‘seo Irony ane Humanity: A Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press (Search fora book Resources for: Authors Booksellers & Librarians Educators Journalists Readers ‘Advanced Seare Irony and Humanity: A Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre ‘A companion to A Case for Irony, by Jonathan Lear Excerpts from A Case for Irony | Alasdair MacIntyre’s Remarks | Jonathan Lear’s Response Vanity Fair has declared the Age of Irony over, Joan Didion has lamented that Obama's United States is an “irony-free zone.” But, ‘as Jonathan Lear asks, “What ifthis litte disrupter is crucial to the ‘human condition?” In A Case for Irony Lear argues that becoming human beingis a task, and that developing a capacity for irony is ‘essential to doing itwell. Contemporary culture, Lear thinks, has misunderstood what irony is and what makes it important. He claims that ironic experience isa form of truthfulness that is constitutive of human flourishing. It is acall of our own best selves tobe ourbest selves, It is also a recognition and embrace of our finitude, The book, grounded in Kierkegaard, Plato, and Freud, presents Lear in conversation with three philosophers (Cora Diamond, Christine M.Korsgaard, and Richard Moran) anda psychoanalyst (Robert Paul). ‘The conversation continued in an April 2012 dialogue on Irony and Humanity between Lear and Alasdair MacIntyre, presented by the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought and Department of Philosophy and the Lumen Christi Institute. The passages below present a thread ofthat April conversation, inthe form of excerpts from A Case for Irony followed by adapted sections of MacTntyre's and then Lear's remarks Excerpts from A Case for Irony ‘To get clear on what irony is I want to distinguish the experience ofirony from the development of a capacity for irony, and to distinguish those from what Kierkegaard calls ironic existence. Ina nutshell, the experience of irony isa peculiar experience that is essentially first-personal: not simply in the sense that all experience isthe experience of some I, but that in having an experience of irony 1 experience myselfas confronted by that very experience. Developing the capacity for irony is developing the capacity to oceasion an experience of irony (in oneself or in another). We tend to think casually of “the ironist” as someone who is able to make certain forms of witty remarks, perhaps saying ‘the opposite of what he means, of remaining detached by undercutting any manifestation of seriousness. This, I shall argue, isa derivative form; and the deeper form of ironist is one who has the capacity to occasion an experience of irony. Ironic existence is whatever itis that is involved in turning this eapacity for irony into a human excellence: the capacity for deploying irony inthe right way atthe right time in the living ofa distinctively human lif. Its ironic existence that is the not-that-easy of, becoming human. Social roles provide historically determinate, calturally local accounts of given occasion require that | say anything: | may put Note that putting oneself forward does not on any hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity pice uyNy moon) CLASSICAL ET ENT a0‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press various ways in which one right be good atbeinga buman being. $0, forinstance, myself forward as professor in the way | hunch my shoulders, order a glass of wine, in my choice of shoes, socks, and glasses. Conversely, when | do put myself forward verbally it need not be in any explicit statement to that effect. It’s right there in given that humans are essentially social animals, who spend a comparatively long time developing. who areborn | Such ordinary statements as “I've switched toa largely in ignorance of the Mac.” ‘world into which they are born, itis atleast plausible thatthe category of teacher should provide one route of human well-being. A teacher, broadly construed, would be someone who can help his neighbors learn, Thisis atleast a plausible candidate for one way of being good at being human, and thus one way of becoming human. A social role would be a socially available way of putting oneself forward as s teacher. So, for instance, tone way of being a teacher would be to be aprofessor. In the United States and Europe atthe beginning of the twenty-first century there is a fairly well established range of teaching styles—in seminar, tutorial, and lecture course—and a faitly well established range of evaluative techniques, such as grades, There is even a range of dress you can expect a professor to wear, a way of being in front of a lectern and delivering a paper, And there are socially acceptable ways of demurring from the role: special ways of not weating the right clothes, not giving a standard talk. That, too, can be part of the social pretense. But inthis variety of socially recognized ways, Iput myself forward as a professor. In this way a whole range of activity—including dress, mannerisms, a sense of pride and shame—can all count as pretense in that they are all ways of putting oneself forward as a professor. ince even