Why is irony considered to be the only honest attitude? If you're taking anything remotely serious, you get tagged an autist, le wrong generation, extremist, or what have you. Any thinker who delved into a similar observation more deeply?

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Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:17:04 2017 No.9166541 [Reply] [Original]

Why is irony considered to be the only honest attitude?

If you're taking anything remotely serious, you get tagged an autist, le wrong generation, extremist, or what have you.
Any thinker who delved into a similar observation more deeply?

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:21:57 2017 No.9166560

>>9166541

I'll give you the meme answer: David Foster Wallace was taking about how tiresome that shit was getting in the mid 1990's. The internet has merely projected it to greater heights than ever before. It is commonplace to mock experts, people who dedicate their lives to study or to their works, and while this was once done out of jealousy it is now simply the herd mentality- being able to understand most ironic scenarios or craft irony from something is one of the most basic levels of intelligence and many people feel content to believe themselves intellectuals due to their understanding of irony. To go any further takes time, effort, passion, things that most people don't have all at the same time

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:23:50 2017 No.9166571 >>9166541 Because on a society drowned by skeptical materialism the only consistent attitude is to mask your suffering with a layer of "le irony".

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:26:18 2017 No.9166579 Does anyone consider it honest? I use it as an anaesthetic.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:29:36 2017 No.9166590
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Sloterdijk.

In fairness, imagine if you left that pod of pink goo in the Matrix but Morpheus and the rest of the gang didn't show up, because you really weren't the Chosen One. Something just happened and you woke up that way. And then you just had to walk around in a hellscape by yourself. Chased by robots. With no pants.

No pants, anon. THERE ARE NO PANTS

>tfw maybe there are pants tho
>jungian pants
>nietzschean pants
>heideggerian pants
>chinese pants
>stoic pants
>so many pants to be tried on

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:30:08 2017 No.9166594

>>9166541
>Why is irony considered to be the only honest attitude?
You just made that up.

>Any thinker who delved into a similar observation more deeply?
Probably some wimpy weak boi incapable of detaching his thoughts from the emotional automatic responses of others and himself

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:30:52 2017 No.9166598 File: 406 KB, 914x898, KKPMAps.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Facing reality sincerely is too horrible

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:35:16 2017 No.9166619 >>9166571 >drowning in skeptical materialism Kek

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:36:43 2017 No.9166629 >>9166598 lmfao

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:37:11 2017 No.9166632 >>9166594 Yeah dude. So alpha. Beer, titties and weed. Joe Rogan podcasts and man the fuck up, bitch.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:39:40 2017 No.9166641

>>9166619
are you going to deny that the current most popular "philosophical" (between quotation marks, because it reeks of intellectual laziness) worldview is derived from a dogmatic belief in science and denial of everything that's not matter derived, going as far as to adjudicate every process in existence (and even existence itself) to matter alone.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:44:17 2017 No.9166661 >>9166641 Honest question (+ not that anon), but what makes it intellectually lazy? Surely Sam "Stiller the Mind" Harris is anything but a lazy mind.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:44:27 2017 No.9166662 >>9166632 Really, detach yourself, thought itself obviates the need to assume any particular "attitudes"

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:47:09 2017 No.9166675 >>9166662 There's a difference between detachment and irony. A huge difference.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:47:47 2017 No.9166682

>>9166641

2 things,

1-the vast majority of normal people don't know what the fuck any of what you're talking about is, so how could our society be drowning it?

2-science gets results, while literally fuckig retarded pieces of shit like you just complain about the lack of dogmatic bullshit in the world these days

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:49:06 2017 No.9166685

>>9166661
It's intellectually lazy because 99% (only an useful figure of speech) of the people that subscribe to that approach don't even attempt to rationalize it. Following it is an act of faith (something decried by the same train of thought).

The hate for philosophy in the hard science field is one of the biggest examples of it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:50:21 2017 No.9166692 >>9166675 Well, agreed, and it's why I haven't type a thing about irony

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:51:59 2017 No.9166698 I have difficulty differentiating between irony and humor in the context of "attitudes". I would say people choose and encourage humor over seriousness because being serious is exhausting.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:52:33 2017 No.9166700 File: 110 KB, 1000x1179, ab.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166682 >science gets results Yes!

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:53:03 2017 No.9166703

>>9166682
1. The vast majority of normal people don't know what the fuck any of what you're talking about is

Doesn't prevent them from acting that way.

