Tuesday, February 16, 2016

"I'm Not Wise at All. I'm Just a Joker."

"Words, of course, are the most powerful drug known to mankind." - Rudyard Kipling

I've used that line on people more than once. Not Kipling, but the one about being a joker.

I've been a joker since I was about 12. Honest to God, I used to be a class clown when I was 13. At the time I could never figure it out.

I used to do this joker stuff all the time (still do). I remember in college, when I was about 21, we were watching a movie in the house I lived in with about 10 other people. Two guys were in a fight, one defeats the other, then picks him up and helps him offscreen with his arm around his shoulders. I said, "Ah, now they're going to become homosexual lovers," and everyone in the room cracked up. After that, when something unusual happened onscreen, they looked at me for a comment.

I thought, I'd better stop this. I'm not an endless fountain of funny comments.

I also tell women to make cheeseburgers and babies and not worry their girl brains about the serious stuff since there is the possibility they might overheat them and blow a gasket...I mention we have to protect them since they make the babies. Leave the serious stuff for the ones with the boy brains.

Some women think that's funny and some don't. The ones who don't...well, you already know what they're like. They don't understand anything. They think they understand everything, though,

I forgot when I got this from. But it's about some of Jung's theories.


The Fool is a shadow figure distressed by some unconscious lack of power, often driven by greed or an inordinate desire for fame (all archetypes), who projects his or her inadequacies against scapegoats as described above. Modern examples range from political leaders with real power (such as Hitler and Stalin or current leaders from various parts of the globe, including the United States) to some (certainly not all) political commentators, leaders of crusades against minorities, and religious leaders who are intolerant of the other as described above and/or take financial and spiritual advantage of their followers because of their greed and desire for power.  Probably the most famous literary example of the latter is Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, but channel surfing the TV or radio and doing an Internet search will easily provide more contemporary examples of all the fools I cite.  These fools or tricksters generally suffer from psychic "inflation"; they are unconsciously possessed by archetypal forces or figures that drive them to compensate for their psychic split by persecuting others.  When such figures have real power, it goes without saying they can and do cause real harm against their own people and especially against others whom they demonize as the enemy. Most wars involve this kind of psychology on the part of those who lead their nations to war. War and Peace are powerful archetypes. The Fool is not always negative, of course.  A relatively benevolent form of the fool is the Clown, who is more aware of his or her trickster aspect, perhaps, than is the fool.  Indeed, laughter can be a great healing force. That cruelty is often a part of comedy demonstrates a need to displace our own shadow urges to be cruel.  The clown is cruel, or suffers cruelty, for us. The trickster often plays this role, for the trickster and the fool or the clown usually embody the same archetype.


Saddam Hussein, for example, was a Fool. He once told his generals to capture a few hundred American soldiers, so they could be tied to the front of Iraqi tanks. Hitler used to move around nonexistent troops on a map. Stalin? He told his scientists to create human/chimpanzee hybrids to use as soldiers.

I once had an 85-year-old man, who spent his life in politics (not as a politician) tell me that every politician he met (with one exception) had sex (as in pervert) and drug problems.

Fools, all of them!

Comedy is tragedy plus time!

I do know that all humor (except puns) is based on hostility. There are always winners and losers. Sometimes it's even based on cruelty.

Here's a joke I still tell people. What's the difference between a truckload of dead babies and a truckload of bowling balls? You can't pick up bowling balls with a pitchfork.

See? Hostility. People grimace but always laugh.

I see straight through fools. It's why I pointed out, contrary to the naive that defend them, that "Roissy" and "Roosh" are fools. I called it years ago. I see straight through them.

How is this possible? Because I'm a joker? I do know that Fools lack power and don't really like people, even if they pretend they do. (I guarantee you "Roosh" and "Roissy" don't like women).

Can all jokers and comedians see through people this easily? All of them are social critics, and pretty perceptive ones, even if they aren't very funny (think George Carlin).

Contrary to what many people think, Dubya Shrub Bush is a lot worse of a man than Yomama, because he has no sense of humor. I called what Shrub is right from the beginning. And it didn't surprise me at all that he started two inept wars. That's what the humorless do.

Now we make a brief detour to Donald Trump. Trump is despised by both parties because they think he's a buffoon, a vulgarian. He's not. He's a trickster, since he tricks his opponents into attacking him and then he makes fools of them.

I tell people if you want to understand mythology, look for modern examples. People despise both parties because they are chronic liars - a bad aspect of the trickster. The way Woodrow Wilson said he was going to keep us out of WWI and then dived in head first. Or the way Roosevelt did the same with WWII. Or Bush and Rumsfield babbling about nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction."

Politicians say one thing to get elected then do the exact opposite when in office. The Bad Trickster.

They've had 40 years to fix the problems they caused but in fact have made them worse.

Are all politicians Fools, i.e. buffoons? Driven by the love of power and greed and sadism and desire for attention and sex and drugs? Except for the occasional exception? It's been the history of the world. And the ones who don't pay are the politicians driven by the Seven Deadly Sins and those who do pay are the citizens.

I do know that all humor (except puns) is based on hostility. There are always winners and losers.

Everyone I've known with no sense of humor thinks they are always right, and those who disagree with aren't merely mistaken, but bad people.

Humor is a way to get rid of our hostility. The less humor, the more hostility, and the more persecution and scapegoating of the innocent. Or as Michael J. Fox so perceptively noted, the person with no sense of humor is the scariest person in the world.

A surprisingly good movie, that I've mentioned before a few times, is The Cabin in the Woods. One of the characters in the movie, Marty, fits the archetype of the Fool (in fact he is referred to as the Fool, one to be sacificied to keep the Ancient Gods asleep). But he is a funny and perceptive Fool, i.e. a Clown. And he suffered cruelly, although he never complained.

What else does he do? See through everything. And he's the only one who does. And he's well aware of his flaws, his streak of cowardice, for example, for letting a woman get attacked by a werewolf.

I know a fair amount about propaganda, persuasion and advertising rechniques. It's amazing the number of people who fall for these tricks.

That's what we jokers do. See through everyone.

3 comments:

Simon said...

Great post, Bob. Do you have any book to recommend about this stuff? I'd like to learn more but I don't know where to start.

Anonymous said...

Funny Hillary ad parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFsFZwpB-tE

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