"The Post-Ironic Age"

I think I ensured my immortality today, and I want to publicize it here, just to make sure I get full credit.

“Trzupr” over at Threedonia, posted this interesting piece today, about the irony of Disney building a “Tree of Life” in its Animal Kingdom, to teach the sacred value of natural things, and actually building the object out of man-made materials, on the frame of an oil rig.

I pointed out in comments that this was similar to using the most technology-heavy movie in history to preach the evils of technology. And then I wrote, “We have reached the Post-Ironic Age.”

The more I think about it, the more I like that phrase.

People have been calling our present intellectual generation the “post-postmodern age,” but that's kind of convoluted, and doesn't really communicate much.

“The Post-Ironic Age” describes our times to a nicety, it seems to me. We've reached a point where statements are made by public officials and institutions which, only a couple decades ago, would have gotten the speaker laughed off the stage. But today such pronouncements are unremarkable.

Statements such as “The system worked,” when an explosives-carrying terrorist gets onto a Detroit-bound plane and actually begins detonation.

Statements such as, “And as horrific as this tragedy (the Fort Hood massacre) was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

Statements such as, “We need to spend our way out of this recession.”

Statements such as, “There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science upon which this decision is based.”

I think we live in the first age in history in which such nonsense is possible on a worldwide scale. There have always been totalitarian societies where the subject of the emperor's clothing deficit has been dangerous to bring up, but only today is such delusion acceptable everywhere. And not merely among the “ignorant masses,” but most especially and vociferously among the intellectuals.

This could only happen (it seems to me) in a culture where education has been almost entirely abstracted. Within the liberal arts and “soft sciences” (the hard sciences are different), it has become possible to receive an entire undergraduate and graduate education without ever learning how to actually do anything that works in the real world. Higher education has become almost entirely (there are, of course a few exceptions) a course of ideological indoctrination, totally separate from the lives people live on planet earth.

And so I dub this generation “The Post-Ironic Age.” You are welcome to use the term freely, so long as you give me credit.

Oh, and buy my book.

(Cross-posted at Brandywine Books)

Comments

[Kamilla]

Lars,

I hate to be a downer . . . but the last time I thought I had ensured my own immortality by coining something new, it turned out to be a heresy. That was back when I was a religious feminist -- I have since repented.

Kamilla

[Clifford Simon]

Lars,

I can't help adding my favorite incredible pronouncement...

"29 Dimensions® of Compatibility scientifically proven to predict happier, healthier long-term relationships."

Thanks to a well-known dating service.

[Lars Walker]

I find your lack of faith troubling.

[digimodernist]

After postmodernism comes digimodernism.

[Christopher Hathaway]

I would say that today's "higher" education is not so much a course in ideological indoctrination as it is one of idiological indoctrination and ideological innoculation. They are trained to be deliberate ignoramusses (or is it ignorami?), useless and helpless eloi who are the fodder for the needs of the morlock state.

[Emil]

President Obama says that a greater proportion of Americans should go to college. I don't know if he gave a reason. My career as a prof was good for me; there were lots of great students. But a good number were destined for 'retail jobs'---sales clerks in Marshall Fields (now Macy's) or Ace Hardware. These are prefectly noble jobs, but they do not require a college education.

"Higher education has become almost entirely (there are, of course a few exceptions) a course of ideological indoctrination, totally separate from the lives people live on planet earth." This may be a little strong, but this situation makes me less distressed about the level of disinterest in learning anything displayed by many college students. Maybe they know that seldom is anything helpful taught and that their jobs will not require all that much skill or thought anyway---so party Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

[Lars Walker]

Now that's an interesting response. I'll have to chew on that.

[Extollager]

"it has become possible to receive an entire undergraduate and graduate education without ever learning how to actually do anything that works in the real world. Higher education has become almost entirely (there are, of course a few exceptions) a course of ideological indoctrination, totally separate from the lives people live on planet earth"

See Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

"The Post-Ironic Age..." I concur. Quite apropos. Well done, Mr. Walker. I will use it liberally in my everyday speech to infuse my discourse with a level of intelligence and wit beyond my inherent abilities. I, of course, will take full credit for coining the term.

[Philip]

More than an inability to perceive irony (I mean, irony), contraception defines this age. The latter word is both broader and more succinct.

[Tore]

A decade ago, Thomas Pynchon wrote a blurb for Emily Barton's novel "The Testament of Yves Gundron" (2000), where he called Barton's novel "blessedly post-ironic." Since then, the term has been frequently used. I like your post, but trailblazing it is not. You are welcome to use the term, though, so long as you give Pynchon credit.

If you want to read a really pertinent post-ironic statement, may I recommend David Foster Wallace's essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" from 1993?

[coach factory store]

Nature is fair, but society is not.