There is nothing in it to indicate a lack of self awareness. Even if it is "clever", in the detached, above-it-all sense, it doesn't make the premise any less valid. Sometimes a piece can not escape being hypocritical if the object it is scrutinizing is so ever-present that includes the article itself.
It's like if you wrote an essay on the limitations of language, and then someone went "But you're using language to write it". Well that part is inescapable, isn't it? Just like you can't really scrutinize cleverness (in the sense the author intended), without being clever, without being above it all, at least for the duration of the article. You need that vantage point for any sweeping reflections on current culture.
Funny enough, I didn't consider quoting Seinfeld or Oscar Wilde as symptoms of the particular strain of cleverness the author is referring to.
It's like if you wrote an essay on the limitations of language, and then someone went "But you're using language to write it". Well that part is inescapable, isn't it? Just like you can't really scrutinize cleverness (in the sense the author intended), without being clever, without being above it all, at least for the duration of the article. You need that vantage point for any sweeping reflections on current culture.
Funny enough, I didn't consider quoting Seinfeld or Oscar Wilde as symptoms of the particular strain of cleverness the author is referring to.