Irony and The Human Condition
Peter Schultz
One problem
with Jimmy Dore and some other political comics is that they aren’t ironic.
Dore’s humor is like slapstick, that is, like a slap in the face as if intended
to wake us up to what is going on. But there is also irony, another form of
humor, and one employed by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and even Machiavelli.
It has been contended that each of these political philosophers embraced irony,
and insofar as this is true, we may ask how irony illuminates the human
condition.
Pascal
wrote in his Pensees that the political writings of Plato and Aristotle
should be read as comedy, as irony because both knew that trying to reform the
political world is like trying to bring order into a madhouse. That is, perhaps
irony and its uses reflects the unredeemable character of the human condition.
That is, irony is appropriate because attempts to politically redeem the human condition
are bound to fail. It might even be said that irony is appropriate because of
what may be called the nihilistic character of the human condition. And one of the most common human thoughts, one
of the most common human endeavors is to reform or redeem the human condition via
politics. But what if any attempt to redeem the human
condition politically is bound to fail? Or, even worse, what if any such
attempt will, most often, make the human condition worse?
Playing
with these ideas about irony, if we read Plato and Aristotle as recommended by
Pascal, as ironical, then their political teachings may be characterized as
warnings. For example, Plato’s Republic becomes a warning about the
dangers of trying to politically redeem the human condition because it would
involve such policies as arranging marriages by some mathematical formula – a
formula no one has ever been able to make sense of – or communism among the
guardians or even the rule of philosophers as kings. If Pascal is correct,
Plato did not intend these recommendations seriously; rather, he intended them,
and perhaps even intended Socrates himself, as pedagogical, as meant to
illuminate the character of politics, of the political life.
Reading
Aristotle in the same ironical way, how likely is it that Aristotle seriously
understood as true his first account of the origin of the polis, of political
communities; an account that simply assumes that when men and women come
together originally, they do so for the sake of marriage and procreation. This
leads to households being formed, which include slaves whose origin is not
revealed. The account is so simplistic, so ironical – I mean when I met a woman
I found attractive, I wasn’t thinking about marriage and children – that it
invites one to think about the origin of political communities in other ways.
After all, Aristotle certainly understood that it wasn’t only men and women who
come together intimately and that the coming together of “same sex” partners
must be taken into account in forming any polis. And, of course, Aristotle’s
best regime includes slavery of the unjust variety because, among other things,
those who are justly held as slaves are worthless as helpmates.
Even
Machiavelli may be read this way, as ironical. When so read, it could seem that
Machiavelli’s bold, shocking endorsements of cruelty, his “shock and awe”
tactics, are warnings about the requirements of trying to politically redeem
the human condition. They are pedagogical, meant to illuminate the character of
politics, and not practical recommendations meant to be implemented. And the
worth of his warnings may be said to be confirmed by the rise of
“Machiavellians,” who because they think Machiavelli embraced inhuman cruelty,
would have made Machiavelli chuckle and ask, “Are they nuts?” That Machiavelli
was capable of such irony is made clear by his comedy La Mandragola.
So why irony? Because It both
disguises and reveals. It disguises the nihilistic character of the human
condition, thereby not being subversive of that most common of human endeavors,
politics. Even if political life is like life in a madhouse, it is still
necessary to make that madhouse as orderly, as humain as possible. But irony
is also revealing; it reveals the nihilistic character of the human condition.
That is, it reveals in a comedic way the emptiness, the madness of the
political life. But this revelation is not open to all and because of the
character of irony, this conclusion about the human condition can be and will
be disputed.
Many, even most, don’t chuckle
nearly enough when reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to say nothing of his A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and his Personal Recollections of Joan of
Arc. There are not a few people who think that Twain genuinely admired Joan
of Arc and thought her more than qualified for her sainthood, to say nothing of
those who would make, on the basis of A Connecticut Yankee, Twain a
supporter of what is now called “neo-liberalism.” And if you look at an
institution like the British hereditary aristocracy ironically, you can’t help
but chuckle at this attempt to paper over the nihilistic character of the human
condition, as Twain did in A Connecticut Yankee. I would even say that
people don’t chuckle nearly enough when reading Jane Austen, especially those
who want to turn her into a modern-day feminist or a defender of what are
called “traditional family values.” Austen chuckled and causes alert readers to
chuckle at the “traditional family values” that underlay British society, to
say nothing of its imperialism. She even made an anal sex joke about “admirals and
rear admirals” in one of her novels [look it up].
Taking for granted momentarily the
nihilistic character of the human condition and the limits of politics to
overcome that character, what is the best option for humans? Well, here irony
teaches us that best alternative is a kind of levity, a lightheartedness or,
ala’ Jane Austen, genuine erotic attachments, in a word, romance or love. But
whatever the case, the best options for humans are not available in politics,
in the political arena, in a political life. And this seems to be a recurring
theme running through the very best writers. I call it the “hedonistic
alternative.” By this I mean that life should be looked at as a spiritual
adventure, experienced in fellowship with other such adventurers, some of whom
you may even be intimate with, even ala’ Jane Austen marry.
David Graeber, in his book Bullshit
Jobs, points out that what he calls “playful sadomasochism” is superior to
the kind of sadomasochism found in our corporate capitalism and its jobs because
the playful sadomasochists have “safe words,” which of course are unavailable
against your boss or the corporation you “work” for. Again, a private life
devoted to pleasure seems superior to whatever is available in the public
realm, whether that be the corporate world or the political world. But, as the
long-running show, Seinfeld, illustrated so well, a private life is no
guarantee against a narcissism that is, in the final analysis, quite despicable
– as illustrated by the last episode of Seinfeld.
To conclude: Generally, the
serious, the un-ironic may be dangerous human beings because, being un-ironic,
they aren’t aware of their and our condition. They are not aware of the
limitations of politics and seek to create “new world orders” of one kind or
another. But irony recommends that we chuckle at them. As Tom Robbins put it in
one of his novels: If only the Germans had been able to laugh at Hitler’s beer
house rant and had pelted him with sausage skins, the holocaust might have been
avoided. [Look it up.]
