Ironically into the End of an Era, with Continual Reference to Kierkegaard

Given the present complexity of contemporary discourse, accelerated in the online, of deep political schisms and competing worldviews, it is difficult to say what awaits us in the transition from modernity to twenty-first-century globalism. Instead, what most characterizes the culmination of our age is irony. The author questions whether anyone in late modernity is being sincere about their convictions, or if this is even possible, through an analysis of the discourse on COVID-19 and the global pandemic response. Drawing from the works of German Romantic ironist Friedrich Schlegel and Søren Kierkegaard’s writings on irony and the religious, the author attempts to discern a path forward now at the end of an era.