A Holy Fool
Peasant Times-Dispatch Issue 26
The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.
- Cervantes
Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes is the author of Don Quixote, which is an important book to Scoot Lore. He wrote other things, but I have not read them. For now, this is the only quote of his on my list, if I were to look I am sure I would find more worth sharing. For now, please enjoy this cameo appearance by the incisive and insightful Spanish author.
Fool Of A Man
This quote speaks to me, because it speaks to a paradoxical aspect of human nature. We simultaneously want to be wise and insightful, and to be known to be wise and insightful. In short, we want prestige1.
Somehow or other I went through childhood and early adulthood around people who took reputation very seriously. I’ve spent a lot of time around people who want to be the funniest in the room, the smartest in the room, the most rebellious in the room. As I grew up and cultivated an “internet life”2 I encountered people online fighting hard to preserve their reputation or status. I engaged in some fights myself to these ends! Even if I “won” (I can’t think of a time I ever did), I came away feeling gross.
At some point, I don’t remember when, I realized that the only way to differentiate myself from “everyone else” I was encountering online was to take myself the least seriously3. It was contrary to everything I was seeing. And it made silly arguments evaporate. No one I spoke to felt threatened about their reputation or status. No one I spoke to worried about some kind of rhetorical attack. And so the people I was speaking to opened up and I could learn from them. Arguments could become discussions. Discussions could become lessons. I was a student at their feet, and because no one took me seriously, many people consented to teach me.
The only thing that was getting between me and honest, interesting discourse, was me.
An ancillary point, I have found, is that when I do choose to speak seriously on some topic—something I am very careful to do sparingly and selectively and carefully—more people4 tend to listen.
Sancte Stulte
There’s two aspects to what Cervantes is discussing with his quote. The first is a kind of theatrical trope. Many plays will have a fool on the stage to offer comic relief. I recently read Canticle for Leibowitz, and there was a character called the Poet and his role was to call out the foolishness of all the characters around him, culminating in one final, massive roast at a formal dinner. The fool is often how the author of a book or play injects humor, some self awareness, pricks the consciences of the other tragic or comedic characters. The fool, then, must have a conscience, and must understand the tragedy or comedy playing around him. The fool must be insightful because he wishes to appear insightless.
The second aspect is what St Francis of Assisi called the Sancte Stulte. In an effort to humble his own pride, he pursued embarrassing, painful, and foolish deeds to lower his stature in the eyes of others and mortify his self-image. The Holy Fool follows Christ because he reserves nothing for himself, not even his own dignity and esteem—he gives everything in following Jesus. Likewise to the theatrical fool, the Holy fool must have a sense of what holiness is, and must have a sense of where his conscience needs to be pricked.
The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth
The common thread between both kinds of fool is an awareness of conscience—ones own, or that of the performance surrounding him. We can leverage this understanding to our own good by cultivating that same awareness. When the times are serious, do not become attached to a desire to be right, to win, to fix, to correct: a holy fool accepts the opposite of these things for his own good. When you feel angry, disturbed, wounded, or proud: do not favor your own interior peace and comfort over others. Perhaps our consciences need humbling, in the manner of St Francis?
Christ tells us that the meek shall inherit the earth. Meekness is an expression of restraint, of obedience, and humility. When Christ gave the beatitudes as part of the Sermon on the Mount, he was speaking to us lay folk, the peasants. The world will always, always aggravate. There will be deeds and misdeeds that fire our spirit and make us seek rectification. But if we take the attitude of the Holy Fool—perhaps it was our own conscience that needed to be pricked all along? And the Church, which has endured such humiliations for 2,000 years5 will labor on the weary road to Calvary.
Thank you for reading! God bless!
AJPM
This is a topic that merits more discussion but I’m waiting until I find the right quote.
Exterior life: the things you do for fun. Interior life: how you live inside your head. Internet life: how you live online.
No—no, no. This whole post is not and will not be self congratulatory tripe. I am not saying I am the most foolish and therefore the most wise/insightful/holy. I am saying I arrived at foolishness by honest means, and discovered it was helpful. I remain very much a work in progress.
Not many people. More people.
A footnote on Luce. The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church—do we really think lil’ Luce is going to succeed where satan cannot? The best revenge we can have is that history will not remember Luce at all. We can pray that God uses the cartoon for some good somewhere, and because no prayer is wasted we can trust that God will follow through. Shake the dust from your shoes—it’s going to be okay.