Posted by
Ender on Thursday, March 20, 2008 5:01:25 PM
"In days of old, when knights were bold,
and Royalty's wishes the law of the lands,
then any who spoke, out 'gainst such folk,
quickly would find things were out of their hands."
In putting forward my blog, I thought I'd let the first post be a quick explanation of why I chose the name I did. We seem, at least in some areas, to be heading into what might be loosely, perhaps tounge-in-cheek, described as a neoFeudal society. Or more precisely, we have a class of self-elevated 'nobles' who feel they know what is best for the peasants they grace with their magnificent reign...to whit, the 'ivory tower' elites of our institutions of higher education, and the politically-minded individuals who hold to the same views. Note that the average liberal is not, in fact, one of the elites; from what I've seen, they're actually courtiers.
This isn't to say that these modern noblemen and -women don't meet the requirements; it's my understanding that several of the actual medieval noble families began (and endured) about the same way. (Sheer bullying, with either the authority or the power to back it up.) The nature of the noble's weapons is all that has changed, really. The edge of the sword has been replaced with the edge of the law (which, strangely enough, always seems to favor the liberal outlook), and likewise, the army of men-at-arms has become the army of attorneys-at-law.
Historically, the right to free speech/expression, as well as most of the other rights we take for granted in this country, belonged only to the nobles and their favored few. The popular image of this* is as follows: anyone else who chose to speak out against them would suffer for it; after a while, the peonage would no longer be able to do so, as the elder members shushed youngers who might say a word that could be misconstrued. Sound familiar?
The same popular image, however, grants something resembling freedom of speech to another type of individual, the Court Jester. Admittedly, it's not a very honored position; historically, the role appears to have often been filled by the mentally ill...a comment on the nature of humanity in general, I guess you could say. Still, tradition seems to grant the Jester with a freedom not only to speak, but to openly dispute and debase the views of the nobles; the nobility could always shrug it off as 'just a jest', and therefore not need do anything about it. Still, the points a Jester would make might cause those who heard him to think, always a good thing.
Given that our own self-proclaimed elites seem to have taken a similar tack with all conservatives ("oh, you just don't know what you're talking about"), and that I've noticed many already seem to take all openly conservative individuals as fools, I thought I'd attempt to turn the tables on them a bit. Despite its intelligence-related connotations, 'Fool' is also another title for the Jester of lore, and they cannot slur me with a title I've taken on as a badge of honor. For anyone to attempt it would merely reveal himself to be incapable of attempting to find another method of attack. And maybe, just maybe, someone might be brought to think because of what I can say.
I know I'm not alone in this. I've seen several others on this site who, by skill with words or cleverness of wit, have taken the same approach to dealing with those in our new 'nobility' and their hangers-on. To them I say 'Thank you', and I can only hope that someday I'll be as capable at that art as you.
*I say the popular image because I don't know enough about medieval history to state for certain whether or not it was accurate historically, but this is the image given by most items of modern and near-modern culture (films, novels, etc).