IRONY
What is aesthetic irony?
The task of aesthetic irony is to produce the effect of divulging discrepancies in our image of the world. Things are not always as they should be, as we want them to be, as we were promised they would be, as we hope they will become. Irony reminds us of this discrepancy by bringing some of the alternatives to our attention. For every winner there will also likely be a looser (win- win situations are more wishful-thinking than reality-confirming). The race is not always to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest, nor success to the most diligent; nor is good always rewarded and evil always punished (sometimes the least-deserving are the best-rewarded, and the most-deserving are the least-rewarded). On the other hand, sometimes we expect the worst and are completely surprised when the good, and perhaps occasionally the best arrives instead.
There is a life-lesson in all of this – don’t develop exaggerated expectations, because they will often not be fulfilled, and the higher the aspiration, the deeper the disappointment. The lessons of irony are readily available, if we will heed them and adjust our expectations accordingly. As the (Rolling Stones’) song says, “You don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need…” – and sometimes you don’t even get that – whereas other times you get far more than you might ever need. You just can never tell for sure – as another (Leonard Cohen) song says, “There is a crack in the world, that’s how the light gets in…” That light is irony.
How is irony used?
One instance of irony arises with the conduct of cost-benefit analysis. No effort or benefit is entirely costless. Even enjoying ambient sunshine or fresh air requires that a person makes the effort to breathe or to gets exposure to the sunlight. The purpose of conducting a cost-benefit analysis is to demonstrate (or estimate) what the costs, in proportion to the benefits will be. The phrase “There is no free lunch” need not be a code-word for removing social benefits from the poor or needy – rather what it affirms is that someone must pay for the cost of the service. And this recognition leads to the question of “value for money” – are the quantity and quality of benefits appropriate to the costs being incurred? All of this is ironical because it is both “very obvious” and at the same time “not very obvious at all!” In this regard, nothing should be taken for granted, but ironically enough, far too much is often taken for granted. Another instance of irony arises as a consequence of conducting a cost-benefit analysis, namely the necessity for trade-offs. Since “we can’t always get what we want,” what can we get that we can afford? And what will we have to forego in lieu of our limited purchasing power? If you are running low on both dietary supplements and money near the end of the month, you may have to settle for half- doses until your next pay-cheque. Half-doses every day are better than none, but not as good as optimum doses – but then, that’s the nature of trade-offs. Ironical, isn’t it?
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