What Irony Is Not (2020)
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
If we go by the dictionary, we see that regular people are using irony quite well:
(1) the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
That's a hipster wearing a hillbilly stgan t-shirt ironically, or someone lauding Epstein as a paragon of virtue, and so on. This kind is well undestood and people usually don't argue over its semantics.
(2) a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.
This is the kind of irony the article is preoccupied with.
The key, I think, is the situation being "wryly amusing".
I'd say that this kind of irony involves some kind of a "cosmic joke" (a kind of soft or heavier prank the universe plays on you/us). Not literally of course: it's just how it feels.
This definition fits the dictionary definition (2) above, and the article cases, like the diabetic going for his meds and being run over by a sugar (or insulin, even better) truck.
And, let's say that contrary to popular "de-bunking", finding a trove of spoons when you're just looking for a knife (as in Alanis' lyrics), qualifies. As does "winning the lottery and diying the next day" or "a death row pardon two minutes too late" (also lyrics from the same song).
A lot of the semantic arguments against cases of (2) is mostly people expecting irony to always involve an element of (1), or to be necessarily much more than "wryly" amusing case of (2).
Winning lottery and dying in your newly bought racing car, ok. Just dying, I do not see the irony.
But it might just be me, and probably as with taste one cannot really discuss that.
So the diabetic being killed by the insulin truck is ironic, because the contents of the truck no not in fact affect the lethality of being hit by it.
But the death row pardon coming in too late isn't ironic, because the pardon actually could have prevented the death. Whereas your example of 'Speedy' is ironic, because the nickname of the victim has no causal effect on the speed of the pardon.
Examples where the two oposed aspects of the situation actually do affect each other aren't ironic, they're just an ordinary conflict
It can be an acausual relationship (e.g. as in the classic observation "it's ironic how the bus always arrives just when you light your cigarette").
Or it can be a casual relationship (e.g. "A marriage councelor in an unhappy marriage" or the article's "the diabetic down on his meds, being run over by an insulin truck"- that is the very thing that he seeked and that would helped his health).
To my mind a pardon that comes too late, or the lottery-bought racing car accident, are unfortunate but don't really hold a striking contradiction. That seems more significant than the causality.
They don't need to be connected casually. They are, however, connected, by pertaining to the same subject and e.g. having contradictory qualities (in the example the pardon vs execution, plus the amusing timing).
>Winning lottery and dying in your newly bought racing car, ok. Just dying, I do not see the irony.
The irony being that you were served this great luck just before you got handed the ultimate unluckiness (thus rendering it all useless to you).
The irony in crashing in your newly bought sports car (or private jet) is in the fact that you were longing for a lottery win your whole life, hoping that it will bring you happiness, but instead it brought you death.
Dying for a reason that is not directly related to your newly acquired wealth is something different.
That's in line with the definition I found in the Cambridge Dictionary: "Irony - a situation in which something which was intended to have a particular result has the opposite or a very different result."
>Irony is more general, and can be far more subtle than the employment of simple opposites.
Well, wearing an in-appropriate cultural outfit as per my example, can be quite subtle. It's not just a "simple opposite" (like a Dem wearing a MAGA hat), it can tie to all kinds of subtle knowledge of this or that subculture.
Irony doesn't have to be some huge usurping, tho.
Same way a joke doesn't have to be good, it can also be a mediocre or bad joke.
It's true that "irony" is hard to pin down. But the excursions into explaining coincidence, parody and satire I found rather tedious - those terms don't need a whole podcast. They're straightforward words.
That is, we validate our existential understanding by cracking jokes about all aspects thereof.
I wonder if this is related to how some social justice “enthusiasts” have trouble with memes and jokes about their pet topics?
However, looking at Etymonline's definitions, I find myself in a difficult spot of having to rethink how Irony can be expressed:
eironeia "dissimulation, assumed ignorance,"...
https://www.etymonline.com/word/irony#etymonline_v_12234
So I thank you for sharing your thoughts because what you stated gave me pause: I agree with you in part, felt your conclusions are linked in a way, but it's clear that I have a long way to go to understand the topic.
