If we pause for a moment, disconnecting from our internet connections, we realize how society has dramatically lost its ironic essence, made up of multiple ingredients (literary, historical, social, and even scientific) that, when combined, form one of the many substrata of the social structure. Because ultimately, being ironic, beyond being a subjective and individual characteristic, also represents a way of being for a given community or ethnic group. So, is it possible to develop a sociology of irony? Let's try to think about it.

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Sociology of Irony: Being Ironic Today

What emerges in today's times (the plural is intentional, because time has a subjective connotation, even more so in different societies) is a social inability of individuals to be self-deprecating, surrounded as we are by autocratic visions that nevertheless hold a certain appeal for at least a segment of society. People smile little and poorly, and indeed, populations subjected, for example, to autocratic and dictatorial regimes have lost the ability to laugh, since there is a sort of mechanism that dis-cognizes irony.

The ability to face the path of one's existence contains within it the lightness of the art of easing adversity. Hugo links irony to freedom, as long as it does not lapse into sarcasm . From this perspective, irony is tied to the historical experience of a people, both past and present. It is also possible to trace a form of social stratification within irony, linked more to the political aspects of a given society's organization than to its socioeconomic structure. In a certain sense, if a society is governed by a system that restricts freedoms and fundamental rights, there is little room for irony and lightheartedness (except as hidden forms of protest against the system).

Doing sociology of irony

Similarly, societies with a supportive organizational system, even if their socioeconomic indicators aren't excellent, demonstrate a greater capacity to respond to adversity, as the simplicity of life becomes a catalyst for daily events. The more complex the society, the less room there is for irony.

Among the lower social classes, irony is associated with simplicity , despite the considerable difficulties of life. Among the middle classes, adaptability is instead linked to the satisfaction of intermediate needs. It should be noted, however, that in the times we live in, there is very little to joke about, except to distract attention from both individual and collective problems.

Irony: no era is exempt from it

In reality, if we look at the past, no era has ever been free of conflicts, of immense tragedies, it is clear that the last world conflict denoted an exponential growth in war technology , a conflict that involved a large part of the world's states.

Today, humanity seems unaware of the human toll that weighs on the tragedies resulting from war, and so, it seems almost obvious that without "irony" we openly talk about widespread involvement in a given war (Macron's statements are a case in point), as if it were natural and even desirable for a conflict to spread like wildfire, to the great satisfaction of the war industry at the expense of people's lives and humanity itself.

The Great War and the advent of mass society
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And so it's no coincidence that we speak of moral blindness : individuals, visible and invisible, find themselves facing common threats in total solitude. Evil isn't just war, but also indifference to the suffering of others (you don't help an elderly man who falls on the tracks, but you film it live on your cell phone to post the event). We relive, with extreme relevance, that bitter irony so dear to Pirandello, whose characters, immersed in those cross-sections of society, seem timeless.

The irony between politics and history

Politics isn't the only thing affected by moral insensitivity; indeed, it's perhaps a collateral victim of an all-encompassing cancer. For Bauman, politics is the art of the possible (even putting out wars), and it's the sociocultural context that creates its own kind of politics, demeaning every other form of practice. Thus, irony, as a generalized concept, can only be applied to a specific historical period, a specific territory, and obviously pertains to a specific people.

It is diverse and layered; mapping its typology is perhaps more a task for anthropology. English irony is diametrically opposed to Spanish irony, because the culture itself is different: the former is Anglo-Saxon, the latter Latin. Just as the irony of a fellow citizen from northern Italy is different from that of one from the south. As banal as it may seem, cinema also comes to our aid (the two films, "Welcome to the South" and "Welcome to the North," starring Siani and Bisio, are examples of this, and through social irony they attempt to represent two very different ways of life, both with their strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing their characteristics and ways of conceiving daily life, which are very distant and distinct from each other).

Sociology of irony… even in cinema

Indeed, the two film episodes cited demonstrate how the environment exerts both a direct and indirect influence on the protagonists, who are none other than individuals immersed in different territorial environments. Over time, they first become integrated into the social fabric, acquiring habits and lifestyles far removed from their own experiences. This demonstrates how the environment, considered a variable, is crucial to individuals' behavior. This is certainly an applied example of systemic theories, so dear to organizational sociology, which, through a combination of three perspectives (rational, natural, open), focus attention on human dynamics within the social context.

