Letters to the Editor
softdog
Published Letters: 186 Editor's Choice: 8
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The Internets: Serious Business - No Grasp Of Irony Allowed
[Read the article: YouTube, j'accuse!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bayard says: "Irony, after all, is a tacit admission that nothing matters too much."
Only people who don't know what irony means think this. Irony is actually a tacit admission of the opposite: something matters too much.
The definition of irony (see below) is a literary/rhetorical device which relies on the gap between literal and actual meaning, not importance. Irony is not inherently conservative or liberal.
The specific term Seigel and Bayard mean (but fail to use) is "ironic detachment" or "ironic distance" but even this gets it wrong. An ironic use of detachment means the literal indifference signals actual concern.
It's also an offshoot of "Socratic irony" the pretense of ignorance in order to question a conception.
People use ironic detachment as a form of criticism, and/or a way to address issues of overwhelming importance (or triviality).
Seigel and Bayard are equating the pretense of gravity with valid argument, a canard Glenn Greenwald rebuts on a regular basis.
They need to read more Encyclopedia Dramatica or this comic: http://www.qwantz.com/fanart/DinoComicInternetSerious.png
Or perhaps acquaint themselves with the British concept of "taking the piss" which means deflating the "piss-proud" i.e. excessively self-important (see http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tak2.htm ).
Irony: 1: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony
2 a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c: an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2): an event or result marked by such incongruity b: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony.
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A contrarian who craves adulation
[Read the article: YouTube, j'accuse!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The most cogent assessment of Siegel's self-indulgent antipathy is Ezra Klien's post about his firing from TNR.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=09&year=2006&base_name=coda_on_siegel
Here's the key part:
"I don't think change is easy. I don't imagine that watching the influence of the sector you spent your whole life competing in be eclipsed by some virtual Wild West doesn't rankle, or even enrage. Some in the older generations adapt seamlessly, others refuse to enter the new demimonde at all. That latter group includes some of my favorite writers and thinkers -- figures I'm honored to know and learn from, and who I sometimes want to shake until they agree to use this new megaphone so a new generation can hear their voice. But then there's a third group, whose entrance into the online world is fueled by resentment, who feel entitled to respect and preeminence and are stunned to learn they must build their reputations again. Some of them settle down and work at it, others take shortcuts, or simply attack, becoming ever more bitter as they futilely attempt to reject the very arena they're competing in. Siegel was one of these, and he fell between the cracks of the contradiction. You can't be a blogger who hates the blogosphere, nor a contrarian who craves adulation.
But at least he gave us "blogofascism.""
Another Salon reader wrote: "The only piece of writing I've read by Siegel is his review of Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut". It was a pleasure to read and I've revisited it several times, because his obvious passion for the film shone through, and because it genuinely expanded my understanding of Kubrick and his work."
I found it a hyperbolic rant in which Siegel claimed "Not a single critic, not even those few who claimed to like Eyes Wide Shut, made any attempt to understand the film on its own artistic terms." save himself and a few bold souls, of coures.
He also assaults The Mean Stupid Masses for not liking it because "Our official arbiters of culture ...have become afraid of genuine art."
He goes as far to say one it is so great one isn't permitted to merely dislike it, while other movies are beneath critical thought: "South Park...I can say that I dislike it..if I interpreted it, I would be ignoring the movie's simple, diverting nature...But I cannot just dismiss Hedda Gabler without interpreting it."
It is this sort of self-regarding pomposity, sincere though it may be, which got Seigel in trouble.