreeing with his ideas with a series of increasingly absurd but ardent arguments. My column ended with the recommendation to ban heterosexual marriage outright.

Some commenters missed the joke completely: they obviously read the headline and first paragraph, then skimmed the text, reacting quickly to a handful of keywords. Their subsequent rants, on the ABC and Twitter, were hilarious and very revealing. In this, the best satire has two targets. The first target is the idea or character that is mocked: something or someone so ridiculous that laughter is the most reasonable reply. The second target is the audience who, deafened by haste, bias, distraction or the applause of their clique, cannot hear the laughter at all.

Of course, one can argue that a satire is ham-fisted, cruel or superficial; Voltaire was not fair to Leibniz, for example. But to make this case we must first know it as satire. Without this basic recognition, we easily become huffies, publicly revealing our intellectual - and often ethical - vices. This is why satire is the perfect test of huffiness today. Not because it necessarily requires raw cognitive power, but because it asks the reader to stop, read and think patiently. It requires, not specialised scholarship, but a willingness to notice details of text and tone, and check one's ideological blind spots. This is tougher than it looks, partly because of the internet, which can encourage a certain restless browsing. Stuck in what psychologists call a ''variable interval reinforcement schedule'', we can use the technology less like critical thinkers, and more like addicts after a ''hit''. We skip the dull details of comprehension and move straight to the rush of the ''reply'' button.

But huffiness is also a matter of individual motivation. The worst offenders are not genuinely interested in persuading others, let alone being persuaded themselves. They want a textual receptacle for their bile. Because of this, they fail the test: their lack of focus, analysis and charity is revealed.

Importantly, this test is bipartisan. Neither the left nor the right has a monopoly on humourless cant and reflexes dressed up as ideals. Whether conservative or progressive, laughing at oneself is a common virtue. Huffies on both sides do not even listen for the joke - and, in this, become one themselves.

Dr Damon Young is a philosopher and author. His next book, Philosophy in the Garden, will be published in December.