our simplest acts are regularly embedded in our sense of who we are, the possibility of irony is pervasive. Note that putting oneself forward does not on any given occasion require that I say anything: [may put snyself forward as professorin the way [hunch my shoulders, order a glass of wine, in my choice of shoes, socks, and glasses. Conversely, when I do put myself forward verbally it need not be in any explicit statement to that effect. Its right there in such ordinary statements as “I've switched toa Mac” ‘The possibility ofirony arises when a gap opens between pretense asit is made available ina social practice and an aspiration or ideal which, on the one hand, is embedded inthe pretense—indeed, which expresses what the pretense is all about—but which, on the other hand, seems to transcend the lifeand the social practice in which that pretense is made, So, Tam! towonder what this has to do with actually teaching my students. For awhile, thisis anormal reflection in which Istep back and ‘wonder about the value of my activity still have a sense of what ing at home in the evening grading papers, and I begin the ideal is; Lam just reflecting on how well the activity of grading contributes tit. I decide to talk this over with my colleagues at a department meeting: perhaps we can figure out abetter way to evaluate students, one more in line with our core function of ‘teaching, This sort of reflection is part ane parcel of inhabiting a practical identity. Thus far am at the level of reflection that might lead me to engage in educational reform. But then things get out of ‘hand. Tam struck by teaching ina way that disrupts my normal self-understanding of what itis to teach (hich inchides normal reflection on teaching). This is not a continuation of my practical reasoning: it isa disruption of it Ibis more like vertigo than a process of stepping back to reflect. When it comes to previous, received understandings of teaching— even those that have been reflectively questioned and adjusted in the normal ways—all bets are off: No doubt, [can still use general phrases like “helping my students develop’; but such phrases have become enigmatic, open-ended, oracular, They have become signifiers whose content I no longer grasp in any but the most open-ended way. Ino longer know who my “students” are, let alone what it would eto “help them develop.” Are my students the individuals coming into my classroom atthe appointed hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity 210‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press time... or are they to be located elsewhere? Are they in the younger generation. ..orare they my age or older? Might they come along in a different generation altogether... maybe in the next century? And if my classroom is where my students are, where is my classroom? What am I to make ofthe room, actually do wall into now? Where should Ibe to encounter my students? What would itbe to encounter them? And if were to encounter them, what would it be to help them, rather than harm them? What is development? Already I have enough questions to last lifetime, and Ido not even know where ta begin. This isa different order of concern from something that might at first look alot like it. Ina different mode, anormal mode, I consider myself serious teacher. It might take me a lifetime of practice before I really get good at it. lam dedicated to this practical identity. I treat teaching as a master-craft, an arduous but noble calling. and even afterall these years, Istill think of myselfas an apprentice, en route, On occasion I do wonder about those around me who assume that teaching is easy, o even those ‘who find it difficult, but assume they know what it is: what are they up to? Nevertheless, i reflective and questioning mode, I stil have a faitly determinate sense of the path I am on. Ofcourse, the path essentially involves reflective questioning of what I am doing; and as a result of the questioning T may alter my direction one way or another. Yet, [know what to do today and tomorrow; and I trust that if keep practicing and developing my skills I will get better at it. Maybe I'l even get, good at it, In this mode, Tact as though I have practical knowledge of howto go about acquiring the skal, even if, in my view, true mastery lies offin the future. By contrast, inthe ironic moment, my practical knowledge is disrupted: 1 can no longer say in any detail what the requirements of teaching consist in; nor do Ihave any idea what to do next. Lam alsoliving ‘through a breakdown in practical incelligiblity: I can no longer make sense of myself (to myself, and ‘thus can no longer put myself forward to others) in terms of my practical identity. That Ihave lost a sense of what it means to be a teacher is revealed by the fact that I can now no longer make sense of ‘what [have been up to. That is, 1ean certainly see that in the past I was adhering to established norms of teaching—or standing back and questioning them in recognized ways. In that sense, my past continues to be intelligible tome, But I now have this question: What does any ofthat have to do with, teaching? And if