Wednesday, April 5, 2017

The Fool and the Knave

















from The Ticklish Subject:

"The fool is a simpleton, a court jester who is allowed to tell the truth precisely because the 'performative power' (the sociopolitical efficiency) of his speech is suspended; the knave is the cynic who openly states the truth, a crook who tries to sell the open admission of his crookedness as honesty, a scoundrel who admit the need for illegitimate repression in order to maintain social stability.

Following the fall of Socialism, the knave is a neo-conservative advocate of the free market, who cruelly rejects all forms of social solidarity as counterproductive sentimentalism; while the fool is a multiculturalist 'radical' social critic who, by means of his ludic procedures destined to 'subvert' the existing order, actually serves as its supplement."













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