In past societies, collective irony often had cruel and cruel aspects , such as gladiatorial contests in Roman arenas or the "venationes" (hunting and killing of wild animals). There were also practices where slaves and Christians were fed to lions and other animals as a form of punishment, with the dual purpose of punishing the unfortunate victims and entertaining those who witnessed these scenes. There was, indeed, very little that was ironic, but it is historically known that the Romans were not just a nation of jurists...

The difference between irony and sarcasm

There is, however, a difference between irony and sarcasm that is not only formal but also substantial . While the former denotes a positive connotation by downplaying an event, the latter has a negative connotation, taking on an almost derogatory tone by belittling the interlocutor, even more so if this action occurs in collective settings where sarcasm multiplies. Irony is a highly complex aspect of human dynamics, especially of language (both spoken and symbolic), as it is a linguistic, cognitive, and social phenomenon. From this multidisciplinary perspective, it represents a primary sociolinguistic skill because it is aimed at regulating human relationships.

In irony, we discover similarities and familiarities, which allows for the activation of a sort of social catalyst aimed at building social bonds. Ultimately, being ironic can often be a characteristic unique to one population compared to another, which also generates social friction. Some populations are disinclined toward irony (think of religious irony, for example; the Islamic fundamentalist reaction to a cartoon of Muhammad published in the French ironic magazine "Charlie Hebdo" is sadly etched in our memory. This cartoon sparked unprecedented terrorist violence, resulting in 12 deaths at the newspaper's headquarters following an attack on January 7, 2015.

Irony as a social characteristic

Therefore, irony as a social characteristic is influenced by socio-cultural stratification , the possibilities for human growth and development (in terms of fundamental rights, constitutional guarantees, access to culture) are closely linked to knowledge, to culture understood as a heritage of knowledge, whether humanistic or scientific.

However, human consciousness has historically been traversed by dark and enlightened periods due to political and economic dynamics, and the management and control of power (there's little room for irony in a dictatorial system). Power is understood precisely as the ability to manage, to do or not to do something, connected to the concepts of energy, force, coercion, and violence. In a nutshell, power crushes, authority increases.

Sociology of Irony: Power and Authority

Authority, in turn, is divided into legitimate, authoritative, and authoritarian, the latter leaving no room for fundamental freedoms and rights. In the past, sovereigns entertained themselves at court with jesters, who, as regular performers, sought to make the days of the royals and nobles less boring, at the expense of the common people, who were reeling in poverty and misery.

sociology of irony Hugo liberty

Among other things, a scene from the verses of the Roman poet Cesare Pascarella remains in literary representation. In imagining the dialogue between Christopher Columbus, tired of broken promises, and the Catholic king, Pascarella turned to him and asked whether he was a king or a private individual. Ferdinand's ironic response was: "To be a king, I am a king, there's no question, but I can't do as I please . "

Sociology of Irony: The Current Situation

Unfortunately, there is very little to joke about in this historical period. Between local wars (which represent veritable powder kegs with a very high risk of spreading), Islamic terrorism, the crisis of democracy as a political system, autocracies gaining ground even in states that until a few years ago represented bastions of democracy, populism, increasingly dramatic socio-economic inequalities, and if we add to all this the presence of executives that privilege the few to the detriment of the many (with equality and equity remaining mere utopian visions), the time horizon looks rather bleak.

There is undoubtedly a drift in politics , contemptuous of the collective interest and the less well-off social classes, but which courts financial oligarchies and niche stakeholders, belonging to certain pro-government currents.

Sociology of irony, some data

The public policies we are witnessing draw a clear line of demarcation between those few who hold the vast majority of wealth and the community that is increasingly impoverished (in wages, services, purchasing power, and participation). This is demonstrated by the recent warning raised by ISTAT, with the absolute poverty index in Italy reaching alarming levels (approximately 5.700.000 people) in 2023.

Thus, with bitter irony, a rift or cleavage between power and citizens emerges , precisely where, ironically, even the fathers of Europe (Altiero Spinelli, Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Shuman, Konrad Adenauer, Joseph Beck, Paul Henry Spaak), emerging from the Second World War, had hoped for a future certainly different from the current one, with a cohesive continent, tending towards the reduction of inequalities and showing solidarity, but perhaps..., they were only ironic.

Francesco Caliò

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