2. >science gets results, while literally fuckig retarded pieces of shit like you just complain about the lack of dogmatic bullshit in the world these days

I'm not even saying that science isn't an useful tool (it fucking is). But to attempt to answer all of the questions with science alone, while considering everything that isn't answered by science alone, unimportant is just lazy and stupid.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 18:57:52 2017 No.9166727

We're all hipsters now.
I'm not even saying that as some meta-hipster who thinks he's above it. I feel it myself too, this pulse to immediately be the jester whenever an idea is brought up or a set of beliefs is presented. It's not a nihilism of the last century, but something more toxic in the long term.
Subcultures are seen as silly. If you're part of one after 20, you're some sort of loser who hasn't realized that everything's just a joke. Apparantly that's the final conclusion you need to reach.

I truly think Zizek has a point when he says that a conviction is a danger to the current status quo. Like love, for example. Much rather have an open relationship, be a hedonist nomad or some sort of adulthoodless manchild than anything truly defineable.

It's better to be a free floating detatched unit than a devoted believer.
Paradoxically, these very ironylords are the breeding ground for and very receptive to fascism. Look at Sam Hyde for example.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:12:16 2017 No.9166788 >>9166682 oh come on this is the same as debating jocks vs nerds

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:18:06 2017 No.9166817

>>9166727
>It's not a nihilism of the last century, but something more toxic in the long term.

>Much rather have an open relationship, be a hedonist nomad or some sort of adulthoodless manchild than anything truly defineable.

Poor thing! You're already infected, and you can't even see it!

But this:
>Paradoxically, these very ironylords are the breeding ground for and very receptive to fascism.
is accurate

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:20:21 2017 No.9166831 File: 78 KB, 750x750, 16712002_1361588327194594_45746007053514764_n.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166817 Can't even see what exactly? I said in the very first sentence I don't think I'm above it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:20:42 2017 No.9166835 >>9166590 good post desu

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:21:24 2017 No.9166838 >>9166831 I really wanna blow her cock.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:24:51 2017 No.9166857 >>9166831 Whatever >I truly think

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:27:29 2017 No.9166876

>>9166703

There are no interesting questions that can't be answered by science

>muh meaning of life

Fuck off, if you even think about this just kys already that's clearly what's motivating you

>how to live a good life

People instinctually understand this, there is nothing to explore academically, do what your parents tell you until you know what to do yourself

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:29:59 2017 No.9166890 >>9166876 I can't wait when AI makes you STEMtists expendable.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:30:04 2017 No.9166892 >>9166817 J U S T

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:31:59 2017 No.9166898 >>9166541 Irony is shit. You only like it because "muh DFW muh Pynchon" but they're just temporary fashion. Irony is shit.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:32:17 2017 No.9166901 >>9166876 >I'm an atheist >no, really!

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:32:24 2017 No.9166902 >>9166876 I like the shamish attempt to glorify science's limitations

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:32:58 2017 No.9166903 >>9166876 >there are no interesting questions that can't be answered by science Thanks for only proving my point

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:33:27 2017 No.9166905 >>9166892 What's the problem?

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:34:04 2017 No.9166907 >>9166541 irony does not provide anything constructive. Its a purely deconstructive method. once this meme is over the better.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:34:38 2017 No.9166912 File: 534 KB, 2136x3216, 1472830280474.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166876

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:38:03 2017 No.9166927 >>9166876 Actually it's the questions that make us most human that can't be answered by science. But it's good to know that scientism and dense borderline depressive assholery always come in tandem. Makes it easier to avoid these people.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:39:03 2017 No.9166932 >>9166541 Problem is people think too much for their own good. It's a brainlet activity.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:40:20 2017 No.9166937 Because it's the critical mode par excellence, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, read criticism. That it is easier to know what you do not want as opposed to the reverse of course >fans the flames

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:42:09 2017 No.9166944 >>9166937 Irony has never been the way to the truth. Irony is basically the attitudes of faggots

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:43:09 2017 No.9166948 >>9166944 intellectualy dishonest/lazy is a better insult and more aggravating.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:49:05 2017 No.9166980

>>9166890
>>9166901
>>9166902
>>9166903
>>9166912

I'm agnostic not atheist, the question of whether Magic sky daddy exists isn't interesting, I ignore it

Ethics is equally uninteresting. Everybody knows what to do, thieves know what they are doing is wrong, they either do it out of desperation or greed

