According to Uncle Fatty (I know insensitive language alert) – “It is important to bear linguistic history in mind when one attempts to nail down what irony is, as it clears up why the word means specifically things phrased to bury connotation behind denotation. Irony has nothing to do with something coming back to haunt one; it’s about doubletalk, two-faced speech and the sly underpinnings of sarcasm and trickery through misphrased honesty.”
You might be wondering what this is all about, then again I might just be avoiding the picture theory of language. Well it might be about John Winston Howard, former Prime Minister of Oz who is only the second Prime Minister to lose his seat in a Federal Election articulating his objection to a Bill of Rights on this basis – “I’ve always held the classical view that the public elects members of parliament, who pass laws hopefully in the public interest and those laws are in turn interpreted and enforced by courts…That sentiment is at the very heart of my unconditional objection to a bill of rights…It would deprive Australians of their current right to decide issues of great importance.”
Ironic? Perhaps. Another view is that Little Johnny still hasn’t completed the five steps so any comment of his belongs in the catalog of self help for beginners. Now Anna Winter also observes that PJ O’Rourke isn’t above a bit of hyperbolic irony from time to time. But you might have a biased view of PJ O’Rourke. You might think he’s an outspoken right wing libertarian whose tired humour is used to attack his political opponent and as such found few fans on his relatively recent tour of Oz. On the otherhand you might like him…your choice. My view is he’s not funny, but then I think this is so what does that tell you?
Now someone smart will quickly spot that Little Johnny and PJ are apparently on the same side of politics, ie the right. The smart person would then spot the inconsistency between their two points of view on the same subject. PJ even helps out the slow learners – “you’d have to be fairly stupid to believe democracy could be preserved by democratic means” but there’s no help for the really stupid who then fail to apply that to the sentiments of Little Johnny.
Ahh the irony. Maybe it needed an Alanis Morissette reference.
