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Anonymous
IRONY discussion: Socrates 2017-01-30 07:30:31 Post No. 9038468
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IRONY discussion: Socrates 2017-01-30 07:30:31 Post No. 9038468
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PART I
So I've been studying irony lately.
You know how every era/culture has a peak before it degrades into decadence and is replaced by a counter-culture? And the tell sign of decadence is parody. E.g. when a specific genre is overused, the parody of the genre is what affirms it but what also overthrows it. The “first” parodies are actually Greek comedies, which pretty much mark of the ending of the classical period of ancient Greece – that coincides with the death of Socrates, the first “troll” whose trolling was rooted in Socratic irony: when you pretend to be ignorant to expose the ignorance or inconsistency of someone else. For Socrates, we have to thank Plato mostly.
We’ve had this rise-peak-die-and-repeat pattern for most of history. It clashes with the liberal idea of progress, since it is not a straight timeline but a cycle. The idea of progress is fairly modern and it was accepted as the default only after World War II. Post-WWII the counter-culture of the 60’s – presented their mindset and worldview through one word – peace. As if the WWII didn’t happen only 2 decades prior. This mindset is the genesis of virtue-signaling. (I don’t know much about the 60’s in Germany, only that that was around the time the construction of the Berlin Wall started. But once I heard someone say someone say “Imagine growing up in post-WWII Germany and finding out that your parents were Nazis”. I don’t think it was as easy for Germans to virtue-signal and yell “peace” as it was for the French or American. If you are German, please tell me more about this.)
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PART II
The Berlin Wall falls in 1989. This unification marks the peak of the liberal idea of peace. Then come the 90’s: the end of the Cold War, the unification of the West (EU, the parody of USA) and the division of the East (the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia), and of course, the Internet. Great Decade. The Internet actually existed even earlier on, which is why in 1990 Godwin introduces Godwin’s law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1”. This was an “experiment in memetics” rooted in “Reductio ad Hitlerum” – term coined in 1951 by Leo Strauss. Basically, it is a logical fallacy of going to the extreme just to prove the point. This happened to me once in class, we were discussing Crime and Punishment and the professor asked if any murder can be justified, to which someone yelled Hitler and she responded “Everyone always says Hitler”. Need I point out that this German Jew (Strauss) predicted 2016’s Literal Hitler.
This sounds like a parody. But it isn’t. Cause it isn’t parodying anything. Woman who yells rape when a man touches her is not parodying. She dead serious believes she’s been raped. The excess of situations like this one leads to people not believing real rape victims. The decadence is inevitable. Or it was, until there came a man who is also the parody and the real deal. And what does he do? He sticks the knife right into the hearts of peace-loving left. He is not a fool that blindly believes in peace while a war is raging. He does not believe in the unification of the whole world, like the liberal Europe. The wall on the Mexican border is symbolic of that – he is rebuilding the ruins of 1989. But I’ve mentioned that he is a parody. Since a parody is what overthrows, he cannot be overthrown. That’s why he won. And he became a parody consciously, by using the internet and becoming a meme. He is the rich old white man of capitalism, but also a parody of the rich old white men. He is the president but not a politician. He is the elite but anti-establishment. He is serious but ridiculous. He is the inaccessible archetype but also a real man. Like, real-real. 21st Century real. Twitter@real. And this ultimate meme-guy is now the leader of the free world. To me, this really represents where we’re at as a society today. The internet made it impossible to be controlled by the press, by the politicians, by the celebrities. The only thing that is now in control is the internet itself. It’s rather ironic. Just look at youtube. Various youtube chanels are parodying other youtubers, by being youtubers themselves. Look at Boxxy or Poppy that girl that pretended to keep a video journal of her life but is really an actress. This cannot be overcome, unless there be something outside youtube that parodies youtube.
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PART II
The word meme comes form Plato’s theory of Mimesis. He says, through Socrates, that our world is a mimesis, an imitation of the ultimate reality. Remember, this is the same guy that walks through town just to bother people. The same way an internet troll goes online to bother people. Now, Socrates died for what he did. He didn’t have to die, but he did. But Socratic irony lives up to this day as the bait-weapon for internet trolls. Trolling first happened on forums, which is a word borrowed from the antiquity also, the Greek equivalent being agora. That was the place where the people got together to preach ideas to each other. This tradition didn’t survive, but it was reborn online. The internet is the place of anonimity (hey anons), a place where everyone can be what they can’t be in real life (hey /pol/ and /b/ and social networks profiles and loverboy21), virtual reality that is for some people more real than real reality.
The irony of this situation is that we live in a culture that is in itself a counter-culture. It is truly a post-ironic new sincerity world, a bump on the head of the subversive irony of post-modernist progressives.
What do you make of all of this? Do you agree or disagree? And what impact will it have on literature? I’ve noticed in the last 30 years that a lot of liberal multi-culturalism promoting writers have been getting literary awards. Not that awards mean anything because time will show value, but if they stop promoting this multi-cultural agenda, it must have an impact on the current state of literature. I think the things are changing, I think they started changing, actually I think I even know the exact date they started changing: when Houellebecq published Submissions – 7th of January 2015, the date of Charlie Hebdo shooting. That was the date political correctness was doomed. I think we are witnessing a rebirth.
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It would help if you could summarise your primary thesis in 100 words or less, with perhaps an extra 50 words for any sub-theses. As it is, if there is a relationship between irony signalling the decay of culture and the collapse of the left / rise of the right, you've not made this link clear at all.
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there two part twos wtf. and i aint readin all this long ass shit nigga where da tldr lmao
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>>9038470
>Woman who yells rape when a man touches her is not parodying. She dead serious believes she’s been raped. The excess of situations like this one
>The excess of situations like this one
[citation needed]
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>>9038490
I didn't get that from OP's spiel, but really the rise of Trump and populism is coming from a collapse of the centre, the consensus, the so-called 'neoliberal' world order.
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Fuck Trump, fuck white people.
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>>9039391
>fuck white people
literally why
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>>9039391
That's not very nice
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>>9039391
Agreed, as a white man I think I am entitled to be offered sex more often, being a literal walking God and all, and of course this also extends to our God Emperor Trump.
Thank you for spreading the word that people should fuck white people more often. Could you take particular effort to spread it among minorities? I have a weakness for exotic pussy and animalistic sex.
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>>9039391
That sounds accurate
>>9039398
I think minorities understand their duty to please the white man
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TLDR: op just read Kierkegaard's concept of irony and felt like wanking off
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>>9039398
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first as tragedy, second as farce
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>>9038468
Hey OP I liked your thing. I don't understand why you placed so much weight on the Hebdo shootings though
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>>9038468
>Post-WWII the counter-culture of the 60’s – presented their mindset and worldview through one word – peace. As if the WWII didn’t happen only 2 decades prior.
Yes? They knew the world was full of war, not just two decades ago but in the contemporary Vietnam War. That's why they wanted to promote peace.
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>>9039404
>everyone likes asian women except asian men
Why is this?
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>>9039689
Kawaii Desu ~^_^~
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