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:50:26 2017 No.9166987 File: 2.42 MB, 478x350, 1457051738856.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166980

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:53:22 2017 No.9167006 >>9166980 2500 years of philosophy brought to its anticlimactic conclusion by agnoanon. God might not real. You know what to do. Science solves what's important Listen to dad. After that listen to superego dad. Don't be a pussy.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:54:00 2017 No.9167010

>>9166698
Have you not been near normal people recently? All they do is turn anything into memes (not image memes but the origin of the word "meme") as part of their irony. They hear a song that has a "weird" part? That part is now a meme between their friend group. They hear or see anyone doing something genuine? Why the fuck would anyone want to do something seriously when you can just be ironic about your entire life as a mask of how boring and plain you are?

As someone who has been living and interacting with people like this, I can tell you it is 100% more exhausting than living with people who are serious all the time

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:54:11 2017 No.9167013

>>9166980
>thieves know what they are doing is wrong, they either do it out of desperation or greed
I steal at supermarkets because fuck big companies though. It's wrong in the law sense but I see no harm done by wearing a jacket that someone else was going to pay 50 bucks for. In fact, I'm doing everyone else a favor by stealing it :^)

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:54:14 2017 No.9167014 Most people are ultra-serious, including youths. People like me, on the other hand, am ultra-ironic.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:55:20 2017 No.9167017 >>9166980 Being agnostic is a trend.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 19:57:16 2017 No.9167022

>>9166682
>results
Why are these good?
>>9166703
Science cannot answer anything, it is impotent.
>>9166876
>People instinctually understand this,
No they don't. I cannot name many people that have lived a 'good life'.
>There are no interesting questions that can't be answered by science
Science can't answer anything, it's impotent and you embody its impotent rage.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:11:01 2017 No.9167089

>>9167013

See you know what to do

>>9167022

>why are results good?

They let us manipulate reality for whatever we like

It doesn't matter what percentage of people "live a good life", knowing what to do is easier than doing it

>science can't answer anything

If you wanna do philosophy Mumbo jumbo about "truth" or "answers", that's up to you, the rest of the real world will continue solving problems the only way that works

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:13:50 2017 No.9167099 >>9167089 >They let us manipulate reality for whatever we like Reality doesn't exist, it is an ideology projected onto existence. Go back to riddit, ideologue.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:16:18 2017 No.9167106 >>9166944 Irony is not an attitude, but a figure of speech. Death is the truth, monkey.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:18:19 2017 No.9167114 >>9166948 And more ironic, pleb

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:27:55 2017 No.9167151

>>9167089
>They let us manipulate reality for whatever we like

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:28:34 2017 No.9167152 >>9167099 That's just more Mumbo jumbo Again, we live in the real world with real shit that requires real science to analyze. You can say it's not reality or whatever you want, those are just words It will never change the way things work

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:29:34 2017 No.9167157 >>9167106 >Death is the Truth, monkey. You were tempted successfully.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:30:59 2017 No.9167162 >>9167157 You?

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:32:34 2017 No.9167165 >>9167157 How ironic!

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:34:51 2017 No.9167175 masturbates his dick ahhhhhh cums all over

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:40:17 2017 No.9167199 >>9167165 You want true irony? :^) >>9167162 tips fedora Death is the end boys. There is no God, there is no higher meaning. Science knows everything.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:46:45 2017 No.9167221 >>9167010 >Have you not been near normal people recently? Obviously you haven't you raging autist

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 20:59:00 2017 No.9167263

>>9167199
Science knows what it knows, I have no problems with Science, but its knowledge is ultimately tautological: a is a, b is boring. That's why little empty-headed sci-bots come here-- to make incredibly stupid pronouncements concerning books they haven't read, and therefore mistake for themselves: boring.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:04:22 2017 No.9167283 >>9167263 You sure you answered to the correct posts? My post was "ironical".

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:05:57 2017 No.9167288

>>9166541
The coolest thing about modern life 2017AD: everything seems equally valid and reasonable from a perspective of total ironic alienation. I could wake up tomorrow and decide I just want to be a nazi. I'm pretty sure I can meme myself into believing anything regardless of how retarded it is. I could go full normie or be 'born again' into any fundamentalist sect of my choice. I could hop on to the ever trendy 'transgender' bandwagon and start taking estrogen pills. I could deliberately become a destitute 'problem gambler' or trade in everything I own for meth just because I can. It's all surface.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:08:36 2017 No.9167292 >>9166590 This is fantastic, but it also reads as the projected wish-fantasies of a paranoid moron.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:08:59 2017 No.9167295 >>9167288 That'll stop one day. We've been here before. The syncretic stoic attitude towards it all. It's only fun for a bit. A new religiousness on the horizon.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:10:25 2017 No.9167304 File: 88 KB, 432x750, 765ae34f1ac3f3ef054eaa1ed320496b.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9167288 Is this what being a Buddha feels like?

