Chic Ironic Bitterness

The ironists of frequent lament, then, far from being the evidentiary beings that willfully corrode society, in fact withhold their trust from a politics and culture undeserving of it.  In doing so they hold dearly and implicitly the ultimately Protestant values of sincerity and authenticity that civic trust needs but has forgotten.  In a world that seems to value the opposite, they must express those values ironically.  Through this move they take temporary inward recourse, leaving the world to realize just how upside down it has become.  And as they lean inward, they take their trust with them.

That is from the new and sometimes intriguing Chic Ironic Bitterness, by R. Jay Magill.  The focus is on how America didn't much change after 9-11, how the supply and demand for irony stayed pretty much the same, and how Stephen Colbert refutes or at least counters Kierkegaard's critique of Schlegel.  (Not everyone liked the book.)  Every now and then there is an author's cartoon (e.g., "Immanuel Kant Bobble-Head Doll"), and on p.5 he stops and writes a stand-alone paragraph:

I'll be citing the Pew Research Center in a few pages to back this up.

Recommended, ironically of course.