The Ironic Imperative


What leads to the evolution of a human being into an ironist (assuming, of course, that we are not 'born as ironists')? Every ironist must speak for herself on this one; in the following, the one writing this post reflects on himself.

He has to write, and not merely write but also live, as an ironist for there are two absolute principles governing his existence which being equally absolute are locked into a mortal combat with each other, a combat for which there can be no temporal resolution.

Principle 1 : 'I am human, and nothing that is human do I consider alien to myself'.
This Principle explains his antipathy for what he has elsewhere on this blog denounced as Tribalism, irrespective of whether this is the inward-looking Tribalism of the Family, of Society, of Language, of the Academy, of Culture, or of Nationalism.

Principle 2 : 'To remain human I must, sooner or later, take sides, and this will not only lead me to associate myself with some groups more spontaneously and more closely than the others, but, on occasion, even to reject the company of some human beings. I must, that is, operate with a working-definition of what configurations of views, beliefs, and practices I consider to be non-human, or even anti-human, and this might sometimes constitute a violation of Principle 1.'

For example, he would rather be with a mob of foul-smelling left-wing pyromaniacs than with a coterie of clean-shaven right-wing demagogues, while being aware that this solidarity is, from one perspective, just another Tribalism; again, more often with hot-tempered anti-Establishment anarchists than with intellectually-redoubtable pro-Establishment constructivists, knowing only too well that anarchists too have a lamentable tendency of setting up their own parochial (micro-)Tribalisms.

Thus, he must always write and live in the broken middle which is the shifting arena and the grey zone between these two warring principles. Consequently, beneath the cadences of his ironic prose there lie seething an anarchy of the mind and a turmoil of the heart that are seeking to find some rest in that ever-mobile in-between space between the two principles. Some of his readers, however, might want to 'pick up' on Principle 2 and argue as follows : 'But why take sides? Why do you not just float around breezing through life, not bothering to find out who/what is right and who/what is wrong?', and to this, he makes the following reply : 'It is impossible in principle not to have any views, explicit or implicit, of what constitutes the 'Good Life'. And these views, whatever they are, will set up some gradation, latent or expressed, of what is right and what is wrong in the light of that postulated Good which is hoped to be achieved, either in the present or in the future'.

Irony, therefore, becomes, on this blog at least, a mode of passionate engagement with the world that he shall call 'stragetic optimism'. It is strategic because it is pervaded by a deep sense of the fragility of goodness and is aware of how we must work in and through the irreducibly tragic dimensions of our existence, but it is optimistic because it never loses sight of the fragility of goodness and seeks to keep alive the conversation between all those who are united in a search for this goodness, at once manifest and elusive.

In conclusion, therefore, to be true to Principle 1 and Principle 2, he has the following note for his readers : 'The Transparent Ironist would wish to have many followers, but all his followers should first iron themselves out.'