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In 2001, Vanity Fair declared that the Age of Irony was over. Joan Didion has lamented that the United States in the era of Barack Obama has become an ";irony-free zone."; Jonathan Lear in his 2006 book Radical Hope looked into America's heart to ask how might we dispose ourselves if we came to feel our way of life was coming to an end. Here, he mobilizes a squad of philosophers and a psychoanalyst to once again forge a radical way forward, by arguing that no genuinely human life is possible without irony.Becoming human should not be taken for granted, Lear writes. It is something we accomplish, something we get the hang of, and like Kierkegaard and Plato, Lear claims that irony is one of the essential tools we use to do this. For Lear and the participants in his Socratic dialogue, irony is not about being cool and detached like a player in a Woody Allen film. That, as Johannes Climacus, one of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authors, puts it, "is something only assistant professors assume." Instead, it is a renewed commitment to living seriously, to experiencing every disruption that shakes us out of our habitual ways of tuning out of life, with all its vicissitudes. While many over the centuries have argued differently, Lear claims that our feelings and desires tend toward order, a structure that irony shakes us into seeing. Lear's exchanges with his interlocutors strengthen his claims, while his experiences as a practicing psychoanalyst bring an emotionally gripping dimension to what is at stake-the psychic costs and benefits of living with irony.

Irony. --- Cynicism. --- Pessimism --- Philosophy --- Psychology --- Skepticism --- Sarcasm --- Cynicism --- Rhetoric --- Satire --- Tragic, The --- Understatement --- Irony

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Italy is a country of free political institutions, yet it has become a nation of servile courtesans, with Silvio Berlusconi as their prince. This is the controversial argument that Italian political philosopher and noted Machiavelli biographer Maurizio Viroli puts forward in The Liberty of Servants. Drawing upon the classical republican conception of liberty, Viroli shows that a people can be unfree even though they are not oppressed. This condition of unfreedom arises as a consequence of being subject to the arbitrary or enormous power of men like Berlusconi, who presides over Italy with his control of government and the media, immense wealth, and infamous lack of self-restraint. Challenging our most cherished notions about liberty, Viroli argues that even if a power like Berlusconi's has been established in the most legitimate manner and people are not denied their basic rights, the mere existence of such power makes those subject to it unfree. Most Italians, following the lead of their elites, lack the minimal moral qualities of free people, such as respect for the Constitution, the willingness to obey laws, and the readiness to discharge civic duties. As Viroli demonstrates, they exhibit instead the characteristics of servility, including flattery, blind devotion to powerful men, an inclination to lie, obsession with appearances, imitation, buffoonery, acquiescence, and docility. Accompanying these traits is a marked arrogance that is apparent among not only politicians but also ordinary citizens.

Liberty --- Political ethics --- Social ethics --- Political corruption --- Civil liberty --- Emancipation --- Freedom --- Liberation --- Personal liberty --- Democracy --- Natural law --- Political science --- Equality --- Libertarianism --- Social control --- Ethics, Political --- Ethics in government --- Government ethics --- Politics, Practical --- Ethics --- Civics --- Social problems --- Sociology --- Moral and ethical aspects --- Berlusconi, Silvio, --- Italy --- Politics and government --- Berluskoni, Silvio, --- Берлускони, Силвио, --- Italian history. --- Italian mores. --- Italy. --- Silvio Berlusconi. --- arbitrary power. --- arrogance. --- blind devotion. --- citizens. --- court system. --- court. --- cynicism. --- dependency. --- domination. --- fear. --- indifference. --- liberty. --- political liberty. --- powerful men. --- republican liberty. --- safety. --- security. --- self-respect. --- servants. --- servility. --- servitude. --- signore. --- subjects. --- superior power. --- unfreedom.