Hegemony-Seeking Irony

In this chapter, the focus is on hegemony-seeking irony, which is signalling ontological anxieties concerning the declining collective self rather than raising awareness about the suffering distant other. While justice-seeking irony is liberal in its orientation, hegemony- seeking irony is conservative. The chapter discusses hegemony-seeking irony in light of the old jeremiad tradition that laments the current state of the failing self. It shows that the main affective register in hegemony-seeking irony is fear, which concerns the collective self’s supposedly declining status in the world as professed in the jeremiad. The intriguing feature in hegemony-seeking irony is that instead of trying to represent the collective self as triumphalist, it underlines ‘our’ grave failings. The chapter employs romantic irony as an interpretative tool to read the ironic dynamic of breaking the discursive façade that upholds the image of the liberal order.