What kind of fool are you . . . today?
A winner from today's New York Times:
Three Kinds of Fool
Writing for the journal In Character, Michael Dirda, Washington Post book columnist, waxes cultural on the three types of fool -- real, professional or unsuspecting:
Real Fools are the innocents, the simpletons, the idiot savants and “naturals” who react to situations and people with an Aspergian lack of restraint or decorum. They speak their unmediated minds, and great truths sometimes emerge, as “out of the mouths of babes.” ... Forrest Gump is our great modern exemplar of this kind of fool. Heaven looks out for such as these.
Professional Fools include court jesters, clowns, toadies, con artists, and a whole range of yes-men. By pretending to be stupid or servile, the Professional Fool coolly aims to reinforce his client’s conviction of his own obvious superiority. ... In the film “The Usual Suspects,” Kevin Spacey is a more complex example: Hunched and crippled (as were many professional court jesters), he’s slightly pitied by the tough and obviously much smarter people all around him. But Verbal Kint is far more than the “talkative child” that his name suggests.
As for Unsuspecting Fools, they are essentially everyone else in the world, starting with you and me. Everybody plays the fool sometimes; there’s no exception to the rule. ... Pride goeth before a fall. In tragic vein, Oedipus and Lear are Unsuspecting Fools.
Three Kinds of Fool
Writing for the journal In Character, Michael Dirda, Washington Post book columnist, waxes cultural on the three types of fool -- real, professional or unsuspecting:
Real Fools are the innocents, the simpletons, the idiot savants and “naturals” who react to situations and people with an Aspergian lack of restraint or decorum. They speak their unmediated minds, and great truths sometimes emerge, as “out of the mouths of babes.” ... Forrest Gump is our great modern exemplar of this kind of fool. Heaven looks out for such as these.
Professional Fools include court jesters, clowns, toadies, con artists, and a whole range of yes-men. By pretending to be stupid or servile, the Professional Fool coolly aims to reinforce his client’s conviction of his own obvious superiority. ... In the film “The Usual Suspects,” Kevin Spacey is a more complex example: Hunched and crippled (as were many professional court jesters), he’s slightly pitied by the tough and obviously much smarter people all around him. But Verbal Kint is far more than the “talkative child” that his name suggests.
As for Unsuspecting Fools, they are essentially everyone else in the world, starting with you and me. Everybody plays the fool sometimes; there’s no exception to the rule. ... Pride goeth before a fall. In tragic vein, Oedipus and Lear are Unsuspecting Fools.
posted by GarryB at 11:07 AM
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