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How the alt-right weaponizes irony to spread fascism theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/23/alt-right-online-humor-as-a-weapon-facismPermalink On Internet Archive
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This is particularly interesting in the context of David Foster Wallace's work on the rise of irony and it's effect on human beings.Permalink On Internet Archive
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See his essay 'E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction' or his novel Infinite Jest.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Wallace felt that irony had a debilitating, 'distancing' effect taking us away from genuine human feelings and concerns.Permalink On Internet Archive
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For the alt-right, this seems to manifest in its ugliest incarnation: a lack of empathy for the suffering of others.Permalink On Internet Archive
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All cloaked in the protective - and distancing - cloak of irony.Permalink On Internet Archive
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As the article says, irony and ironic detachment is a way to feel things sincerely but express them without sincere consideration.Permalink On Internet Archive
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And, as Wallace warned in E Unibus Pluram, irony is now so baked into Western culture that it's a default -and damaging - way of thinking.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Irony is now, in Wittgensteinian parlance a "form of life" influencing our language, our thought, and our feelings.Permalink On Internet Archive
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We see this use of irony in the statements of people like Farage. He wouldn't really grab a rifle and khakis: he's just being ironic.On Internet Archive
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But he can use that irony and ambiguity to express something sincerely while simultaneously distancing himself from his own statement.Permalink On Internet Archive
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It's almost like speaking in code: everyone gets the message hidden under the words but he can say he didn't literally mean what he said.Permalink On Internet Archive
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And the USA has an ironic President now: he's contradicted by his past tweets and his own statements because he doesn't mean any of them.Permalink On Internet Archive