Priest and jester in the policy sciences: Developing the focus of inquiry

Abstract

Once the tension between priest and jester has been recognized, it becomes possible not only to keep it alive in developing the focus of inquiry, but also to seek a better balance (or imbalance) between the two. Yet, as Ron Brunner has pointed out (1984), an editor is rightly constrained by others - contributors, reviewers, colleagues. Helping to develop the focus of inquiry means not only taking initiative and staking out directions, but also responding to the spontaneous initiatives of others and encouraging them in their directions. That policy of a journal points to a desirable condition of inquiry and anticipates a desirable, even if hardly imaginable, condition of public life (cf. Schon, 1983, ch. 10). The most renowned of jesters, Lear's Fool, inhabits the margins of a world marked by delusion, disguise, deception, and betrayal; he ‘would fain learn to lie,’ (I. iv. 173) but his wit, through riddle and paradox, instead persistently conveys an unwanted truth. The jester becomes not just a source of amusement to his master, but a ‘pestilent gall’ (I. iv. 110). As an apparently ordered and rational world turns to chaos and excess, however, the Fool paradoxically remains constant (II. iv. 75–84). Those who will abandon and betray the old King are those who appear most coldly rational; indeed, it is the jester who is the most reliable of counsellors, enigmatically offering wisdom. The Fool's enigmatic counsel of moderation is (like Cordelia's gift) seen as a worthless ‘nothing’ (I. iv. 114–128). The jester brings vitality and wit to make us laugh. Yet the comic mood of the jester's clowning only sets in sharper relief something else we know. The jester has a serious side and allows us - if we will but look and listen - to laugh at ourselves, to see ourselves as others see us, to take that crucial step in developing the focus of inquiry whereby we expose ourselves to ourselves. Douglas Torgerson