irony

[Doug Henwood]

Someone recently wrote on a list that dare not speak its name:

"there is no new earnestness. earnestness never went away.... for 
every david letterman, there are a million moms.

jed purdy, i know, likes to think irony is the reason we don't vote, 
but that's _apathy_, not irony. irony is actually a very deeply 
involved response to culture... in order to be ironic about 
something, you have to have cared about it _at some point_."

Doug