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:30:07 2017 No.9167352 >>9167292 I'm generally behaving like a wish-fantasist paranoid moron these days, so I can't really get too angry about that. Glad the post was otherwise helpful to you.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:34:28 2017 No.9167361 >>9167352 It wasn't necessarily helpful, but it was fun. Thanks.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:41:08 2017 No.9167380 >>9167283 Oh. I wasn't trying to be mean, cheap, or anything, anon. I just saw the meme and responded. That's it.

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 21:50:06 2017 No.9167400

>>9166641
>a dogmatic belief in science

What? Modern society rejected real science ages ago. We now have to deny our critical faculties and if a man says "I'm a woman" we have to believe him. In the past few decades epistemology has been replaced by "muh feelies". I use this only as an example of where real philosophy would be useful in the modern age but people just shrug their shoulders.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 22:07:00 2017 No.9167454 File: 15 KB, 247x150, grid04_150.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9167400 Xenofeminism and HD non euclidian gender customisation options are the inevitable outcome of modern biotechnics. get with the times, meatbag.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 22:30:13 2017 No.9167513 File: 36 KB, 300x457, IMG_0201.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166590 Read this and pic related.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 22:35:40 2017 No.9167534 >>9166541 Well, there was your explanation: >>9164575

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:13:56 2017 No.9167683

>>9167152
>mumbo-jumbo
Stop talking, ideologue.
>the way things work
According to?

Nothing works, you only project working onto it and make everybody suffer by it.
>>9167400
>faculties
muh senses are right because muh ideology does not function without rejecting itself and presuming senses are perfect.

Your infatuation in science is based upon 'muh feelies'. There is no valid epistemological basis for science.

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:24:37 2017 No.9167717 >>9167295 >A new religiousness on the horizon. Are you sure that you aren't just getting memed by the next thing that comes along because what you really want is to cling to your 'sanity' and your vanishing sense of self?

Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:25:01 2017 No.9167718

>>9167534
Ah, the second essay is cut right before she talks about the fashion of pretending to be detached and see things on universal scale (of which eternal irony can be part).

If you are masochistic, you can use automatic translation of the full text in Russian: http://www.olgasedakova.com/Moralia/280

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:45:58 2017 No.9167801 >>9166541 Everything is always funny if you look at it from the right angle. And why not do so?

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:48:28 2017 No.9167810 >>9166579 >Does anyone consider it honest? not at all. only the speaker knows. i think people confuse irony + sarcasm + method acting

>>	Anonymous Mon Feb 27 23:51:06 2017 No.9167823 When you're a sincere sensitive person you have to be so honest you're mistaken for copypasta.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:01:13 2017 No.9167859 >>9167717 This isn't at all my personal desire. I'm afraid that this will happen. I don't welcome a return of it. I'm afraid that people will grow tired of this global nomadism and seek the 'sanity' of religion once more.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:04:48 2017 No.9167864

>thread proving millennials are disloyal hipsters who "juz wunna meme" and think this ironic LARP-ing posturing is somehow a validating existence

The upcoming generation will produce Hitlers the sort of which history has never seen. I believe 20th century fascism will be nothing compared to what we'll see now.
Not even joking or even enthusiastic about this. But this Flapper bullshit is gonna hit its climax real fucking soon.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:07:12 2017 No.9167869 >>9167864 Who are you quoting?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:19:07 2017 No.9167898 >>9167869 My inner dialogue

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:21:32 2017 No.9167908 File: 15 KB, 233x267, sam hyde.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9167864 >The upcoming generation will produce Hitlers the sort of which history has never seen.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:23:29 2017 No.9167911 File: 16 KB, 300x100, 4fun.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166541 what's wrong with being tagged an extremist? irony is only a shield the insecure carry with them to avoid persecution. sometimes it is funny i guess.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:24:53 2017 No.9167916 >>9167908 Sam Hyde has been dropped 2 times already. There's something to it. He's such a meta post-irony memelord and now spends his days retweeting every white supremacist twitter account out there.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:31:37 2017 No.9167946 >>9167916 By this point, I'd be pretty disappointed if he doesn't pull off an 'ironic' ritual suicide a la Mishima

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:35:26 2017 No.9167959

>>9167911
I agree with this. Maybe it's a stupid comparison, but irony is used as a shield when you like something that would be embarrasing to your peers.

