Eleven theses on the Fool

Abstract

Perhaps, today we can reverse Hegel’s objective idealist formula in The Philosophy of History. It is not reason but foolery that rules the world and foolery is the false-true, eternally apparent and the absolutely powerful. The Fool in ‘thought’, orientation, action and expression (destruction of the planet, submission to traditional and modern hierarchies, deification of private property, granting free movement to corporates and capital over beings, mass caging of the vulnerable, populism, virtual lynching, ‘cancel culture’, hoarding toilet paper and canola oil, etc.) poses an existential social and planetary threat. All of this begs the urgent question, who is the being that commits to such acts? And, what social forces, processes and apparatuses give birth to or encourage the emergence of this being? In other words, who or what is the Fool, and what is their tomfoolery? Here via a historical materialist account I put forward eleven ontological, epistemological and ethical theses on what constitutes, manufactures and defines the properties of the Fool. It would seem that foolishness is one subset of the set of alienation derived from statist hierarchical relations and the regime of private property. A Fool is always alienated but an alienated being is not necessarily a Fool.