These Ironic Times

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One consequence of this attitude is that someone who professes loyalty to some principle is perceived to be saying something about himself, his own strictures and aspirations, and not about the principles that he is subject to as a Christian, a Jew, or just (his view of) a human being. Thus, when a visible gap appears between his professed principles and his behavior, he is not just another sinner, or "all too human," but a hypocrite. Hypocrisy, unlike other flaws, can be resolved by redefinition—by professing a set of values closer to one's actions. So we increasingly take high principle to be a sign of hypocrisy or delusion, rather than acknowledgment that we are called to be better than we are.

Still, the wish to escape irony is probably mistaken—though the hope of enriching it is not. Just as we cannot live in the flatness of irony, we cannot breathe the cloying air of anti-irony. The human reserves of pompousness, self-seriousness, and the leaden earnestness that always threatens to run molten are unlikely ever to be exhausted. Among our most trustworthy weapons against them is an intelligent and resourceful irony. That irony depends on the recognition that our moral situation is tragic—that we are base and worse, even while recognizing that we should be good, and that we can keep ourselves from growing worse yet only by holding our frailty and ridiculous self-righteousness always before us. This recognition has a converse that is less bleak: Understanding that we can never be all we should be is reason not for despair but for renewed effort in a task that, even if it is doomed, is kept from futility by the fact that we pursue it. Rescuing irony from itself may prove quixotic, but one could have worse company in bad times than Twain, Swift, and Montaigne.

From the American Prospect (July/Aug. 1998). Subscriptions: $25/yr. (6 issues) from Box 383080, Cambridge, MA 02238.

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