That said, and from the article, "Coincidences involve juxtaposition and incongruity, but they aren’t counterfactual and don’t involve pretense." The syntax/logic statements in this sentence make my head spin :(
Beyond the book linked, if anyone has further suggestions on readings on Irony please share. Thank you.
So I'll pose this as a question to the community: About halfway down the article there was a link (for me) to "What Nihilism is Not" with a description "In order to preserve nihilism as a meaningful concept, it’s necessary to distinguish it from pessimism, cynicism, and apathy." Is it ironic that in an article about irony there is a link to an article on a philosophy premised on the meaninglessness of life that intends to preserve its meaningfulness?
It is ironic to write an article with the aim of preserving the meaningfulness of the term nihilism.
It is not ironic to embed a link to that article within an article about irony.
Is it ironic that in an article about irony there
is a link to an article on a philosophy premised on
the meaninglessness of life that intends to preserve
its meaningfulness?
Irony is generally understood to involve an outcome that is contrary to expectations.
It has been said that the textbook example of irony would be the bullet that nearly killed Ronald Reagan. The bullet initially missed him, but riccocheted off the bulletproof glass of his limo -- the thing meant to save him from bullets! -- and then struck him. In fact, it actually contributed greatly to his near-death: because the shooter never had a clear shot at Reagan, the initial assumption was that he had not been shot, and had simply hurt his ribs when being shoved into the car by his bodyguards following the shooting. Had he instead been shot directly, there would have been no such confusion or delay.
Does an article about the meaningfulness of nihilism run contrary to expectations? If it was written by a nihilist, perhaps! If it was written by a non-nihilist, I'd say no -- it would not be unexpected for others to assign meaningfulness to a philosophy that has had some impact on the world, even if those who subscribe to the philosophy maintain that there is no meaning in things.
The bit many people seem to skip over is that Nihilism's "meaninglessness" is in the context of long time frames.
So, actions have a timeframe of impact, with varying - but not infinite - length.
Knowing this, you can ascribe more relevant meaning to your actions, and hence better decide which actions to take.
It can also let you put past actions you regret into perspective. You will still regret those actions, but those actions, and associated regret, come with a timeframe.
whose lyrics aren't ironic (they're examples of unfortunate situations), thus having a song about irony - that isn't actually ironic (in its lyrics)
thus making it the best ironic song ever
Aside from that, the entire song is filled with non-ironic scenarios, yep. Agreed: the most unintentionally ironic song ever.
I've always thought this. It's easier to explain irony using examples than to define it.
In information terms, the "understand" in that sentence is a false positive.
Q: Do you know what I mean?
A: Yes.
The response above is not a verification. To be valid as a verification, the response would have to contain a restatement of the proposition, ideally in different terms that have the same meaning.
e.g.
A: You are saying that when someone claims to understand something, they have to demonstrate that understanding by regurgitating the meaning they have in mind, so as to make their understanding transparent and verifiable.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/why-americans-dont-get-ir...
An interesting counterpoint would be that although Japanese communication is extremely high-context, they don't grasp the concept of sarcasm at all. This leads to situations like this
Japanese culture certainly recognizes the the inflated title mocking style of sarcasm, as well as the excessive politeness form of sarcasm (which is easier in Japanese).
from what I've read, what Japanese doesn't really have as much of is sarcasm for levity ("this is fun" in response to some obviously not-fun situation), or sarcasm that is intended to be interpreted as praise (despite the literal meaning).
So, the man, portentiously explaining what mansplaining is, while the woman next to him sits quietly.
Or, the criminal, railling at his car being keyed, while he was breaking into a house.
The right wing / conservative people in my country frequently call their political opponents "lemmings", to imply they're deluded, misinformed and mindlessly rushing towards their deaths.
The mass suicide of lemmings is a myth. The most notable perpetuator is Disney, which in a 1958 documentary movie "White Wilderness" staged a "suicide" scene, complete with pushing lemmings off a cliff. There were more cases of involving Disney.
So whenever right winged/conservative describe people with opposing views as "lemmings", they accuse them of being misinformed yet are proving themselves to be misinformed.
To top it off, the "documentary" movie won an Academy Award, which is also itself ironic, because misinformation has been rewarded as educational.