(Not that) Ironic

irony noun

1a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning

b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony

c: an ironic expression or utterance

2a(1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

(2): an event or result marked by such incongruity

b: incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play (called also dramatic irony

3: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning (called also Socratic irony)

That's Merriam-Webster's definition of "irony". I thought it would be a good place to start this post, as I've had the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette stuck in my head this morning. Ever since that song came out, it's bugged me, because I don't feel the things described in the lyrics are particularly ironic. I assume she didn't intend to imply definitions one or three, but in my following analysis, I should accept any meaning. Yes, I'm going to attempt to tear down this song, just to finally get it out of my system.

An old man turned 98
He won the lottery and died the next day

What's supposed to be ironic here? I certainly don't think it's ironic for an elderly person to win the lottery, and it's certainly not ironic for a 98-year-old man to die. So, it must be ironic to die so soon after winning? Maybe, but if you're playing the lottery at 98, you're probably thinking of having something to leave to your family, I would think, and I would assume his children and grandchildren, although saddened by his passing, got to enjoy his winnings. So, not particularly ironic.

It's a black fly in your Chardonnay

Flies get in drinks all the time, and Chardonnay is no exception. Not ironic.

It's a death row pardon two minutes too late

Yes, well the timing is perhaps ironic, but there are unfortunately many prisoners on death row that shouldn't be there (all of them, if you're against capital punishment) that don't get pardons in time.

And isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Not particularly so far.

It's like rain on your wedding day

Well, you certainly don't want rain if your wedding is going to be outdoors, but there's always a risk of that happening. (Funny story: I went to my cousin's wedding in England, which is generally known for poor weather, and it rained on her wedding day, but it didn't rain any of the rest of the two weeks I was there. I'm not sure if that would be considered ironic.)

It's a free ride when you've already paid

I don't know what this is even supposed to mean exactly, like did you buy a non-refundable bus ticket to San Francisco, and then a friend mentioned that they're driving there, and you could come along? Is this ironic? I don't see how.

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

Could be ironic, I suppose, depending on the advice, and what you did contrary to it. Without context, who can tell?

And who would've thought, it figures

Is this her definition of "ironic"? Just something unexpected?

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down, he thought
"Well, isn't this nice?"

Once again, there's a lot going on here, so it's not clear to me what's supposed to be ironic. Certainly people don't expect planes to crash, because mostly, they don't, but plane crashes happen all the time. Furthermore, the fact that fear of flying is so common suggests that there are people who are afraid to fly on a lot of those crashes. It's probably also not uncommon for someone involved in a crash to be a first-time flier. Now, it's possible that Mr. P.I.S. is specifically taking this flight to get over his fear of flying, and the lyrics may subtly suggest that scenario, but why pack a suitcase if you're just flying to prove a point? Maybe I'm reading to much into that particular lyric, and not enough into the rest, which I suppose would be ironic.

The chorus repeats, and bridge:

Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out
When you think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

See, I think this is Alanis Morissette's definition of "ironic": when things go wrong. That simple, and wrong.

A traffic jam when you're already late

If you're already late, why does the traffic jam even matter?

A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

Um, you just need to find a better spot for your smoke.

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

That's a lot of spoons, but not a lot of irony.

It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife

Yeah, a lot of men are married, sorry.

Chorus again and outro:

And, yeah, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

I suppose she's using the phrase "helping you out" ironically here. But that's also the irony of a song called "Ironic" that is largely devoid of irony.

Does it ever not matter?

Two things happened in the last 24 hours that share a common theme in my mind, and it made me think.

This morning, one of my coworkers joked that he was using a blue cutting board to cut beef. There's a color-coded system with the cutting boards, see: red is for beef and pork, blue is for seafood, yellow is for poultry, white is for dairy, and green is for fruits and vegetables. This is the joke, though: this particular coworker as far as I know is the only cook who is still following the system; he was actually cutting salmon. If he's the only one following the system, is the system really even meaningful?

Last night, my wife and I were watching the movie Yesterday. If you don't know it, it's a movie in which a struggling musician gets hit by a bus, and when he wakes up, he discovers he's somehow in a world where the Beatles never existed, but he can remember all their music. So he starts performing Beatles music, and it catapults him to stardom. This is the subtle thing about it: while he is enjoying fame and fortune, you can see that he's tortured because he knows he's not really a brilliant musician, but rather a plagiarist. But is it wrong to plagiarize music that never existed and nobody will ever know that it's not yours? (We only finished about ⅔ of the movie, and there are hints that some sort of reckoning may be coming, but whether or not, I think the question stands.

So the thing I'm pondering is whether a moral or immoral act retains its moral value when the context for its morality is removed. As the title of this post suggests, is there ever a time when morality doesn't matter? And I'm not talking about situational ethics, which I've written about before; those are a matter of one moral issue being overridden by a more pressing moral issue. Is it possible there are times when something that should be a moral choice ceases to be because it's simply divorced of sufficient context to make it matter any more? I feel like using the right cutting board is something one should do regardless of the fact the last person to use said cutting board chopped up raw chicken on it. I feel like plagiarism is always wrong, even if the source of your plagiarism has no chance of being discovered (a potentially real issue in the age of AI). But am I wrong? What do you think?