So many people liking anime only to claim that they're not the same as those cringy otakus and only watch the anime "ironically" and for the memes.

It's intellectualy dishonest and hypocritical.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:42:06 2017 No.9167983

>>9167916
He was originally going to vote for Bernie. I don't know, extremely IQ people interest me because none of them, really, act very much at all like just regular smart people. Then again there are those faggy pop physicists public programming always pushes to represent the tip, but in actuality the lot are a basket case and I say this as someone with verifiable autistic obsession and experience. I know you probably don't care but for some weird reason I'm just typing away here. That being said his IQ is 165 and I think at that level people are most concerned with getting the most bang out of their buck as far as every second they have to spend on earth goes in terms of influencing what they value because they're all social at that point and the world isn't exactly accommodating to that. Maybe you completely disagree, but I feel like just throwing this notion out there anyway at least. It almost seems like Sam brainwashed himself to engage emotionally with the politics he now represents. I mean, go through his videos and his personas flip and flop just as his literal identity does. I don't necessarily think oh sam's an amazing genius who's done so much but he does what he has to do to grind through the worst of the worst to get what he most urgently knows needs to be done for himself ultimately but in a very long term. perhaps he is a failure but he does act on a quite abstract order of business

Sorry, laugh at me. Whatever. I just felt like saying it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:46:49 2017 No.9167995 >>9167983 How do you know his IQ?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:50:44 2017 No.9168005 >>9167916 In Hydewars he implied Sam Harris, identifying him as a Jew and then staring into the camera, is hypnotizing us with his voice. Operating on another level.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:52:43 2017 No.9168006

>>9167983
Sam Hyde is not a human being, well, he probably was one, long time ago, but definitely not anymore. the entity once known as Sam Hyde is what gallic post structuralist sages would call a an hyperreal schizofascist warmachine simulacrum multimedia happening, a vicious glitch in the current system of spectacular domination. He is not of our world, but an invader from the realm of cybernetics, perhaps demonic in nature.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:55:47 2017 No.9168017 >>9168006 This is eerily accurate...

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 00:56:24 2017 No.9168019 >>9168006 >>9167983 >>9168005 /lit/s getting weird lol

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 01:11:23 2017 No.9168065

>>9168006
Demonic in the sense sentience's inherent vulnerability in a paradoxical universe can only be exploited to solicit higher dimensional back door worms such is Jaden Smith, Jim Morrison et al. though Sam's vessel was hijacked rather than genetically engineered or sperm selected.

d-did I LARP right

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 01:36:33 2017 No.9168140 >>9168065 It's not LARPing it's called HYPERSTITION! you just don't get it mom

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 03:38:22 2017 No.9168373
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>>9166541
Irony is considered "honest" because if you are being sincere and optimistic rather than ironic and cynical, people can assume you are an idiot who isn't aware of the worst the world has to offer.

Irony is a shield that helps you deal with absurdity of late capitalism. At first, it was a tool used by the intellectual left to criticize and mock the subtle ridiculousness of our culture.

Nowadays (and this is very, very apparent within the past year) irony has merely become a tool to excuse cynicism and promote hatred. I'm guessing there will be a huge shift to sincerity within the culture and arts very soon. (normies engaging with memes and surface level irony is negligible considering it's superficial).

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 03:49:11 2017 No.9168399
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>>9168373
Depending on your viewpoint, Trump represents postmodern irony coming to an abrupt end, or he represents its status as the default attitude of modern American culture. It's been wholly subsumed into the culture, to the point it has allowed a clearly unqualified candidate (don't argue this with me. even if you support Trump, you cannot say he was qualified for the position at all) reach the presidency.
Trump literally contradicts the veneer of every president preceding him, and that is exactly what him the ideal pick. He wasn't a political stooge- his muddled ambitions were more desirable than Clinton's political ambitions. His lack of knowledge and "frankness" (which was nothing more than ironic shield accepting his blatant flaws to the chagrin of his dubious opponent), paired with his ironic showmanship were more desirable than legitimate experience. It's a mess, regardless of how you hash it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 03:57:25 2017 No.9168415 >>9167911 Extremism, by nature, has a negative connotation. Irony circumvents that negative connotation by accepting it.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 04:12:28 2017 No.9168433

