Attributed to Cornelis Anthonisz.: The wise man and the wise woman (1540 - 1545)

"Imaginary performance. Man and woman with all their attributes, represent many virtues and biblical metaphors. A woman with horse legs and hooves holds in her right hand a stand depicting the crucified Christ and in the other hand a can, a lock on her mouth, a dove on her chest and a snake around her waist. Man with compass and scale and dog at his feet. Left and right of the presentation text in Dutch."

"These lessons will be lost on even the very best of them."

The proper administration of Irony requires something other than mere administrative or standard leadership skills. It first demands of its incumbent a sincere dedication to obliviousness. This requires the opposite of focus. One must also be more than merely capable of producing endless streams of serious non-sequiturs, but possess the parallel ability to never once catch just how self-disclosing these seem to everyone else. One must also maintain multiple hidden agendas that remain open to public acknowledgement, ensuring everyone understands their purpose better than their creator. The entirely successful incumbent will pick fights he cannot possibly win, only to pick additional fights whenever it's clear he's lost. He must never admit to any wrongdoing and must convince himself, if only ironically, and nobody else, that he's not the biggest loser to ever hold office. Above all, the obliviousness must be sustained at all costs. Undiagnosed cognitive dysfunction, a definite plus.

Sycophancy also seems a must for the proper administration of Irony. A cadre of butt-sniffing, boot-licking admirers who cannot, for the life of the least of them, ever see a serious problem in violating any subordinate's constitutional rights. They must maintain an unshakable sense of superiority, as if equality means they deserve the lion's share of every pie. They must also prove themselves capable of not just telling lies, but of cleverly crafting as many additional ones as might be needed on the fly. No scriptwriters or copyeditors must be employed to ensure the absence of redundancies, contradictions, and omissions, for the presence of these encourages widespread confusion, an essential element in the successfully ironic administration. Each must also prove themselves fully capable of falling apart before both congressional and senatorial committees, and even the odd special prosecutor, should that become necessary. It will most certainly prove to be required, for Irony eventually erodes into inescapable legal jeopardy.

The successful incumbent must maintain an unshakable sense of personal well-being. He must believe he was born to lead, without suggesting even a hint of underlying Irony in his proclamations. He must look marvelous in Emporor’s New Clothes! He must sincerely believe himself to be at least an emporor or king. The public will show their satisfaction by laughing behind the incumbent's back. The successful incumbent and his spokespersons will not only not get the joke, but they'll fail to see that anybody was ever joking. They will take each and every utterance with all undue seriousness, thereby turning even the tiniest administrative acts into an absolute parody of such acts. Later generations might cast the incumbent as some sort of boob, but no one in the present administration will believe they're working for anybody less than an absolute genius. They must not feign confusion when confronting dissent, but exhibit sincere disbelief that anyone would or could want to engage in that.

In short, the proper administration of Irony requires a perfectly infallible individual accompanied by a cadre of equally infallibles. They must prove themselves incapable of error. They must believe in the ultimate righteousness of their cause. They must interpret faith as unshakable belief. As for religion, they must be Christian, and not one of those more inclusive sects that go around emulating Christ, for Christ's sake, but a properly militarized one armed with the AR-15 of self-righteousness and be unafraid to use it against any and all tenacious unbelievers they might encounter. Each member of such an administration must also freely sign a binding, if technically illegal, non-disclosure agreement to ensure goodness and mercy in their every action. No one will agree to speak candidly with anybody representing any media company on the threat of public humiliation and repudiation. When the time comes, each member of the properly ironic administration, including the titular head, must agree to take a fatal one for the team, for nothing better screams success than a continuing string of embarrassing public failures. These lessons will be lost on even the very best of them.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz