Posted by Mitchell on April 12, 2002, at 18:06:24
In reply to Re: irony and blocking, posted by Dr. Bob on April 11, 2002, at 23:44:19
> > > > ...The capability for irony is an adult quality...
> > >
> > > But is it supportive?
> >
> > ... Irony isn't necessarily sarcasm, though.
>
> But is it supportive?The idea of "support" as represented here has always seemed like so much, well, psychobabble. Support for what? It is a subject without a verb. The sentence fragment of sorts, to me, implies an unspoken, undefined set of shared values.
Yes, recognition of someone else's perspective of irony, or to articulate irony that affects another would tend to be supportive, by the pseudo-scientific concept of support offered here.
There are those who do not find support here. The subjective set of values represented here as a universally acceptable standard of civility is non-supportive of some people, many of whom will not likely find support elsewhere. I think a more accurate word to describe what is called support here would be "reinforcement." People can find reinforcement here for certain ideas.
Those of us who hold ideas outside the social norms of our place in time, norms that may be fatally flawed, may do best to learn to function without reinforcement. For us iconoclasts, anti-hedonists and non-capitalists, our best contributions sometimes can be to contribute to the life-sustaining values of a community without reinforcing or endorsing flawed cultural values of communities from which we have little chance of escaping.
poster:Mitchell
thread:3959
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020308/msgs/4127.html