the AA thesis: an ironist is a witch in church
An ironist in a Boston AA meeting is a witch in church. Irony-free zone. Same with sly disingenuous manipulative pseudo-sincerity. Sincerity with an ulterior motive is something these tough ravaged people know and fear
Context
The anthology's thesis statement, and note that it forbids two things, not one. The room is lethal to irony — "a witch in church" — but equally lethal to "sly disingenuous manipulative pseudo-sincerity," the coy performed earnestness with a motive. The target isn't irony versus sincerity flatly; it's any fortification, ironic or faux-sincere, against the naked single-entendre truth, because these are exactly the "coyly sincere, ironic, self-presenting fortifications" the drinkers built to survive Out There. The same axiom governs the Why: "causal attribution, like irony, is death, speaking-on-Commitments-wise" — the stripper's head-clutchingly prolix etiology is punished the same way the polished ironist is, because both are ways of not just saying what happened. The one place in the culture where the ironic reflex is not armor but liability.