Sunday, January 20, 2019

Fools

I watched a bit of Rudy Giuliani’s performance on CNN this morning and thought again of how much he reminds me of a Shakespearean fool. The Shakespearean fool serves a king. Giuliani serves a would-be king. The Shakespearean fool speaks whatever comes into his head. Giuliani — yes, the same.

The great difference: the Shakespearean fool speaks truth to power. He speaks wisdom in the form of deeply sensical nonsense. Giuliani speaks mere nonsense, a fast-paced double-talk whose purpose is to befuddle. He’s really no Shakespearean fool at all, though he does play a fool on TV.

By Michael Leddy at 1:01 PM

5 comments:

  1. FrexJanuary 21, 2019 4:14 PM

    Came across this quote today, MLK Day, and thought of your post here.

    "Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools."
    -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael LeddyJanuary 21, 2019 4:58 PM

    That’s truth, I think. It reminds me of the line in Auden’s “September 1, 1939” (later borrowed by LBJ): “We must love one another or die.”

    ReplyDelete
  3. FrexJanuary 22, 2019 5:11 PM

    LBJ used that?!!? Wow... I did not know that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael LeddyJanuary 22, 2019 5:45 PM

    It’s in the daisy commercial, slightly altered.

    ReplyDelete
  5. FrescaJanuary 22, 2019 9:18 PM

    Oh, thanks. That ad is surreal--as if it's a spoof, like something out of Dr Strangelove.

    ReplyDelete

Play fair. Keep it clean. No potshots and no derailing. Thanks.

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