Minchiate - Fool

[Fire Cat]

I have a theory about the fool. It ties in with Helvetica's citations about the Wise Fool is King Lear, harkens back to full deck's wonderful link, from The Dictionary of the History if Ideas, and helps me to see the Fool as the innocent, playful, "simpleton," of fluffy's:

I am going out on a limb here, and I know it. What if the term "fool" is actually not only being used in its literal sense, but is a term taken on by those these wise folk; the ones without book-learning, the autodidacts; themselves to take away the power to offend? I mean look at these offensive terms associated with the word “fool:”

Originally Posted by from WISDOM OF THE FOOL by Walter Kaiser

empty-headed (μάταιος, inanis, fool), dull-witted (μῶρος, stultus, dolt, clown), feebleminded (imbécile dotard), and lacks understanding (ἄνοοσ, ἄφρων insipiens); that he is different from normal men (idiot); that he is either inarticulate (Tor) or babbles incoherently (fatuus) and is given to boisterous merrymaking (buffone); that he does not recognize the codes of propriety (ineptus) and loves to mock others (Narr); that he acts like a child (νήπιος ); and that he has a natural simplicity and innocence of heart (εὐήθης, natural, simpleton)

As a gay man speaking from experience, I might as well remove the term “fool” and insert the term “queer!” The vice associated with the Virtue of Prudence (a.k.a. “The Fool;” the opposite of prudence) is:

Originally Posted by from THE VIRTUES AND VICES IN MEDIEVAL SOCIETY¹ by Nicolaa de Bracton

...lust (Luxuria) includ[ing] fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy, sex with those in orders or under vows, masturbation, and "abuse" (any sex outside the "marital debt.") It also includes love of worldly luxuries. Its opposite virtue is Prudence (prudentia), which keeps the incorrupt from corruption and includes providence, circumspection, caution, and docility.

As today’s GLBT community embraces the term “queer,” so do African Americans by removing the stereotype and stigma attached to the “N” word in their modern colloquialism.

Is it reasonable to anticipate that our predecessors; the fortune tellers, the actors, the playwrites, the artists, the shamans, those who dwell between the sexes, the gypsies, (etc.) of the day; had been lumped into this category, this of the “Fool?” And by naming "the Fool" as such, is this our predecessors' attempt to level the playing field by removing the negative connotations of the word “fool” from the popular lexicon?

More than ever identify I with the Fool than the Magician.

¹THE VIRTUES AND VICES IN MEDIEVAL SOCIETY

KK