>>9166560
>It is commonplace to mock experts, people who dedicate their lives to study or to their works, and while this was once done out of jealousy it is now simply the herd mentality-
people can dedicate their lives to study and works without achievement or insight, people who have achievements and insights can misuse their status as an expert

people are right to distrust 'experts', because the very existence of the concept of an expert creates imitators, charlatans, frauds, and corruption

the dynamic of the unwashed masses cutting down tall poppies and lynching nerds and ignoring climate scientists is one thing, but there is - especially right now - a huge disparity between the interests of the salaried educated/professional classes and lower classes grinding away in the service economy... and a lot of what passes for expressions of 'expertise' can be interpreted at least partly as a kind of class warfare

>>9168373
irony is also considered honest because apparent sincerity and optimism are constantly used to manipulate people, so people are conditioned to distrust it

i don't understand this memeing about sincerity being a new big thing... cultures don't randomly shift dramatically- what are the conditions that allow irony to flourish, and why should we believe that culture and the arts will all-of-a-sudden transform into a world of sincerity? i have been reading about how 'new sincerity is coming !!!' for years without anything but a few giddy enthusiasts trying to force the movement

can someone please explain why i should have any faith in the prophecies about sincerity

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 04:37:39 2017 No.9168459
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>>9168433
I didn't say it would be a sudden shift. No, this shift has been happening for a while. It just has an added impetus given the current sociopolitical climate.

Emotional manipulation isn't solely a tactic of sincerity. Irony can just as easy be used to manipulate. By acting knowing and above the absurdity of the world, you are emitting an attitude that implies thinking otherwise is to be a fool or ignorant of such absurdities. It's a lazy tactic stripping the ethos of an opponent from a sincere position.

I'm not trying to "convert" you to sincerity. I merely believe that irony dominates American dialogue and culture, and soon sincerity will reclaim that domination.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 04:58:17 2017 No.9168490

>>9168459
>I didn't say it would be a sudden shift.
but you did say this:
>I'm guessing there will be a huge shift to sincerity within the culture and arts very soon.

i am skeptical about the "shift to sincerity" narrative, so to me this reads as a sudden change- whereas maybe you perceive other signs??? we can agree to disagree

can you perhaps explain why you believe that sincerity will reclaim domination over American dialogue and culture?

i am honestly mystified by your beliefs and would genuinely appreciate your view of what is driving this shift that you perceive

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 05:32:19 2017 No.9168533

>>9168490
What I meant by huge shift is just the sociopolitical impetus. It isn't just a random explosion of sincerity, it has been present within culture and arts the past decade. I guess I was unclear with my language

Also, I was unclear what I meant by irony. Irony itself isn't diametrically opposed to sincerity.There is a distinction between "irony" and "postmodern cynicism." While they are related concepts, they can exist separately.

Considering the absurdities of late capitalism, irony will never disappear from American discourse. It's insane to think otherwise. But it doesn't always have to lead to cynicism. A lot of current narratives focus on the existence of the sincere and real found among the absurdities and ironies of modern life. While these ironies won't go away, American society will find renewed value in the sincere and real.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:00:35 2017 No.9168984 >>9166700 I know you'll think I'm memeing, but this really made me think. Not a new argument, but in the context of this thread it struck me for some reason. Thanks anon.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:06:54 2017 No.9168995 >>9166980 The phrase 'Magic Sky Daddy' makes you sound like an idiot. Read some Aquinas, sort yourself out, rescue your dead father from the belly of a wale.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:11:52 2017 No.9169004 >>9168399 Trump is way more qualified going in than Obama was.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:13:28 2017 No.9169006

>>9166907
>>9166944
This
>>9167106
False. A figure of speech is required to be detectable in a precise point or portion of text, whereas irony is diluted throughout it. It's much more like an attitude, or a style if you prefer.
(I can barely refrain from calling you a monkey or even worse).

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:14:11 2017 No.9169007

>>9166541

Didn't read the thread at all, but Hegel says relevant things about that. Irony and sarcasm are a "young man"'s thing, a "romantic" thing. I guess you could say it's a nihilist state of mind, too. Anyway it's the attitude of someone who's not a dumb kiddie anymore, but who hasn't analyzed reality thoroughly yet.

