Is it not why irony is one of the most sophisticated mechanisms to be used in the making of individualism, in that it allows you to experience an immagined community between you (the Reader) and the Author?
Yoshie
yoshie, do you actually believe that the community developed between authors and their readers is imagined? and, if so, do you feel that Irony functions *on its own* to impress upon the Subject the idea that they are an individual?
these comments, in context with the rest of your post, seem to contradict each other on some basic level. you must not understand what it means to write and what it means to be read: what it means to read and what it means to understand what you read.
there are things involved in writing which the author has complete control over and are unmistakeably hers (i.e., voice, technique, etc) and there are those things that the reader takes to be their own *from* the text irrespective of the author's intentions.
i get the feeling that you are using Irony in much the same way that heidegger uses Language. For heidegger it is in our loss for the word we are trying to say that Language makes it power (over us) known. I don't think Irony functions in this way. Yet, I find your cynicism to function in this way. what was your statement: something along the lines of folks thinking they get Irony whether or not they actually do.
the author uses irony well or poorly. the reader critiques the use Irony. Irony does not participate in the critique.
and how can irony be used to make individualism? are you expressing a hierarchy of elitism wherein the ironists separate themselves along the lines of their proper use of irony. in this case, making individualism has nothing to do with irony rather irony makes the elitist feel at home with a certain school of ironists. the reader says: "i read Swift." the other reader says: "not me, buddy, i read balthus." each reader, then, are relating themselves to a certain group of readers. they are not making themselves individuals; they are not individually made. they are readers first of all. and then they are specific types of readers. they are critics secondof all. and then they are specific types of critics. they aren't individuals, ironic as that may be. they may be consumers; which isn't ironic.
there is something about irony that allows an author to be shifty and covert. for, even in getting it, the author can still hide what it is he is saying. a proper use of irony is unfathomable (Joyce) and will keep the elite academic researching throughout their career. irony is the author's bite into the reader: what do i mean? who am i? is this yours or is this mine?
you might want to think about the important issues concerning the ownership of the text and the arbitrariness of language a little more before making a statement like the one above....
the community is not imagined you could only imagine the community between author and reader as something purely ideological if you really didn't care for the intentions of either in other words, only if you are abject possibly apathetic this post of yours, then, would exemplify your loss, no one elses and that is a form of self made individualism.
hopefully, you get my drift
tau(gh)t to Care for being human and being an author
bruno
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