When the salt becomes the meal

I start my day by reading some news and some opinion columns, usually political, from all positions on the ideological spectrum. And just this morning, just now, I have finally figured out what bothers me about them more than anything else. I knew it all along, but it came into sharp focus this morning. And I must admit, this insight spills over into the non-political, non-news world as well – this same quality that I despise in the political arena rubs me the wrong way in every other arena as well.

It is irony. Cleverness. Posing.

Partisanship may actually be a more damaging characteristic of modern political discourse – nothing is a more damning image of the decline of America than the nightly shout-fests that the infotainment giants stage for our amusement, in 3-minute waves, with clever commercials intermixed in a kind of Capitalist symphony of viscera and desire. Unless it’s the video-driven spectacle that makes up the even more soul-crushing mainstream nightly news, delivered with all possible gravitas – “look here… fresh video of shooting and blood; new clips of people in crisis, wailing, houses destroyed, lives shattered.. let’s look at them for a few seconds!” The fact that this nightly IV drip of violent voyeurism is draped oh-so-professionally in all the trappings of authority and integrity, like a Queer Eyes made-over version of the news – looks great, but there’s nothing there, or even worse, it’s all misdirection, all deception – is what gives it that special horrifying quality.

Okay, a lot of things about modern life bug me. The stupidification of our society blows me away.

But all of that pales in my mind next to the everyday, reflexive irony of our culture. When people cloak the inadequacy of their analysis, their lack of knowledge or understanding, and their lack of caring, in the fashionable garb of ironic detachment and clever superiority, they are committing the greatest crime of interpersonal relations I can imagine. They are damning themselves, and abusing their audience. I really do not have words to indicate the depth of my despite for such behavior.

And yet, it is everywhere. Our entire culture runs on irony. Sometimes two or three levels deep; ironic commentary on someone else’s ironic posing. Reality TV shows have gone all-camp, all-the-time… a kind of self-hating, self-loving game that is all about detachment from everything real in pursuit of everything material. And the smarter one is, the more prone one is to this refuge… thus, many of my smart friends are the worst offenders, without even realizing it – their daily vocabulary and style are suffused with irony, with pseudo-intellectual posing and detachment that “comes with the territory”; without which one can barely survive in the upper echelons of business or society. Even when it comes to really important personal topics – marriage, family, life goals – they are ineluctably sucked into a thought-style and a habit of expression that is pure sitcom – always as if their smart friends are watching and commenting; as if there could be no greater sin than uncoolness.

And thus, many smart “liberal” political commentators snipe and snark and grin and wink reflexively, without even really knowing they’re doing it, as if they are simply softening the bite of their brilliant analysis. But in reality, they are sloughing over everything important; they are avoiding the pain and difficulty of reality in order to remain fashionable. And in the process, everything they say is worse than useless – it is dead wrong. And it’s frustrating, because we’re capable of so much more, so much more. It’s not surprising – there’s nothing at all new about this – but that doesn’t make it any more palatable. Oh, for a few people that could be real and smart at the same time.

With all her faults, this is what makes my wife so wonderful – not an ounce of self-conscious cleverness in her, and she’s as smart as anyone on planet Earth. God must have been looking out for me.