Lose the Label
A Student Activist Community

posted by Kensai on June 5, 2008 - 8:58am

I've heard, from a theatre professor, this story:

In the medival courts, the only indispensible position was that of the jester. The jester was so important because no one else could tell the truth to the king. The knights for all their strength, the ministers for all of their import, the priests for all the influence they wielded, all had to tell the king what he wanted to hear, all had to be kind to him, or they would be jailed or killed for treason upon the king. However, the jester was different. He could always be honest, never had to flatter, never had to lie, and, although he wielded no power directly, this made him critical.

So, when a king jailed his jester, it was the most unhappy of signs. If the king was either so egotistical, or so far off of the correct path that he could no longer listen to the one whose job it was to speak the truth to him no matter what, things were either very bad in the nation, or about to turn that way.

And to this day, the theory holds, from the Smuthers Brothers during Vietnam to the Blue Blouse companies in Soviet Russia, when a nation begins to crack down on the comedians in its society, that country is in for the worst of times ahead.

Guess who just got arrested in Burma.

Paix et amour,

Joe!