In a recent talk at the New York Public Library, acclaimed writer Joan Didion spoke critically of what America had become in the Obama era:"An irony-free zone" ... where "naïveté, translated into 'hope,' was now in" and where "innocence, even when it looked like ignorance, was now prized."
So reports Adam Newman in his excellent and appropriately titled article, "Irony Is Dead. Again. Yeah, Right."
Didion, of course, is not the first to declare irony a relic of the past. Rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated in the wake of September 11, belied in spectacular five hundred-point font by a President who failed to see the larger sweep of history. Now, Didion would have us believe that Obama's accomplishment of inspiration is the mortal wound to ironic sensibility that Al Qaeda's accomplishment of a single day of terror was not.
President George W. Bush speaking aboard the U.S.S. Irony
There's some truth to say that in the fall of the Trade Center towers there was little solace found in the distance and perspective from which irony revels. How could there have been? That day was worse, after all, than even Pearl Harbor, our only available comparison. America was in uncharted territory. It's naturally hard to find perspective from the extreme highs or lows of history.
So, is Didion simply astute in her observation that Obama has brought America to new heights and thus, naturally, we will struggle to find perspective? Could she, perhaps, be making an attempt at irony?
Didion did, after all, write in "The White Album" that "a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image." Surely she would grant Obama at least the opportunity to pursue his politics of hope, to shape and render America in his image. It would be up to history to prove him successful.
Or, is Didion, like our still-President, ignoring the larger sweep of history that will ultimately hollow out her words?
Just to be safe, I'm going to show Didion a yellow card for her questionable rush to judgment. If irony survives this onslaught of "Yes, we can!", she'll have earned it. If irony is truly gone for good, well, then I guess that makes this card more than a little bit ironic.
So, is Didion simply astute in her observation that Obama has brought America to new heights and thus, naturally, we will struggle to find perspective? Could she, perhaps, be making an attempt at irony?
Didion did, after all, write in "The White Album" that "a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image." Surely she would grant Obama at least the opportunity to pursue his politics of hope, to shape and render America in his image. It would be up to history to prove him successful.
Or, is Didion, like our still-President, ignoring the larger sweep of history that will ultimately hollow out her words?
Just to be safe, I'm going to show Didion a yellow card for her questionable rush to judgment. If irony survives this onslaught of "Yes, we can!", she'll have earned it. If irony is truly gone for good, well, then I guess that makes this card more than a little bit ironic.
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