cannot answer that question, my previous activities now look like hubba, busyness, and confusion. [have lost agense of how my understanding of my past gives me any basis for what to do ext. That is why, in the ironic moment, am called to halt. Nothing any longer makes sense tome as thenext step Imight take ava feacher. Until this moment of ironic disruption, Thad taken various activities to be unproblematic manifestations of my practical identity. Even in this moment, Tmight have no difficulty understanding what my practical identity requires, just so long as practical identity. is equated with social pretense, or some reflected-upon variant. My problem is that Ino longer ‘understand what practical identity so construed has to do with my practical identity (properly understood). Tronie disruption isthusa tronic disruption is thus a species of uncanniness: it | seciesofuncanniness:itisan is an unheimlich maneuver. The life and identity that | unheimlich maneuver. The life Ihave hitherto taken as familiar have suddenly andiidentity that Ihave become unfamiliar. However, there is this ‘hitherto taken as familiar have difference: in an ordinary experience of the suddenly become unfamiliar, uncanny, there is mere disruption: the familiar is However, there is this suddenly and disruptively experienced as unfamiliar. What is peculiar to irony is that it difference: n an ordinary ‘experience of the uncanny, there is mere disruption: the familiar is suddenly and because | care about teaching that Ihave come toa | disruptively experienced as halt as a teacher. unfamiliar. What is peculiar to irony's that it manifests passion fora certain direction, Its because Teare about teaching that I have come to ahalt asa teacher. Coming to ahalt ina moment ofitonic uncanniness is how manifest—in that moment—that teaching manifests passion for a certain direction. It is ‘matters to me. I have a strong desire to he moving in acertain direction—that isin the direction of becoming and being a teacher—but Ilack orientation, Thus the experience of irony is an experience of hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity 310‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press would-be-directed uncanniness. That is, an experience of standard-issue uncanniness may give us goose bumps or churn our stomachs; the experience of ironic uncanniness, by contrast, is more like losing the ground beneath one’s feet: one longs to go in a certain direction, but one no longer knows where one is standing, ifone is standing, or which direction isthe right direction, In this paradigm, example, ironic uncanniness is a manifestation of utter seriousness and commitment (inthis ease, to teaching), not its opposite. As Johannes Climacus, one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authors, puts it, “From the fact that irony is present, it does nat follow that earnestness is excluded. That is something only assistant professors assume. Itis often assumed that irony isa form of detachment. From the perspective of those who are embedded in the social pretense—who just don't get what is going on with me—it may well appear that irony is form of detachment, alack of commitment or seriousness. For, aller all, itis peculiar form of detachment from the social pretense. And, as we shall see, it may be the occasion for a peculiar form ofre-attachment. But if, in one’s blinkered view, social pretense is all there is, then itis easy to view irony as it regularly is viewed.“ fear hasn’thanded in his grades—typical; and now he’s jabbering on about not knowing how to grade. Ofcourse he knows how to grade; he's just being ironic, It would be better if we had a colleague who was committed to teaching.” To the socially embedded, itis precisely this manifestation of commitment that will appear as lack of commitment—pethaps as dissembling or as sarcasm, (Thats, of course, precisely how Socrates seemed to some of his interlocutors) If we get away from misleading appearance, and try to capture what i realy going on with me, the language that suggests itselfie that of Platonic Eros: Iam struck by teaching—by an intimation ofits goodness, its fundamental significance—and am filled with longing to grasp what itis and incorporate itinto my life. can no longer simply live with the available social understandings of teaching: if Tam to return to them it must be ina different way. Thus the initial intuition is that there must to be something more to teaching than what is available in social pretense. Irony is thus an outbreak (or initiation) of pretense-transeending aspiring. The experience of ironic uneanniness isthe form that pretense-transcending aspiring takes, Because theve is embodied in this experience an iteh for direction—an experience of uncanny, enigmatic longing—itis appropriate to conceive the experience of rony as an experience of erotic uncanniness ‘To understand ironic existence, consider the modal structure of practical identity. To have a practical identity isin part to have a capacity for facing life's possibilities. As a teacher, to continue ‘with the example, [have the capa ty to face what comes my way as a