…and Symmetry
Things either are or are not in existence or in flux in ways that they have agency in the universe. Too broad a statement? Okay. How about: something is either true and real or it is not true and is a) a lie, b) a fantasy, c) ill-perceived, d) simply about pushing values in support of a hoped-for outcome of any situation, ideals about love, blind hatred, fear, ideology, religion, human willfulness. Items a) through d) are not conclusive but do represent human survival tactics.
Everything we do is about survival. When we perform need, we suffer and die. When we perform excess, we cause others to suffer and die, and eventually it leads to the group trying to make the excessive one(s) suffer and die so that the group can live, can procreate.
Irony is related to Symmetry, which is a presentation of orderliness in a chaotic world. Irony skews perception and presents a willfulness that belongs not to a person or a group, but rather to cause and effect in terms of reward and punishment. Symmetry is cruel, as is irony.
The Symmetry of a formal garden represents the power of the aristocracy over the unruly growth of nature when left on its own. Symmetry reminds the person in the midst of symmetrical architecture, courtyards, gardens and building complexes that there is no way out of the arrangement. This is symbolic in an unintentional way in that in physics, Symmetry at a quantum level means that positive and negative charges are equal and therefore cancel each other out. In this case, matter disappears. There is no more activity at the quantum level and the universe has cancelled itself out.
No fear, however. This is not going to happen because there is always particle and wave asymmetry at the quantum level. This is about Time as well. the elemental cause of asymmetry is that things happen over time, including the interaction of particles at the quantum level. Lee Smolin, a wonderful and persistent theoretical physicist tells us that the universe, at the moment of the Big Bang, was asymmetrical and the expansion of the universe is the trail of positive and negatively charged particles reaching ever forward in what seems like an attempt to attain symmetry. But it’s actually simply (?) forward momentum acting as forward momentum will act and the idea of symmetry is a human notion of how space should construct itself, how things in space should be placed or located so that they present an argument for order over chaos.
Irony may look at Symmetry as a goal for humans that cannot be reached.
Irony may design rational sequences of events that have nothing to do with physics, or with art, poetry, or architecture. The Georgian architecture of Dublin, Ireland, for example, is in its essence at it’s quantum level asymmetrical. Look at Collins Barracks, for example, https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Decorative-Arts-History
When I first visited this place, I was stunned by the oppressive symmetry of the massive compound. You don’t see it from the street. You enter the compound by a gate that’s in a wall – you see a wall from the street and when you step through the gate, you are standing in a very big space that has large symmetrical buildings all around it. You feel lost and located at the same time. But this place, like all others is constantly changing, in flux, mobile and asymmetrical at the quantum level.
Symmetry is related to Irony in that it clouds one’s perception while seeming to be sharp, clear, and well-defined. While seeming to represent insight. Irony is often about humor, while Symmetry is about power. Irony attempts to make oppressive power tolerable to the average person who appreciates humor and clever language use. While Symmetry is often on a grand scale, or on the scale of grand or costly items (jewelry, crowns, etc.), irony is on the deeply personal scale of things felt in the body, things understood and taken to heart. Asymmetrical jewelry is ironic and that’s it’s appeal to ordinary people. Very expensive asymmetrical jewelry claims irony as a quality of intelligence and humor belonging to the wealthy.
I don’t worry about expressions of the values represented by Symmetry because a keen desire to present the world as Symmetrical seems easily related to brain chemistry or brain function. It’s seems obsessive. I care about Irony because Irony tends to dismiss things that can be changed as though they cannot be changed because nature itself has intervened and presented the opposite of what was intended, expected, or worked for.
In art, Irony is cheap. In pop music, it represents mental engagement rather than sexual engagement and so in that case it might be interesting. In literature Irony is an easy way out of a paragraph, a chapter, a sentence. In photography, irony is the cheapest way to ridicule contemporary life by pretending to expose its humorous underbelly while in reality presenting a stoppage to personal agency.