Bitter Irony

One of my very early posts here (God is an Iron) was about irony. It featured a pretty decent definition of the word by the dear departed, and much missed, George Carlin: “Irony is ‘a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result.’”

The POTUS Putin America First…

It’s a good definition to keep in mind when considering how, for so long, a key gun rights Second Amendment argument is the vital importance of being able to stand up to a corrupt, tyrannical government…

Yet most of those folks seem to be supporting the current regime…

As a side irony, the word “true” used to mean “straight” — as in “the arrow flew true” or “the carpenter’s cut was true.”

In our post-truth world, “true” seems to mean “what I think is true” with very little regard for physical fact or logic.

Or, it seems these days, even common decency.

George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four (the correct title, by the way) way back in 1949.

And while the year, 1984, came and went without the novel really coming true, George did get it right… he was just off by 34 years.

We’re now seeing exactly the sort of thing he wrote about — the redefinition of meaning and truth to serve corrupt people. Recall these slogans (from the novel):

War Is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

I have, for several years now, had my own set of  (bitterly ironic) “modern truths”:

Opinion = Truth

Assertion = Fact

Emotion = Reality

Hyperbole = Normal

Tribalism = Everything

Our modern world.