leacher would. In particular, Ican rule out as impossible, acts that would be incompatible with being a teacher. Thus Thave n implicit sense of life’s possibilities, and have developed a capacity for responding to them in appropriate ways, This is what tis to inhabit a world from the perspective of a internalized: practical identity. In normal circumstances, this capacity for dealing with life's possibilities is an inheritance from, an internalization of, available social practices. Team how to bea teacher from people I take to be teachers, and, in the first instance, I take society’s word for who the teachers are. Obviously, as I develop, Imay subject various norms to reflective criticism: Seren Kierkegaard that ispart of my normal development asa teacher. Ironic experience is, as we have seen, a peculiar disruption ofthis inherited way of facing life's possibilities This is not one more possibility one can simply: .dd so the established repertoire. Itis adisruption of the repertoire—and, in the disruption, it brings to light that the established repertoire is ust that. Inironic existence, I would have the capacity both to live out my practical identity asa teacher—which includes calling it into question in standard forms of reflective criticism—and to call all ofthat questioning into question; not via another reflective question, but rather via an ironic disruption of the ‘whole process. In this twofold movement I would both be manifesting my best understanding of what itis about teaching that makes it ahuman excellence and be giving myself a reminder that this best hiepihwaw hup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-tumarity ano‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press ‘understanding itself contains the possibility of ironic disruption. No wonder that getting the hang of it does not come that easily. Done well, this would be a manifestation of a practical understanding of one aspect ofthe finiteness of human life: that the concepts with which we understand ourselves and live ourlives have a certain vulnerability built into them. Ironic existence thus has aclaim to bea human excellence because its form of truthfulness, Its also a form of self-knowledge: a practical acknowledgment ofthe kind of knowing that is available to creatures like us. Alasdair Macintyre’s Remarks Jonathan Lear has put us lin his debt once again. Irony had for some E ‘time been a subject left o literary critics and to scholars in linguistics. But ‘what they have had to say, although often instructive, has thrown insufficient light on the part that irony might or should play in our lives. Lear, by taking up where Kierkegaard left off, has reopened some old questions and opened up some new ones, in both cases with insight and slegance ‘So where to begin? One way to ask what place a form of speech, a type of | dissca Maciniy i experienc, ora mode oferistence has in ou livsistoaskwhat those lives Set Rtenen Fellow t would belikifthat form ot spech,that type ofexperienceorthat mode Camtempeary of existence were wholly absent from our lives. And so I ask: What would a tatelion Seudicsin Ethier and Pottee human world belikeinwhichronyhadbeen abolished, inwhichnoone _(eaeesya arch tered, experienced or existed ironically? Movepatan Univeray and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Consider first the example ofthe teacher, transposed to aworld deprived Plosont atthe | ofirony, Imagine that teacher as someone who, when young and Hehas made great enthusiastic, was anxious to do well asa teacher, although never infact contributions tothe guite sure what good teaching is. He therefore trusts his mentors and History of pnlosopny. moral philosophy, and gradually becomes, atleast to outward appearance, what they would have especialy tothe renewal ‘Avietotaliniam and it challenge to rival increasingly well on tests, someone who gives more attention to test score aditione- His After ‘hime, someone whose students are quiet and orderly in class and score subjects than to anything else, providing administrators with just the Virtue remains the mo statistics that they need to satisfy the funding authority. His teaching important text inthe evaluations tell him that hei a good teacher and he believes them, But " then he encounters a class taught by someone else, in which the students are sometimes talkative and even noisy, in which discipline is sometimes stern and sometimes relaxed, in which the teacher makes bad jokes and improvises to dramatic effect, in which progress by test score or any other standard is real, but somewhat uneven, in which art and musie are treated as important, and in which the students are plainly excited by what they are learning and frustrated when they fail to learn, The result ofthis encounter is that his conception of good teaching and of himself as a good teacher is put radically in question, Imay be what they call ‘a good teacher,” he says to himself, but am Ia genuinely good teaches? His use of quotation marks and indirect speech enables him to do without irony. What he learns from his experience is that he now has just enough grasp of what goad