Ironic Sincerity
In a section that explains the use of irony, the author provides an example of it in action in a story he tells about going to see the film Adaptation with his daughter:
“One of the characters says something especially sappy that the audience is not supposed to take at face value. It’s meant to be funny. But a middle-aged woman sitting behind us said, `That is so true.’”
Homer Simpson
Throughout the book, the author uses quotes from Homer Simpson to make points about effectively using logical for the purpose of persuasion. The irony is Homer is invariably an example of what not to do. Homer is an ironic tool for showing how to use logic by demonstrating precisely how it is not used.
American Political Parties
The author explains how America essentially became and remains a two-party political system as a result irony. The original intention of the development of parties representing oppositional Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals of democracy grew out of the intention to prevent the factionalism of the opposition from becoming too powerful with the ironic result being that each party subsequently has come to exist predominantly as a factional force against the opposition.
The Ironic Twist
In a passage explaining the persuasive technique of pathos, the author engages a common hypothetical discourse which uses an ironic twist at the end to make its point:
Dorothy Jr.: Daddy, can I have an ice cream cone?
Me: May I have an ice cream cone.
Dorothy Jr.: May I have an ice cream cone?
Me: No.
America: In God We Trust
The author confronts the deeply held belief that America was founded upon Christian ideals by showing how the Founding Fathers as a collective group were far more deeply inspired by the pre-Christian rhetoric ideals of the Greek and Roman empires. The architecture of the nation’s capital reflects the depth of influence of orators like Cicero, philosophers like Aristotle and politicians like Cato. That influence becomes profoundly ironic in light of the reality that it springs from the paganism of the pre-Christian era.
