The Concept of Humorous Irony: Jorge Portilla, Carlos Alberto Sánchez, Richard Rorty, Jonathan Lear, and Socrates, with Minimal Reference to Kierkegaard

Abstract Jorge Portilla, in his Fenomenolog ía del Relajo , translated by Carlos Alberto Sánchez, argues that there is a specter haunting Mexican society in the mid-Twentieth Century: the “suspension of seriousness” through the value-denying, community-destroying, bad-faith having, truth-apathetic, laughing-at-everything relajo. Sánchez’s insightful investigation of Portilla’s text leaves “relajo” untranslated, but offers several explanations for the term, arguing that such a phenomenon is not unique to Mexico, nor to the mid-Twentieth Century. It is a universal concern that is pressing today, at least for those interested in value, community, authenticity, and truth. For those not interested, well they can go fuck themselves! HA! Now, if I repeated such frivolity and my value-apathetic jocularity spread like a contagion to others, wholly undermining the seriousness embedded in this earnest philosophical investigation into relajo , well, then I might be engaged in something akin to relajo. Portilla suggests an ironic attitude as a means for transcending relajo , the mind-set that is absolutely disinterested in any value, often expressed in repetitive, contagious, and disruptive laughter that undermines personal responsibility and the possibility of genuine community that would otherwise seek truth and solidarity. Indeed, it is an “undiagnosed crisis,” but one that can be raised to consciousness via a properly constituted ironic stance. But, what sort of irony, and could such an ironic attitude suffice for Portilla’s values? What role might humor play in attaining and sustaining value, community, authenticity, freedom, and truth? Can a humorous-ironic attitude be an antidote against the disease of absolute apathy and permanent suspension of seriousness on the one hand, and the absolute dogmatic spirit of seriousness , what Portilla calls the apretado , on the other?