The death of the ironist

When Therese Rein tweeted last Tuesday that 'partner' Kevin Rudd had emerged from his surgery with his 'sense of humor (sic) completely intact' the questions that sprang immediately to mind were – Kevin Rudd? Sense of humour?

In politics there should be no confusion. Politicians are neither humorous nor ironic. Politicians are born with an irony deficiency. There may be an irony in the fact that Mr Rudd's partner tweeted that she believes he has one but that's as close as it gets.

Irony in western political culture is dead.

Rather than being combative and indirect, politics today is direct and downright nasty.

The idea that Mr Rudd or any others of the Labor/Greens alliance are or can be humorous is itself ironic.

The left-of-centre metropolitan media is equally humourless. It is underpinned by irrational attacks on western culture and operates as the voice of the politically shrill.

It's not hard to find examples of humourlessness on the left. Witness the recent ABC Q&A at which Greens senator Christine Milne and retired gardener Peter Cundle were given free-rein to accuse right-of-centre media of igniting racist hatred.

Or the argument from the Fairfax/ABC alliance that the Norwegian shooter, an alleged Christian, drew inspiration from conservative Australian polemicists.

Is Senator Bob Brown being ironic when he refers to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation as 'hate media'? Despite his persistently quizzical leer, Senator Brown himself is a great hater.

The various battles being waged for the moral ground in the culture wars are unwinnable for a number of reasons.

The duality of Australian politics tends to produce similar sets of ironic polarities which are not always easy to understand.

D C Muecke categorised these ironic polarities as disengaged/involved; free/enslaved; dispassionate/emotional; serene/wretched; real/illusory; critical/credulous; and meaningful/absurd.

In the past year or so the Australian Labor Party and the Greens have made it more difficult to comprehend which of these polar opposites they support, especially as the Labor Party now appears to be unsure whether it is in the relationship or out.

The Greens attempt to decouple the polarities by being selective, depending upon the situation.

Situational variables exist in any political strategy but it is unlikely that strategists will argue that they are at once disengaged and involved; critical and credulous, or dispassionate and emotional.

The Greens who front the media would have us believe they are dispassionate and critical of Labor's proposed carbon tax but their party position appears to be emotional and credulous.

The prime minister, Julia Gillard, is attempting a party mix; to be seen to be both disengaged (out of sight one day) and involved (wandering the countryside the next); dispassionate (carbon tax) and emotional (clean energy future).

One of the basic elements of irony, according to Grice, is the ability of a speaker or writer to proclaim a known error – an initial absurdity that betrays an ignorance or foolishness that is so incredible the odds are high they know they are being ironic.

Politicians try at all costs to avoid looking foolish or absurd. When they do, they usually have friendly news media to spin the foolishness so that it looks less so.

For the average citizen the foolishness and absurdity of some of the issues and events of the past few weeks defy the media spin.

We punters, as politicians like to call us, (thinking they are being humorous), are attached directly to the non-funny tangible things that make up our non-ironic ordinary lives; food, clothing and shelter as basic entitlements.

So the space being taken up by politicians calling for investigations into the media and by the left metro media accusing the right metro media of inciting racial hatred could be put to better use.

Australians, as the prime minister has taken to calling us, are traditionally a tolerant mob.

We give our politicians and media plenty of room to spruik, to waffle, to jibber. While they are getting on with the job of governing and governing well we will tolerate a lot.

But, I would argue, we are now at the end of our tether.

The tolerance of the majority, who diligently separate the recyclables, turn of the light when not in a room and open the windows in summer rather than cranking the air-conditioning, is gone.

When tolerance is diminished so too is irony. When the left are right, they like to take the credit. When they're wrong, they like to blame everyone else. Wonder if they see the irony in that?