#post-irony

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10. Head with trouble

Something a little unexpected, but relevant: David Foster Wallace, and how he presented a false dilemma between sincerity and irony.  There are three important things I am thinking of when I am writing this.  First, David Foster Wallace was a very good, creative and original writer, who developed concepts of irony in his books, especially “infinite jest”, that are important to understand the 21st century. His critique of media consumption and the psychology of entertainment is also very incisive.  Second, David Foster Wallace was chronically mentally ill, with at least major depressive disorder, substance abuse issues, as well as what seemed to be anxiety and OCD.   Third, David Foster Wallace had a history of abusive behavior in his relationships.  Those are complicated things, so the entire question of how we should evaluate abusive behavior when it might be a symptom of a mental illness is one that I will not answer here, but it is one that I will keep in mind.  But the real issue is the dichotomy that Wallace developed between “irony” and “sincere” behavior, especially in Infinite Jest. Part of this comes out of his own experience in substance abuse recovery. Wallace was a prodigy as a child, and was always looking at the world through an air of cynical, ironic detachment. He was always the smartest one, until his substance abuse issues caught up with him. He then spent the rest of his life and career trying to find a way to be “authentic”, to be “sincere”, and to leave the ironic, intellectual detachment he grew up with behind. But in doing so, he creates a false dichotomy.  In Infinite Jest, Wallace has two characters with opposing lenses for viewing the world: Hal Incandenza, the ultra-intelligent prodigy (kind of an author avatar) who is paralyzed by his inability to be emotionally honest, and Donald Gately, the small time burglar and drug addict who decides to whole-heartedly embrace the philosophy of AA. (Alcoholics Anonymous) and other 12 step programs. And Wallace presents setting aside intellect and critical thought to do this. And in doing so, he sets up a false dichotomy, and sets people up for failure.  You can either be detached and intellectual...or you can erase your mind and accept, uncritically, a strict regimen of brainless activity. And while Wallace seems to be endorsing this at some points, it comes across as a backhanded compliment, and as an excuse for not being able to succeed with it long term. If not being an addict, and if in believing in morality, requires not thinking critically, then eventually it has to fail. If living a non-addicted life requires an exhausting and complete regimen of selflessness, then it is going to fail. (And that seems to be in contradiction to one of the main slogans of AA: “Easy Does It”).  And what that leads to is “sincerity” and “authenticity” being just another ironic pose. “Look at how I am playing along with being a person who just takes things uncritically”. A large part of Wallace’s portrayal of “sincerity” comes across as a very back-handed compliment.  Also, of course, this is a bridge to the discussion of irony in Homestuck, where one of the main points is that, of course, something can be ironic and sincere at the same time. 

to the intern working at Tumblr.com who thinks it’s cool or funny to spend their work hours thinking they can try to play God with me and fuck with me by forcing me to look at posts like these, I just want you to know something. One, you’re not funny. Two, enough is enough. If you continue with this I cannot promise that my mercy will extend much longer. And finally, as stupid as you are, you’re even stupider if you think I’m gullible enough to fall for this. I see behind the veil. I’m not buying it. You can try to convince me that there’s some bullshit fucking account on here named — fucking verbatim — “Very Funny Memes” with the literal fucking 2006 epic emote face as their picture out there posting shit like this regularly, churning it out on some demented, nightmarish assembly line in 2019. It’s not POSSIBLE. This is neither ‘In my orbit’ (aside: tumblr recognizes their users think of themselves as the center of the universe and have their own gravitational pull? sorry too far; no way that’s intentional.) nor does this post have 82,686 unique and organic interactions from real existing people. When I continually see posts specifically shown to me by tumblr itself that are literally just functional AI mimicking human behavior on its website like this, it only enrages me. I’m not buying into the narrative because you think a ‘hash tag black twitter’ screencap talking about fucking Juuls is ‘in my orbit.’ Yes I have a Juul but that’s beside the point. If I did have a point at all, it was lost forever after I typed the second sentence of this post. I’m just going to end the post here because no one will have read far enough to read this last sentence. Irony/Sincerity, Yin/Yang; none of this matters (or ever will) anyway.

The SubGenius and Apocalyptic Irony