Isn't it Ironic

Do you remember that song by Alanis Morissette? ''Isn’t it Ironic'', she whines. Isn’t it ironic when you have ten thousand spoons but all you need is a knife. No Alanis, no, that’s just plain stupid, or at best incompetent. Isn’t it ironic, she moans, when you’re stuck in a traffic jam and you're already late. No Alanis. That’s not ironic. That’s unlucky. Of course, if you were stuck in a traffic jam on your way to a town planning meeting to discuss the alarming increase in congestion on the roads .. that would be ironic.

Alanis is a Canadian and naturalized American. I don’t mean to generalize, but Americans don’t seem to get irony. By the way, I’ve just been guilty of something that, as a rule, I abhor; the habit that people have of saying “I don’t mean to be X”, and then proceed to be exactly that, X. As if somehow, saying “I don’t mean to be X” gives them the license to be X. Like, “I don’t mean to be pedantic, but do you realize that strictly speaking, your use of the term ‘ironic’ is not really warranted in the circumstances”. Anyway, where was I. Yes, Americans don’t really seem to get irony. Irony is somehow predicated on the incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. And so a well developed sense of irony seems to go hand in hand with an ability to step outside of yourself and see yourself as others do. It’s something that doesn’t come naturally to the American psyche. After all, look at the way they dress.

But enough xenophobic nonsense. This piece was inspired by an irony so stark and grotesque that it deserves exhibiting in a freakshow of the politically deviant. I am of course talking about Tony Blair's new role as Middle East peace envoy. The White House have been the prime movers behind this extraordinary appointment. Well, we can certainly agree that the American political elite are mired in a sollipsistic failure to empathise, to see themselves as others see them. There are plenty of tragi-comic exhibits testifying to that.