Lefebvre on irony

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Subject: Lefebvre on irony
>From: Doug Henwood (dhenwood at panix.com)
>Date: Wed Nov 17 1999 - 14:13:49 EST
>
>[From "On Irony, Maieutic, and History," from Henri Lefebvre's
>Introduction to Modernity (Verso, 1995).]
>
>Question (which the reader cannot fail to ask): 'What gives you the
>right to talk in the name of official Marxism, the Marxism you call
>'institutional' and are so critical of? You call yourself a
>dialectician, an ironist, anti-establishment, a partisan of radical
>critique. You represent only yourself, and you're not a spokesman for
>any social or political force. Well, what are your problems, and what
>solutions can you offer?'
>
>Reply: This is precisely where irony appears in its true light, with
>all the frailty from which it draws its strength. Official Marxism is
>skilled at organizing its own publicity (known as 'propaganda').

What's the status of anti-Official Marxist irony when there exists no
Official Marxism to be reckoned with?  Where do fellow travellers go when
they don't have the Party to travel with?  Perhaps irony of this sort died
with the Cold War, but it doesn't know that it is dead!  The Night of the
Living Dead Irony!  (An aside to Michael Hoover: How's that for the Florida
International Film Festival?  As good as Pomo Knock-Knock, no?)


>But
>it is incapable of self-knowledge, and even more incapable of
>self-exposure, in the sense of openness.

What constitutes irony -- especially the Living Dead Irony -- is its
inability to write its own epitaph.

R.I.P.

Yoshie the Vampire Slayer