teaching isto know that he isin key respects nota good teacher and that becoming a good teacher isa task whose full dimensions he has yet tolearn, Heis transformed, just asthe teacher described by Lear is transformed, but his experiences are unironie. What has substituted for irony in speech is plain, truthful, and, when necessary, harsh speech, that speech in which the would-be good teacher acknowledges his inadequacies and asks others for help in remedying them, What has substituted for irony in experience is seeing himselfashe is, and consequent humility. But such speech and such experience will only be to the pointif they are an expression of and resull in the exercise of the relevant virtues. What virtues are these? First obviously is truthfulness, a virtue exercised not only in refraining from lying except on the rarest of occasions, but also in knowing which truths to utter to whom, in knowing when to speakcand when to keep silent, and in caring about the truth, Lacking truthfulness, the would-be good teacher will be all too liable to self-deception. But truthfulness by itself is insufficient. The would-be good teacher also hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity 50‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press needs humility, since without humility we are unable to recognize, let alone to acknowledge our defects and our faults. Note thatthe exercise of humility is incompatible both with filing to acknowledge our defects and faults and with exaggerating those defects and faults. To belittle our ualities of mind and character untruthfully is avice that Aquinas, following Aristotle, identified as irony, declaring it to be not only avice, but sin, What kind of vie it is is brought out by Ross's {ranzlation of eironeia as “mock-modesty.” Someone who says “Lam notin facta good teacher," ifthey are then to learn what it would be to become a good teacher must have abandoned pretending as well as pretension, must exhibit real and not mock modesty. It-seems then that we can safely conclude that inthe case of the teacher the kind of needed self discovery and self-amendment identified by Lear can be achieved withoutirony, that whatever else ‘might have been fost from a world in which irony had been abolished, this possibility would not have been lost ‘What Ihave been suggestingiis that this example discussed by Lear, that of the self-questioning ‘teacher, does nat show that irony need play any part in our moral lives. What can be said ironically, so it seems, can be said non- ironically and for the moral shock therapy of ironic experience we can the moral shock therapy effected by plain, truthful, harsh words, spoken with humility. We ray therefore be tempted to conclude that abuman world in which irony had been abolished, but in ‘which the virtues of truthfulness and humility were practiced, might be a stylistically duller wor less witty world, but not one in which there had been any significant loss of moral resources, Itwould substitut however be premature to yield to this temptation. Without irony some of us some Not everyone needs a capacity for irony inorder to | orth time would not be be truthful-when Kierkegaard said that “no shocked into truthfulness. genuinely human life is possible without irony,” he | Take away any capacity for confused being human with being Kierkegaard—but | itonicspeech and for the enough of us do for irony to be important. ‘experience of irony and some ‘of us will on occasion be incapable of either truthfulness or humility, Not everyone needs a capacity for irony in order to be ‘ruthful—when Kierkegaard sai that “no gentinely human life is possible without tony,” he confused ‘being human with being Kierkegaard—but enough of us do for irony to be important, So my earlier suggestion that irony might have no necessary part in any of our lives, that truthfulness and humility ute for irony without loss turns out to be mistaken. Note however that both in Lear's examples and in mine the salutary uses of irony do not involve that untruthful belittling of the self that Aristo (truthfulness and humility that we need it, To understand irony iso understand its place in the ‘and Aquinas rightly condemn. Its because and only insofar as irony serves the ends of structures of the virtues, as Aristotle and Aquinas do, What would it be to understand irony in this way? spoke a moment ago of salutary uses of irony, distinguishing them from nonsalutary uses. Lear too makes this distinction, writing that “the deeper form of ironist is one who has the capacity to occasion sn experience of irony, Ironie existence is whatever it is that is involved in turning this capacity for irony into a human excellence: the capacity for deploying irony in the right way atthe right time in the living ofa distinctively human life.” The implication i clear. Irony can be deployed in the wrong way or at the wrong time or both, So how in particular instances are we to distinguish right from wrong? My suggestion will be that when irony ie misused, when itis vicious, itis used sos to undermine or corrupt truthfulness and humility. But, in order to explain why and how