Soft and Hard Irony
As suggested in the title of this essay and this set of essays, I will be engaging Rorty’s concept of irony throughout the multi-dimensional analysis that is to follow. While trying to be accurate in my use of Rorty’s provocative and insightful analysis, I will first be tinkering with his idea of contingency, by noting that inherent in contingency is an encounter with contradictory ideas and experiences, each of which seems to valid and worthy of commitment.
I will be offering two versions of Rorty’s irony. I will sometimes be engaging something I am calling Soft Irony. This is the stance one might take in observing that there are contractions all around us in our 21st Century world. I will provide many examples of these contradictions and will make the case that we truly live in Irony.
There is a second category that I will be exploring. This is what I am calling Hard Irony. This is a form of irony that moves beyond the more detached observational stance to be found in Soft Irony. The challenge of Hard Irony resides at a more personal level. We are not only living in and observing a world filled with contradiction, we are fully embracing these contradictions ourselves. As Rorty has noted, we must operate with contingency and welcome in the “other.”
We must embrace and believe fully in a set of contradictory ideas and frames of reference—knowing full well that these contradictions exist in our head and heart. This is deeply embedded and deeply felt Irony. It is Hard Irony in the most immediate sense: it is irony that is hard to swallow and hard to live with. We are truly Living in Irony.
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