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NEO-IRONY

                                             February 28, 2007


                                  What's the difference between
                                  irony and hypocrisy?
   STAGGERING
                                  Hypocrisy is supposed to
                                  remain un-detected.


    I like Eggers rant about
    irony in the footnotes to
    "Staggering", but I disagree        Example: is "Staggering
    with much of it...   Briefly:       Genius" meant to be a
    he complains about people trying    double-meaning implying
    to read irony into his book,        "Drunken Genius"?  No!
    which he claims is *nearly*         It's just hyperbole!
    devoid of it.                       All the guys in his       Lawyers,
                                        family do hyperbole!      Jocks,
                                                                  Dave Eggers

          Eggers complains about the
          over-use of the word "irony" to
          describe things that don't really           Also, he clearly loves
          qualify.  But his example-- the             hyperbole, and there's
          dog killed in an accident on it's           a finer line between
          way to the vet-- doesn't quite do           that and irony than
          what he wants.                              he allows for...

          It's very weak irony, it isn't                Hyperbole is another
          *funny* irony, there is no *wit*              form of not saying
          to it... but it's still irony.                quite what you mean:
                                                        it just doesn't go
      There is such a        It is possible             as far as a complete
      thing as an            for something              reversal of meaning.
      "ironic event",        to be *both*
      when the results       unfortunate and               I think the reader
      of actions             ironic.                       might be forgiven
      contradict                                           for not getting the
      intentions.                                          *correct* unstated
                                                           meaning...

However, when people                                       TELL_ME_TRUE
complain about this being
an Ironic Age -- or when                                   After all,
they used to, back before                                  A hyperbolic
the Naughts -- they're not                                 remark might
referring to the basic                                     be *both*
dictionary definition (a                                   sarcastic and
remark with apparent                                       ironic.
meaning the opposite of
intended meaning)...                                         "Okay genius,
                                                              here's your
They're talking about                                         comic book."
that peculiar abuse of
the ironic -- or at
least of the ironic
tone of voice? -- that
I tend to call "David
Letterman's Disease".
                       
You can't flip the meaning      
of a Letterman quip and         
arrive at the true meaning,     
because there is no true        
meaning.                        
                                
What there is, is         
an intonation to            A free-floating,
indicate that the           meaningless irony.
apparent meaning
isn't true.                     Eggers calls this
                                "neo-irony" in
Where you're supposed           passing, and I
to go from there,               think that's a      (Except that it means
that's left out of the          great term.         we may be in for a
picture by design.                                  "post-neo-ironic age".)




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