this iso, I must say alitle more about truthfulness and lsumility, and in order to say even that litle more, Ihave to introduce a ‘way of thinking about the self very different from Lear's or Korsgaard’s or Kierkegaard’ ‘What constitutes us as human beings—by contrast with dolphins or wolves—is our accountability to ourselves and to others, our eapacity for responding to questions of the form “Why did you/T/we do that?" or “What was the good of doing that?” where the account that is asked for isto function as at once explanation and justification, We are constituted as selves in the exercise of this capacity through our interactions both with others and with ourselves and there is therefore no task of self-constitution. Ouridentityis that of an accountable animal and itis as such that we occupy social roles, undertake hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity 810‘seo Irony ane Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press tasks, and set ourselves to achieve individual and common goods. When we put in question our attainments as teachers, we put in question ourselves as teachers, as agents contributing ta the achievement of certain common goods, while directed towards our own final good. To say this and no more is ofcourse to speak far too briefly, but it is enough to make it clear that—and why-truthfulness has the central place that it has among the virtues. Fort is crucial that the accounts that we give to others and te ourselves of why we choose and act as we do in respect of individual and common goods should be rue accounts. $0 from the outset a conception of truth and of norms of truthfulness is presupposed in our saying and doing. And, if truthfulness is in this way a central virtue, then so toois uml y-For tobe humble is to see oneselfas one is and to judge and speak of oneself as one is. Lis to be able to speak the truth about oneself, Irony then s important for its bearing upon truthfulness and humility, whether positively or negatively, and we can only understand its full importance if we understand how it can be misused as sn enemy of truthfulness and a servant of arrogance Jonathan Lear's Response Tam not surprised that Alasdair MacIntyre has raised fundamental = guestions about the value of irony, but Iam very grateful to have such a serious reader of my work, MacIntyre's comments put on display a movement of his own thinking. As he says about half-way through, "So my earlier suggestion that irony might have no necessary part in any of our lives, that truthfulness and humility can substitute for irony without loss turns out tobe mistaken.” Let me go Jonathan Lear isthe John U. Nef Distinguished consider what might be missing MacIntyre gives us an example ofawell- Service professor at the back then tohis example of a teacher in a world without irony and int joned teacher who has internalized the norms ofteachingpassed Committee on So« ‘Thought and in he Department of Philosophy onto him by his or her teachers, who then encounters a very diferent exemplar of what good teaching might consist in and has his own atthe University of conception radically putin question. He is open to his own sel Chicago. He trained in 5 ” philosophy at Cambridge questioning (‘Am I genuinely a good teacher?"), and I agree with, eee MacIntyre no irony need be present here. And there isno doubt that Rockefeller University significant ethical improvement can take place without irony. Still, [want Ler works on philosophical tosay that something ethically significantis missingin this “world een. oe the without irony,” so that it isa mistake to think wecan leave it out without human psyche from Socrates to the present. loss, To see this, we need to reflect on how we engage with various normative pulls in our lives. Ducks are governed by norms of duckly life but, as Kierkegaard pointed out, ducks are not themselves open to irony because their lives are not entangled in what Kierkegaard called pretense: putting themselves forward or making claims for themselves. In MacIntyre's terms, the possibility of irony arises for us because we are accountable animals, But even in this realm of human accountability there is an portant distinction that needs to be made that is sometimes overlooked, The distinction may admit of vague boundaries, debatable examples and so on, but we can nevertheless see a basic division. There are some normative dimensions of human life that ean be understood, more or less, as social constructions. So, for instance, ifwe Lake the normative arena of baseball, we can certainly have debates about what makes for a good player, about whether the game is improved or diminished by allowing a designated hitter and so on, But the debate about the goodness ofthe game eventually comes back to ourselves: our sense of what makes the game satisfying, what yields greater pleasure, amore fame and so on. As young, ambitious and talented player, I may “take on responsibility” for ‘becoming a good player; and I may, in visiting another team, see an alternative model of excellent playing that radically shakes my sense of how one plays the game well. Tmay change my ways