As a millennial, much of what I know about our present-day culture has been informed by irony and cynicism. Of course, however, this was not always the case. This reaction is fundamentally a postmodern attitude infused into our culture since the height of modernism in the 1920s and 1930s. The modernism movement is predicated on beliefs such as that there is one true God, a Marxist understanding of history is progress and that science will be humanity’s savior.
However, postmodernism does not have this same type of optimism. It maintains there is not one religious, scientific or historical truth that will explain everything. Rather, truth is found in context and individuality. Other qualities that have defined the movement are moral relativism, and especially irony and cynicism.
Postmodernist thought reached its apex 20-plus years ago. Yet it still permeates our culture. While entertaining, irony and cynicism inherently serve a negative function. They could point out problems and deconstruct them to increase individuals’ self-awareness, but they offer no solution or remedy. This is shown in the television we watch. For example, a popular show such as Seinfeld is meant to be an ironic form of the sitcom, using characters with sympathetic real human problems, but offering no solutions to them. Moreover, the characters in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, while very funny, provide irredeemable behavior that does not challenge us or give any moral lesson. It is not enough that irony provides just a cultural discourse.
While it may just seem like self-deprecating fun, such as advertisements making fun of themselves for being advertisements, this mindset puts up a defense mechanism that is not easily noticeable. In his novel Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace suggests that “hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, because to be really human is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic.”
According to New York Times contributor Christy Wampole, “life in the Internet age has undoubtedly helped a certain ironic sensibility to flourish. An ethos can be disseminated quickly and widely through this medium. Our incapacity to deal with things at hand is evident in our use of, and increasing reliance on, digital technology. Prioritizing what is remote over what is immediate, the virtual over the actual, we are absorbed in the public and private sphere by the little devices that take us elsewhere.”
However, irony is not necessarily a bad attribute as long as it’s tempered with some redeeming qualities. For example, shows such as Community, while chock full of ironic moments, have characters that exude sincerity. When boiled down, they infuse us with ideas about why different types of people connect with each other. Additionally, other shows such as The Office have helped pave a small way for a meta-postmodernist cultural attitude shift with elements such as Jim and Pam’s honest relationship. Cultural influence may be the most impactful phenomenon in our society, so it is important to note the shifts and changes. Therefore, we must recognize that irony, although great in small doses, can erect a glass ceiling for humanity when left unchecked.
Ezra Solway is a senior English major. He can be reached at esolway@terpmail.umd.edu.
