PFor me, it all started with a sombrero. A few years ago, at one of the country’s most elite small universities, Bowdoin College in Maine, this hat became the subject of controversy. A student of Colombian descent had decided to throw a birthday party for a friend, whose invitation read: “The theme is tequila … do what you want with it.” Besides the Mexican beverage, the host had also provided mini-sombreros for his guests, many of which did their hair. Some took pictures and they immediately found themselves on social networks.
And suddenly, the forces of political correctness fell on those concerned. Many participants were placed in “social quarantine” by the university. The party hosts had to leave the student residence. Bowdoin accused them of ‘ethnic stereotyping’ and the student office – according to an article in Washington post – issued a “declaration of solidarity” with regard to all those “injured or affected” by this incident, which he considered to be an act of “cultural appropriation”.
However the following week, by a delicious coincidence of the calendar, the canteen of the university organized a Mexican themed dinner, and I could not help but think: “ At least no one had a sombrero to eat their guacamole. “ Which was another way of saying that this kind of irony always arises when you have lost all sense of irony.
Theater of political absurdity
Irony is a moving concept, especially in these confusing times. I write these lines in the midst of what could be described as a theater of political absurdity, as a US president continues to assert that arguably the most rigorously administered election in recent history has brought him down. been stolen, and after his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani delivered a paranoid rant about unfounded wrongdoing. Seeing Mr. Giuliani literally go wild live, I thought to myself: if it was an opera, it would definitely be Pagliacci, scored by Ruggero Leoncavallo. But this caustic comment is only an attempt at humor on a subject – the sabotage of democracy – which is not at all comical.
Likewise, at a time when many heads of state are driven by a totalitarian perspective – from Donald Trump to Jair Bolsonaro via Viktor Orban, Vladimir Poutine, Recep Tayyip Erdogan … – can we really afford to be ironic about such demagogues? Especially when more than 70 million Americans enthusiastically voted for Mr. Trump. Or that, according to a recent poll, more than 70% of its supporters still believe the election was stolen.
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