The New York Times had a special op-ed section Sept. 4 on public education, which teaches us all sorts of knowledge and skills to function in society. But there is another kind of knowledge that we need to navigate through “life” that our classrooms rarely teach us. We learn — mostly at the School of Hard Knocks and via bitter firsthand and secondhand experiences — that things may not be what they seem to be; Smiling faces do not necessarily mean friendly. Such knowledge teaches you the ironies of life, which make up your “ironic knowledge.”
Ironic knowledge, often as “bitter” knowledge, exists as the lifeblood that runs through different generations of the human tribe. Often called “wisdom” and “truth,” gained from such bitter experiences, it sustains humanity through its trials and tribulations. A tribe with no irony cannot live in freedom very long as it is soon subjugated by one smarter and therefore more powerful: A dumb tribe by a smart one, the lower class by the better-equipped upper class, the unthinking masses by the clever corporate elite, and so on. It is through irony that generations and cultures unite to find a modicum of common humanity and survive.
Blacks and Irish and Jewish Americans do better with ironic knowledge, mostly because of their bitter historical experiences. You just can’t fool them as easily. They still teach their children about their ironic past with handy proverbial reminders, tribal sayings and anecdotes. But WASP-ish Americans in general suffer terrible irony-deficiencies in their blood. They survived the frontier era with little or no ironic experience. Unlike the Old World, or the above-mentioned tribal groups, who must live through bundles of irony every day, the New World of equalizing guns and spacious open land taught its settlers a simpler, more linear perspective of life. The world recognizes contemporary America’s unique susceptibility to propaganda, advertisement and deliberate deceptions. In short, America’s best-trained functionaries, superbly armed with science and psychology, who work for governments and corporations, have virtually destroyed our ability to see irony in life and have turned most Americans into simpletons and five-year-olds.
Into this America without irony has entered a destructive mind-set called “relativism,” in which all political-social ideas get “relativized” into meaninglessness. Once relativized, everything is like everything else. Even concepts like “satan” or “fascism” scare nobody. All ideas (“isms”) become non-descript and indistinct. If I like it, I accept; if I don’t, I reject. One religion is like another, one ideology like another, one perspective like another: None has any distinct notions or consequences as systems of ideas or explanations for our real society and life. Scholars play with “post-modernism,” “deconstruction,” or “political correctness,” and so on, just to confuse common people. Relativism leads us astray by making all things equally insignificant (for example, “Race doesn’t matter; we are all Americans”) except the existing system of power, economics, and consumption imperatives, and the social hierarchy it creates and maintains. Everything is like everything else, except power and money which are held as inviolate for their dominant functions in society.
In the absence of distinctions and definitions, all things now center on “me” “my feelings,” “right here,” “right now.” Language becomes corrupted and thoughts become muddled in largely non sequitur social interactions. Our entertainment, which is pleasantly unconnected to our bitter reality, only sucks us deeper into relativistic thinking in the ever-addictive drug-like trance. Without clear and stable ideas and systems in our thinking patterns, everything has merit if it hits us emotionally (crudely called “red meat” if politically deployed). That leaves, in a very dangerous way, the system (unconsciously) and myself (consciously), as the final legitimate authority. Nothing else is significant enough, other than that which is already occupying the position of significance in our society and our minds. Hence, it is always the powers-that-be that benefit from any form of relativism. To manage such blank-minded people and their daily consumer demands, you need a strong, well-functioning center of power. The more vacuous we become, the more powerful — like drug suppliers for addicts — our political-economic masters become.
All human beings must navigate their lives by the stars of “others,” dead and living — never alone. Forsaking ironic knowledge, provided by those “others,” past and present, however, we in America have replaced them with celebrities and loudmouths. The consequence can only be catastrophic for those who must inherit such America from us.
Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.