End of Angst

Remember when people used to worry about the meaning of life? That whole Kerouac/ Herzog thing was eclipsed by the Age of Irony. We had Warhol, punk, Madonna and the travails of Real Life- such as -how to die with the most toys and win. With a wink and a nod people dismissed all things sublime, subliminal, or transubstantiated and learned to love the Simpsons and the suburbs.

Now we have entered the post Irony age where The Donald is proud to have forced up a birth certificate and in so doing tops the polls.If Jim is ironic, Dwight is post-ironic.(Office reference)
Swift Boat Veterans are post-ironic. Joe the Plumber is post-ironic. They look in the fun house mirror and don't make a joke about it, don't worry about it, they just accept exactly what they see. They make the most of being plugged in.

I think what Zizek calls cultural capitalism is post-ironic. A full page ad in Mother Jones invites us to the Lohas Forum at the St.Julien Spa in Boulder Co. which will focus on the "expansion of the $290 billion dollar Conscious Consumer marketplace" (Their capitals)
Topics include:

Conscious Capitalism
The Emerging Sheconomy
Social Entrepreneurship
Moving from Transaction to Transformation

There are pictures of really healthy people doing yoga and holding seedlings and looking at mountains. They are all smiling or seriously engaged. Because you can do good AND do well. Save the earth with every purchase.

Of course Boulder is ground zero for the whole spiritual hierarchy, the enlightened ones who are so much more special than the rest of us, but patient.( fortunately) They have come full circle to the post ironic sublime. Mostly through expensive workshops, smudge sticks, drum circles and fair trade sprouts. Hipster entrepreneurs who donate 1% of before-tax profit to Tibet are the worst counter-revolutionaries.