It’s not exactly a fully-formed cultural movement, but there’s this idea of a New Sincerity which seems to describe what’s going on with some people.
[size=85]The next real literary “rebels” in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows. ~DFW
[/size]
Related: What we talk about when we talk about the New Sincerity
Related: Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age’s Ethos
The modern obsession with irony and cynicism can be seen as symptomatic of a detachment from life, where people conceal their actual cares and feelings of investment. There is a degree of obligatory “coolness” that must be shown. Instead of attending to feelings of, say, disappointment or reverence, and thus being moved to some kind of action, one finds an ironic humor in all things, and from this gleans a sense of superiority without doing anything.
Some people are turning away from the popular modes of expression, e.g. irony and cynicism. They risk being thought of as culturally unsophisticated or naive by being openly and authentically invested in the world.
