irony, etc.

[Steve Perry]

touche, doug--it's been 15 years or so since i've done
serious time in the cells of academe, so upon reflection
i must admit that i can't vouch for the existence of
*any* bright, lively minds therein. as for journalism,
i have known many very bright writers and editors through
the years whose work would give you no reason to suspect
them of more-than-typical intelligence. now maybe it was
just a matter of the age-old problem that smart people
don't necessarily communicate well in writing, but i 
actually attempted to encourage/work with a fair number
of these people--i could cite names, but they wouldn't
mean anything to you--and, when pushed, they usually balked
for one of two express reasons: the paper/mag i
work for is too dumb and conservative, or the readers are
too dumb and conservative. 

now that's a cynical attitude, not an ironic one, but i 
did note what seemed to me a correlation between this 
kind of cynicism and the tendency toward reflexive irony--
i.e., a tendency to highlight the ironic aspect of any
situation that was not an occasional matter of literary 
choice, but a routinized facet of worldview. 

well, that's a fairly stilted enunciation of a fairly
banal point. dylan said it better--there are many here 
among us who think that life is but a joke... 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
[mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 12:52 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: RE: irony, etc.

Steve Perry wrote:


>well, what i have in mind at this very moment is that
>you ought to read the rest of the sentence, and the paragraph.

...which is:


>(and its longtime companion, paralytic
>cynicism) in the livelier minds round journalism and
>academe. they've essentially ceded "serious" writing to
>the dullards.

...and leaves me none the wiser. I'm at a loss to name the "livelier 
minds round journalism and academe" who are paralyzed by cynicism 
(which is very different from irony: irony is a longstanding though 
nonmonagamous companion of critique, while cynicism, as Horkheimer 
said, is the worst kind of conformity). Most academic writing is 
deadly earnest, and most American journalism is either just-the-facts 
empiricism or dumbshit cheerleading. I guess these are the dullards 
who've been ceded "serious" writing, but I'm still wondering who 
these bright & lively minds are.

Doug