irony

[Charles Brown]

I know it is common to say that most people don't vote because of apathy. But as I think about it, it seems more that they don't vote because they don't see voting doing anything to help them or improve things in general. That is not exactly apathy , but a sort of rational person/marginal utility mentality. "Why waste my time?  I have better things to do." It is also refusal to participate in a hoax.

Charles Brown


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 10/03/99 11:22PM >>>
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