Political Irony

Abstract

This chapter builds on the irony that enters into the relation of tragedy to the modern community. The discussion begins with the philosophical basis of irony in the relation between the possible and the actual. Ethics enters into the movement from possible to actual, in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, bringing us into the political sphere. Irony becomes the means by which all political ideas can be undermined, but the power of irony can only come from a subjective individual who must not undermine the self, and its capacity to produce irony. The power for ironic creativity is the power to create myths which are both the product of and the restriction on the power of subjectivity.