Dialogue With History: Roles of Irony in Thinking About New Kinds of War

Abstract

By definition irony is surprising, an undermining of assumptions in comparing alternative scenarios. It should, therefore, contribute to innovative planning, especially when questioning assumptions is important. Using creative thinking about new types of international conflict as examples, this article considers roles of irony in developing innovative plans. The research compares a detailed analysis of Bernard Shaw's prescient insights at the beginning of WWI to current discourses on international conflicts. The Shaw study identifies the overt irony in an early essay about the Great War, using a protocol designed to isolate ironies in comparisons of expected and unexpected situations (scripts and script anomalies). It then examines the integration of the identified ironies with nonironic thinking in Shaw's 1914 proposal for a Western European mutual defense pact. This example shows how irony can be part of a complex and ongoing thought process, playing pivotal roles in the movement from widely held assumptions to innovative plans. The discussion then considers the importance of such ironic thinking in current American discourse.