Orwellian irony is irony that is explicitly political in nature.
Orwellian irony shows the poverty of the
philosophy and
history undergirding what some
people use as the justifying narrative for their political commitment and it can also be used to categorize
people's arguments for or against freedom, liberty, etc. that are disconnected from history, legality, etc.
Orwellian irony is often situational.
Examples include:
A person unaware that the foundations of their self-chosen political identity are based on a misunderstanding of historical events refusing to investigate counter-claims made in an online debate.
A person at a protest claiming to be against
government encroachment of rights that then runs away when
police start violating their counter-protestors constitutional rights rather than helping.
When an AnCap tries to delegitimize a Socialist's criticisms of the economy by saying: "Well you wrote that on a smartphone, which was made by capitalism" this is an example of Orwellian irony because Leonid Kupriyanovich, a Soviet, invented much of the technology prior to the
U.S., but also as much of the technology developed to make this was done by Federally funded research grants.
That a propaganda outlet, TeleSUR, which is managed by a state that has exploited a crisis to silence free press outlets like El Nacional, decided to use a private media outlet, Jacobin, to obfuscate the truth surrounding their brief unpublishing on
Facebook and to call for increased
government regulation is one of the most
perfect examples of Orwellian irony ever.