There's something similar in Pascal when he compares the people, the half-smart and the smart-ones. Half-smart are the ones who realize that laws are unfair, but they conclude that laws should not be respected, which shows that they haven't thought far enough to see that they can't be even fair to start with.

I mean it's always a matter of different stages. Stage 1 = ignorant. Stage 2 = complains about reality (irony stage). Stage 3 = old wise man (Hegel himself, or the true Christian according to Pascal, or anything else, call it whatever you want).

The thing is we usually believe that growing older or thinking more are useless and boring. We wanna die at 27 and we're pretty sure everyone has some talent, so why aim at something harder and better ? We're even fascinated at young dumb rebels or kids writing novels etc. We don't believe anymore in anything deeper and harder to reach than the ironic stage.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 09:38:53 2017 No.9169067

>>9168373
I agree with this completely.

There's a Romantic conflation of sincerity with optimism, when the fact is that sincerity could go just as well in hand with pessimism, which is to me a much more sane and 'rational' stance to take. Irony is kryptonite to reason, because as soon as you suggest that you are somehow being reasonable, the reflex move is to immediately question this: oh really? If you invoke Reason, which can be threatening (because it raises the possibility of ignorance), your cynical interlocutor can immediately turn the question into an interrogation about you as an individual, force you to defend yourself, make it personal, and so on. Because everyone is 'oppressed' by Reason (given that Reason is so often associated with capital), politics immediately enters the scene, because mass action is understood (I would say, usually mistakenly) to be an opposition force to capital, though of course, it isn't: it's simply opposed to *your* capital.

It's a kind of ingrained romanticism, the romanticism of perpetually thwarted or frustrated desires, a desire to be thwarted. Houllebecq made a good point about this, saying that in literature nothing was more obscene than the depiction of sexual failure for this reason.

We live in a world of irony today. Personally I think it's going to remain the default condition for a long time to come, at least in the West, because it's how we do metaphysics. Maybe we will have to say that there will be a plurality of things called philosophy as well. The downside is that you wind up with echo chambers. Even if you want to be cynical and say that's what philosophy always was, the size and scale and acoustic properties of those echo chambers matter. Carnegie Hall is better than mom's basement.

>>9168399
>Depending on your viewpoint, Trump represents postmodern irony coming to an abrupt end, or he represents its status as the default attitude of modern American culture. It's been wholly subsumed into the culture
This also. I'd call it a metastasization.

Sincerity without reason isn't necessarily positive. Desire is sincere. So is paranoia and the naked will to power. Hostility is sincere. Lots of things are sincere. So being able to control or determine context is always a good way to guarantee that the sincerity of the other poses no threat to oneself. Again, though, you come back to this idea that the other may choose to voluntarily self-victimize or self-oppress and mangle the discourse. Who knows, maybe this is practice for how we will have to talk to the machines someday.

Interesting thread gents.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 13:31:12 2017 No.9169932

>>9169007
This is similar to Kierkegaard's Either/Or model of the "aesthetic stage" and "ethical stage" of life. The aesthetic stage is basically the dumb kiddie who sees value only in the aesthetic and base pleasures of life, while the ethical stage finds worth in commitment and discipline.

No doubt Kierkegaard was influenced by Hegel when writing Either/Or.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 14:27:32 2017 No.9170189 >>9167006 rofl

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 16:01:16 2017 No.9170542 >>9167683 >There is no valid epistemological basis for science. What the fuck am I reading here.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 16:09:37 2017 No.9170592 File: 21 KB, 474x528, thus spoke m'lady.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166876 >The answers are kys and muh instinct

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 16:12:10 2017 No.9170609

>>9166541
>McDonalds + Kabbalah Tree of Life
Pic related I would call a sincere, and not ironic, portrayal of that corporation's current state of being, seeing as how it is only through the wizardry of high finance that this zombie of a fast food chain, for which there appears to be no genuine demand among average consumers, is propped up.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 16:16:35 2017 No.9170631 >>9166876 how terrible must be your life.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 17:11:42 2017 No.9170937

Irony in our culture is, I think, an escape from alienation. Everything is alienating, from our politics to advertising crammed into all of our entertainment.

