By Lucas Redekop
One of my favourite blogs is entitled Stuff White People Like (SWPL). The blog is self-aware critique of young, educated urbanites written by a white guy named Christian Lander. I often am amazed and sometimes embarrassed of how predictable my “original” ideas and thoughts are. About two-thirds of the posts describe me in some way and a few describe me perfectly. 
One of the reoccurring issues the posts’ deals with is the use of irony (post #50) by “white” people. Lander describes exceedingly well my generation’s use of irony as a defense against making any claims of truth and thus avoiding any form of association. Lander writes about styles (Post #121), music ( #116, #108, #107), and events (#118) that are referenced by young educated, urban people in an ironical way to avoid being criticized by more “in-the-know” young, educated, urban people. For example, ugly sweater parties (#118) allow no-one and everyone to be critiqued because everyone is dressed ironically.
Now SWPL is primarily humourous and is not to be taken seriously, but I do think Lander is right in noting my generation’s frequent use of irony as diversion. The blog itself uses irony to sidestep saying anything of substance or debating certain merits or demerits of a certain topic. Instead of trying to deal with a certain problem or make a truth claim (the horror) Lander revels in the very thing he hates.
How, I ask, did we come to this point and what is the way out?
To give our generation credit, I think part of our hesitation to associate with any particular group or make any truth claims is our knowledge of past mistakes. Our generation is very analytical and possesses a vast amount of present and historical knowledge. We have seen the failure of great political and societal projects such as communism, capitalism, militarized states and sometimes even the church, to not only address issues of economic injustice and inequality but even exacerbate these issues. Hence our skepticism when presented with the next big idea.
So my question is, “How will we as Christians speak of and associate with the one who is the Truth in a world that is predominately post-truth?”
For an excellent article on the struggle to write about goodness, truth and hope in a world that is sometimes never any of these things please read this New Yorker article on David Foster Wallace: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?yrail
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