On TV, famously described as a cool medium, irony and sarcasm "work." If you, as the audience, don't understand the implied distance between the dialog and the fictional context, you just wait for the plot to explain it to you.
In person and on the web, however, I have consistently found that irony tends to demand too much from the audience.
Now, ironists frequently complain that the reason people don't understand what they are saying is because, well, the audience is dumb.
In reality, irony is only an appropriate rhetorical form when you know for certain that your audience either shares your values or is so familiar with you (as speaker) that if you start spouting something different they'll know you don't really mean it.
In spoken language, you express an ironic viewpoint through choice of emphasis in language and body language. But remember, in most of the examples we see on television of irony, we've already been primed to expect irony. Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" bit, for example, depends upon our knowledge that it's a fake news show.
Conveying and sustaining an ironic tone through text, however, is fantastically difficult, and frankly should be discouraged. Authors, unless you're an exceptional writer you are more likely to confuse your audience, rather than entertain and communicate with them, through the use of irony.
All irony depends upon the use of a fictional persona, which is itself suspect in personal interaction. Again, if you're on a stage, I've got the cue to expect the dramatic presentation of a fictional persona. In the workplace, or on the street, or really anywhere we're not surrounded by people who know us very well, the risk of miscommunication is too high.
More generally, in personal communications, irony (along with sarcasm) are rhetorical strategies of the weak. A consequence of ironic distance is that it allows people to say things with "deniability". That is, if I say "I hate your mother's meatloaf," and you look hurt, I can quickly follow up with "in fact, I hate it so much I'll take another slice."
I enjoy irony on the small screen just fine (in fact, when I could watch more TV, I loved David Letterman.) But if someone I'm not especially familiar with starts using an ironic tone, I start wondering what it is they're trying to hide.
Do I think The Onion is funny? Of course. But at least once a year, there will be a report that somewhere, someone has cited an article originally published in "America's Finest News Source". The same thing happens with the annual April Fool's Day hoaxes. When The Onion apes the format of a real newspaper, is it really so surprising that some people will not realize that it is a parody?
As a proud son of the great southern rhetorical tradition, I may be unusually cautious about the power of words to obfuscate. But this is my little plea to the world: consider saying what you really mean. Let your 'yes' be 'yes', and your 'no', 'no'. Your readers will appreciate it.
5 comments:
Adam, I completely agree with those statements and all of your political beliefs.
Thanks Matt!
I agree as well, but I have some deep seated fear that I might, in some small part, be the cause of the post.
I actually was prompted to rant on the topic because I came across the "...but anyone could see I was being ironic" argument multiple places in one day, including, if I recall correctly, the letters section of one of the weekly alternative newspapers, in addition to innumerable places on-line (like a discussion of reaction to the Apple announcement switching to Intel microprocessors.)
Certainly, an author can expect some level of effort from his audience to decipher his true meaning. I suppose I wanted to draw attention to the downsides of the technique. Used properly, irony works because it is surprising or it taps into our glee at the subversive. But whenever it is used, there is a risk of miscommunication. And blaming your audience just seems counterproductive.
That's one of the cardinal rules of writing...you can't blame your audience for your mistakes. If your audience can't decipher what you're trying to say then there are two possibilities a) you weren't clear enough and 2) you are writing for the wrong audience.
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