Most of the pleasures of the first world are served to us from a poisoned chalice: the more that you examine them the more disgusted with them you are. The electronics that you are reading this on and that I am typing this on are most likely constructed from conflict minerals mined by african slaves. The data is transmitted across a network divvied up by colluding oligopolies and monitored by proto-dystopian surveillance. Most of the electronics themselves were put together in a sweatshop worked by asian children. On some level most thinking people know all of this. Whenever I have pointed this out online the typical response that I get is "yeah we know, duh", as though I am somehow a fool for pointing out the skeletons in the foundation. Each and every vice available, from prescribed pills to vodka to cocaine is similarly endowed with with a process that leaves bodies in the foundation, and similarly pointing this out makes you a square.

Our politics have reached the point where spectacle has killed public participation in discourse. Contemporary intellectuals like Hedges have warned of the exact scenario that has just played out, and Liberalism in both its conservative and social forms is currently being snuffed out. The best response that the masses can come up with is either an act of parody or so absurd that it may as well be parody. Strikes are called with no intention of collective bargaining. Protests are called with no clear or concise list of demands made. Genuine political strategies are vetoed in favor of publicity stunts. The most widely heralded political critics deal in their irony upfront, and their barbs are imitated poorly by a populace that does not comprehend how to mobilize effectively. The populace, while vaguely familiar with the lexicon of activism from history classes and news articles, has no idea how to utilize the tools of organized dissent in any meaningful fashion. To suggest organization is met with the same derision as pointing to the skeletons in the basement of the industries that produce our favorite vices.

The temptation to retreat to irony in the face of mounting irony is strong. You meet the irony with a deeper layer of irony and in doing so you and those others who "get it" feel that you are meting out to society what they have meted out to you in some small measure. Ironic posturing provides the illusion of control for the intellectual end of a populace that is waking up to the fact that control is no longer theirs. It is the poor substitute of what has been stolen away by public spectacle, mass functional illiteracy, and intellectually incestuous thinking within academia that has become so self-referential that it never takes a breath of air.

Irony is both a substitute and a balm for what we have been stripped of.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 17:44:10 2017 No.9171101 >>9166876 This has to be bait. It just has to be ;_;

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 17:46:16 2017 No.9171111 File: 141 KB, 850x945, 13087.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>9166876

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 21:13:56 2017 No.9172059 >>9167361 no you

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 21:37:34 2017 No.9172130 >>9170609 Capitalist mass culture is able to achieve a terrible inhuman beauty, far more pure than anything cripplingly self-aware modern man can produce.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:14:24 2017 No.9172316

>>9170937
As though things haven't always been so. When were the luxuries and the habitual perversions of the world's elites not the product of untold misery for the other 70% of the population?

That's a really good post and particularly well worded, but my natural inclination is to say, "yeah we know, duh."

I also feel like this kind of sincerity has it's own, unconscious ironic sensibility. The implicit narrative behind your words, to which you don't speak, is of causal attribution. You are deflecting the reality of mutual imprisonment in a system without a definite agent of cause or practical response.

>You meet the irony with a deeper layer of irony and in doing so you and those others who "get it" feel that you are meting out to society what they have meted out to you in some small measure.

This response and your response originate from nearly identical places It's almost like trying to out irony the top level ironists though an ironic appeal to sincerity and productive causal agency, which you know to be fully impossible and not the case.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:19:13 2017 No.9172343 >>9170937 Excellent post.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:23:58 2017 No.9172363 >>9172316 >Ironic posturing provides the illusion of control for the intellectual end of a populace that is waking up to the fact that control is no longer theirs. Wanted to quote this too.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:30:59 2017 No.9172391 >>9166590 holy shit, last time I checked amazon, the cheapest copy was 200 dollars. only 28 dollars now. I might have to buy a copy.

Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:45:34 2017 No.9172440

>>9172316
Trump's Great ProletARYAN Cultural Revolution will take care of that, I assure you. Just like the 60s radicals morphed into yuppies in a blink, you are gonna see those neon haired tumblr harlots and mountain dew sipping ironic diletantes blossom into proud, disciplined Männer und Frauen.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 22:53:19 2017 No.9172476 >>9166541 Because irony is not honest, which is pretty ironic tbqh

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 23:47:13 2017 No.9172703 >>9167006 This cracked me up cheers anon

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 28 23:54:39 2017 No.9172739 >>9170937 Why do Marxists actually think they sound intelligent when they reduce absolutely every human phenomena to class struggle? You don't sound intelligent. You sound like someone who wants to control fate.

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/lit/ - Literature