in light of this conflicting and ultimately transformative experience. It may even make me anxious as Ido s0. But I want to say that in an important sense [ have not yet taken on responsibility for what the goodness of ‘baseball itself consists in. That ie a different level of normative engagement—sanditis at this different level that the possibility of irony becomes both important and, as possibility ineliminable. hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity mo‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press The subjective category ¢eacher, unlike the social role of baseball player, is subject to anormative pull of goodness that outstrips any social construction of what that goodness consists in, Here we have a different kind of responsibility for and responsiveness to the goodness of saching—one which is enigmatic and which can be very unsettling. Here I think a reference to Platonic metaphysics and psychology can be helpful. The goodnese of the forms is transcendent and when, in human life, we brush up against them, for instance in the stunning experience of beauty, the experience can be shocking, anxious, disruptive. [want to say: let's remain agnostic about the metaphysics—maybe we need the forms to explain the experience, maybe there are other ways to explain it—but take the psychology absolutely seriously. Roughly speaking, [am vulnerable toa kind of shocking, anxious, ‘uncanny and erotic disruption with respect to my life as a teacher that is not open to me in my life as a baseball player. Idon’t have the same kind of responsibility forthe ultimate norms ofits goodness. And ‘the importance of irony (inthe paradigm case Iam trying to isolate) the occasions when itean genuinely be valuable—is in these kinds of cases, MacIntyre's exemple of the teacher does not tell us enough to help us determine which kind of case it is. AlUnough it might well be a case of serious development asa teacher, it might nevertheless fit the overall model of the baseball player, whereby the teacher sees a different social instantiation of the nnorms of teaching and decides to change her ways, perhaps radically, as aresult tis important not to caricature or diminish such a moment. Itis one that can be incredibly important, ethically speaking ‘And it ean occur more or less ina “world without irony,” as MacIntyre asks us to envisage. But it leaves out of account acrucial aspect of our life with norms: namely, for certain categories, though not all, we are vulnerable to an uncanny, anxious, would-be-directed, erotic longing that itselfmanifests our ‘commitment to and responsibility for what the goodness ofthe whole way of being consists in, This is what the experience of irony consists in when ite occurring in a potentially valuable way. Let me spend another moment In receiving an oracle, | am given an unfamiliar “onthe teacher in a world without irony to make the ‘contrast clearer. Itis account of who lam and the drama unfolds as | uncannily gain a sense of familiarity, a sense that this is indeed who | am. (Oedipus is our paradigm). With the experience of irony the movement is in the important to allow this ‘example to be as rich and ‘complex as can be. So: we can imagine the teacher coming ‘upon this alternative form of teaching and really being reverse order: I start out with a familiar sense of who | am—say, | am a teacher—and as the irony unfolds the category itself becomes unfamiliar, uncanny, oraculer, calling me to something to stunned and shaken by it “Wow!” she might think. “T never realized teaching could be lie that” We canimagine which I take myself already to be committed, but which has now also become as enigmatic as it is beckoning her instantiating significant changes in how she teaches and how she lives. Stil, when we try to think about what is happening to her, it seems that she is getting disrupted in her practical understanding of how tolivein respect toan ideal. She suddenly recognized she has been going about teaching in the wrong sort of way. She now realizes a much better way is open to her that she had not realized before, Thus she reorients herself ‘with respect to her felos. By contrast, in the experience of irony there isan uncanny, oracular dimension—not present in the non-ironie counterpart —in which the felositsel/comes infor anxious questioning. In A Case for Irony Tsay thatthe experience of irony slike the experience of receiving an. oracle, only in the reverse direction, In receiving an oracle, [am given an unfamiliar account of who I am and the drama unfolds as I uncannily gain a sense of familiarity, a sense that this is indeed who I am. (Cedipusis our paradigm). With the experience of irony the movement isin the reverse order: start out with a familiar sense of who Tam—say, Tam a teacher—and as the irony unfolds the category itself becomes unfamiliar, uncanny, oracular, calling me to something to which I take myself already to ‘be committed, but which has now also become as enigmatic as itis beckoning, A crucial aspect of our life with oracles is that they shake us up. Irony is one important manifestation in which the felos itself can undergo