Irony and the Christian

Can a Christian use irony? Irony is saying the opposite of what one means, but that's not all: it is saying the opposite of what one means in a way that it is clearly opposite of what one means to a person who knows how to read irony.

So, depending on the audience, irony may be more than just saying the opposite of what one means. To the unitiated, irony is lying. To a savvy audience, irony is clever, fun to ferret out.

First, we must clarify what irony is not. People use it to mean "coincidentally," a usage I really don't understand. "Ironically, he was buying the widget at the same time I was." That's not irony. It is also not just being a wise guy. "Oh, that's attractive" when someone spills soup all over herself. Irony, I think, is a sustained attempt at presenting a meaning; that is, it takes a paragraph or two at least. And I'm not sure that true irony can be used as a subpoint or minor argumentative point in a larger piece. Maybe, but its presence could be more confusing than anything else unless the writer can say, "I've changed my tactic here and am now speaking ironically."

I recently assigned, for extra credit, the essay "A Modest Proposal" for my humanities class, after which the students were to post to a discussion board. Of course, most of the students didn't get it, but at least their outraged responses allowed for discussions. Some knew he wasn't serious but didn't get the point of the savage irony in the piece, an essay whose audacity amazes me every time I read it. Maybe someone needs orientation before being exposed to an essay so wickedly sardonic; I did not really give them any, although I lectured in class about how Swift used satire in Gulliver's Travels and how satire was the predominant mode of the early 18th century (a posting in itself).

So, to the sincere and literal, irony is a flop. Does that mean Christians should avoid it? A lot of Christians are sincere and literal and perhaps, then, immune to irony. And maybe their sincerity and literalness means they don't need irony in the first place because they take messages in open hearted ways. Say "Obey the Word," and they do their best to obey it; no irony needed there.

Perhaps the better question is, does irony work in persuading or influencing anyone, or does it just work at a level of "isn't that a clever way to make a point" that the cynical admire but still ignore and the sincere don't need anyway? In other words, does irony serve any purpose other than the quality of its own cleverness, other than its own existence?

I am reminded of Archie Bunker from "All in the Family." Even as a young teenager, I knew Normal Lear was making fun of working class people and their supposed narrow-mindedness. Archie was more a caricature than real irony, I suppose, but the surface level was opposite of what the creators of the show wanted to say. But most of America just didn't get it, from the liberal creators' points of view. They saw Archie as a true Everyman, funny but saying things that weren't so bad, even when the creators wanted us to see what a racist and conservative buffoon he was.

Perhaps then irony is a type of code, a secret language for the in-crowd, like slang, just a much more intellectually demanding type of code.

The Apostle Paul uses some irony in II Corinthians, and some invective against the Judaizers in Galatians, but not in any sustained way, and no one would miss it. I have not studied this point, but some scholars say there is a great deal of irony in Pilgrim's Progress.

It also seems that to use irony one must take a superior and intellectual and moral stance over the audience. The ones who don't get the irony would then inferior in some way. There are Christian humor magazines that use irony, such as The Wittenburg Door. They are quite funny but sometimes leave me uneasy. Who is the butt of their humor? At whose expense do we laugh? And when we laugh, what are we feeling? Common humanity, as in "I see myself in that" or derision "what a fool that person is!"

I can't help bringing Stephen Colbert into this line of thought. As someone recently said on the CT website, his shtick is that he has so many levels of irony he might be sincere. Colbert, I think, knows where to draw the line; he makes fun of people's positions but not their right to have the position or their mental ability that led them to the position. I'm not above laughing at irony or Stephen Colbert, I'm just not sure how effective it is at making a point for anybody but those who are already in agreement with the writer/speaker. I'm not sure Colbert or any user of satire/irony has made me rethink any of my positions by making me feel stupid for holding them. the human mind and heart doesn't work that way.

Comments

Istvan said…
This is almost as silly as asking whether Christians should avoid humor. Why? It will make God angry at us?
Perhaps I should explain that I am a rhetorician, so I'm mostly looking at it from a functional, does it work standpoint. The people who get irony can enjoy it, and no, it's not a matter of whether God likes humor or will punish us for irony. Of course not. If irony and satire are used to uncover injustice (as in A Modest Proposal) or to reveal common human foibles so we can laugh at ourselves corporately, that's one thing. If it's used by one group that thinks it's superior to denigrate or diminish another, ie. if it's cruel, that's another. It may still be funny (and probably will be, but funny, rhetorically, is in the eye of the beholder): however, then it's just appealing to our racism or sexism or whateverism. I think Colbert gets it right, in other words; he laughs at himself as much as anyone.

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