On Irony, Detraction & Giving Thanks
            We received several letters of complaint over the last week regarding a snippy headline placed on a news brief outlining the insensitive manner in which our nation's military is being asked to sensitize itself to the Islamic holy month of Ramadam, currently underway. Seeking to make our point in an ironic fashion, we used the headline: Ramadamn. Several writers suggested that we should apologize for such a slander.
            We apologize, herewith, for having inadvertently bolstered the aura of insensitivity we were aiming to defuse in the first place.
            But we simultaneously take offense at, and want to answer, several accompanying statements made to us that irony holds no place in journalism or politics. Because we believe that, as the result of a growing and dangerous misunderstanding of the word, an erosive, and possibly dangerous, tendency has been set into motion.
            One of the precepts of any democracy is the education of the body politic. One of the major means of educating people is via discourse and debate. A key way of sharpening one's skills for debate and discourse, or for simply thinking any subject through in a deep manner, is via the use of doubt. One of the key mechanisms for dealing with doubt, and hence strengthening belief, is with the use of irony, which has been defined as a recognition of the state of affairs, or a single event, that seems deliberately contrary to what one has expected; or the realization of a meaning different, and often opposite, to something's "literal" surface.
            One of the problems that's risen out of our own two-party approach to democracy has been a growing partisanship that has limited intelligent debate and substituted loud rancor and win-at-all-costs political means. Actual research and argument, in academia and journalism, is no longer well-respected in our nation. This tendency has eroded the age-old meaning of irony, a term originated in Greek theater and philosophy (and pulled from the ancient Greek word for dissimilar), and substituted for it the idea of cynicism, which represents a more manipulated state of thought.
            So what does this have to do with our use - or misuse - of irony in one of our news brief's titles?
            Chiefly, we want to reinforce our intention to always address the inherent intelligence of our readers, their ability to discern and discuss, and not any pre-concieved notion of how they might read something, which to our minds indicates an assumption of ignorance∑ a tendency that's already far too prevalent in our increasingly consumerist culture And we also want to note for the record that, in directing our writing and general editorial policy thus, we intend to continue using irony, not cynicism, as a means to reinforcing the higher levels of thought and inquiry we feel it is our duty to uphold as a community newspaper.
            Those communities, and nations, which do not "do" irony tend to be easily manipulated, in our view, and forgo this grand tradition because of other concerns. India, for example, is extremely polymorphous, with hundreds of languages and belief systems that necessitate simplification to maintain national identity. The same is true of many religions, which posit faith as the polar opposite of irony to dissuade doubt.
            Neither state of thought, however, befits our community here, either in political or readership terms.
            But we do apologize for the error we made by playing with the entertainment value of our bad pun on the Islamic holiday, and the ill effect of our intended irony.
            Similarly, we also apologize for having upset a number of our Catholic readers several weeks back for reporting a joyous event in a clouded fashion that included inferences to several complex matters that went unreported in the press because of gag orders and other complications. For the longest time we seriously didn't know what we were supposed to apologize for, because no untruths were said in our account. Then we were referred to the Catholic Catechism of Pope John Paul II and discovered that our sin, as it were, was one of Detraction and Rash Judgement, which by definition mean the forbidding of "every attitude and word likely to cause someone unjust injury. He becomes guilty: - of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor; - of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them."
            The idea, according to same catechism, is to, "Be careful to interpret insofar as possible one's neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way." Even though much is said of the ideal of reparation in regards to Detraction and Rash Judgement, it is also noted that, "By the very nature of their profession, journalists have an obligation to serve the truth and not offend against charity in disseminating information. They should strive to respect, with equal care, the nature of the facts and the limits of critical judgment concerning individuals."
            We feel chastised, especially given the closeness of this community we have elected to serve, and listen to.
            Have a Happy Thanksgiving full of hearty, well-thought-out toasts and discussions. Be safe for hunting season∑ and good luck, if hunting.
            Remember, over the coming Holiday Season, that we are given the means for complex thought to be utilized with gusto and frequency. Irony is a good thing, and an apt term to consider as we enter these darkest of physical days understanding that our celebrations are based on the miraculous, year-in and year-out confounding of apparent facts. Things, after all, move in seasons - as great an irony as candles burning long beyond their expected lives, or blessed children born beyond all odds.