anxious questioning in a practical sort of away. Now one reason the possiblity of irony is important, in Kierkegaard's opinion (and mine), is that it hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity ano‘seo Irony aed Humanity: Dialogue between Jonathan Lear and Alasdair Macintyre | Harvard University Press holds open the possibility of disillusioning us with our ilusions. Imagine that we are all (MacIntyre’s teaches included) living at the bottom of Plato's Cave. Limagine that life here at the bottom of the Cave seems, for us inhabitants, tobe a complex and fairly rich environment:in particular, itis one in which itis possible to have a conflicting social experience about how to teach well, make some shifts in how one is teaching, which one experiences as radical development, and yet sll vemain adenizen of the Cave, Part ofthe illusion of the Cave is that it allows for illusions of improvement and development. One value of irony, when itis working well, is thatit opens up opportunities to pierce illusions. There is obviously much more that needs tobe said about this, but at least this gives an indication of what ‘would be missing in a world without irony. Itseems to me that about the most important issue Alasdair Macintyre and I are in agreement, or very close to agreement. He says, “ILis because and only insofar as irony serves the ends of truthfulness and ‘humility that we need it” Basically, I thinkche is right; but I want to sharpen the point a litle. When an experience of irony is being deployed well, [want to say not merely that it serves truthfulness and ‘built ut that i itself es manifestation of truthfulness and humility. This i the form truthfulness takes on this occasion; and thus a “world without irony” would be a world without this form of truthfulness as ahuman possibility. Thus T agree completely with MacTntyre when he says, “Without irony... some of us some of the time would not be shocked into truthfulness.” But there are two other points I want to make about truthfulness. First, it seems to me that if we take ‘truthfulness as the fundamental human value, we can see that humili 7 atleast when properly deployed, isitselfa manifestation of truthfulness and not some added on value. One cannot be truthful without some humility about one's ability to understand the world one inhabits or to understand oneself as an enquirer into that world. So, in the deep sense of truthfulness, we do not need to say that “truthfulness by itself is insuificient” the humility required is itself part of truth’s sufficiency. Second, ‘there isan aspect of truthfulness that MacIntyre does not focus on in his comments: the fullness of truth/tness, When we think, for example, ofthe true cross or a true friend or a truly religious person, we are concerned not just with accuracy or faithfulness to norms, but with afuliness of being When I ‘think of my life-long friend Fred, for example, I realize not just that he has been areal friend to me over ‘the decades, but that his friendship fills him up, as itwere, expresses who he most genuinely is. Now if, ‘we take the fullness of truthfulness seriously, we can see another reason why the possibility of irony. can be so important. When it is occurring inthe right sort of way it ils one up with an anxious longing. to figure out—in a practical sort of way—what the goodness of, say, teaching consists in. When deployed. on the right occasion in the right sort of way, the truthfulness that is irony is afuliness of trath, The value of irony, when itis . deployed well isthatitopens | The value of irony, when itis deployed well, is that it up the possibility ofhearingan | OPENS up the possibility of hearing an internal call internal call to goodness—the | to goodness—the call of an ideal, the call to one’s callof an ideal, the ealltoone's_| better self—that might not be opened up in another better selfthat mightnotbe | way, ‘opened up in another way. Ido not want to promote irony as a cure-all. Still, there are possibilities for experiencing critique as coming from inside oneself, as speaking oneself to one’s own most valued ideals that, Tthink, would not be able ina world without irony. would like to conclude with particular kind of thank you to Alasdair MacIntyre, When I wrote A Case for Irony Iwas focused on Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard thought that the dominant social tradition in which he lived, Protestant Christendom, had become corrupt and that irony was an invaluable tool in shalking things up. But in thinking about Alasdair MacIatyze’s comments I realize irony can be used every bit as much to deepen and enrich tradition as itcan to disrupt and undo it. discuss this very briefly at the end of the book when I discuss Socrates’ uncanny capacity to participate wholeheartedly in absolutely conventional acts of bravery when the occasion requires, But I have not thought nearly as ‘much as I would like to about how irony might, on occasion, enliven our ives within a tradition. And I am so grateful to Alasdair MacIntyre for waking me up to this challenge. Back to top hiepihwaw Rup harvard edufeatzesiroy-and-humarity a0