Human folly: Think videos that people post. Why? Why, really? Who has the desire to make a fool of himself or herself? What’s to gain?
Sometime shortly before or after the beginning of the thirteenth century in Europe, royalty began to admit court jesters into gatherings of aristocrats. Either people with disabilities, some associated with brain dysfunction and some with physical problems, or people who were early versions of comedians began to “entertain” at court.
Today, we are all “royalty.” Turn on your computer or TV to see as many jesters as you have the energy to watch. And unlike the thirteenth century jesters whose geographic isolation of one court from another minimized competition, today’s internet jesters are out to “out-jest” competitors. We’ve taken foolishness to a new level. You can sit in a coffee shop and watch a jestor online. We’ve turned every place into a potential monarch’s court, and in doing so, we’ve turned ourselves into bored royalty seeking entertainment in the folly of others. Never a dull moment, is there?
Of course, you might, as a reader of this website, argue that you would never yourself purposefully become someone else’s fool.* And I hope that’s true. But are you tempted at times to see human folly, to experience vicariously fails and falls?
Comedy is great, and laughing is therapeutic. We’re better when we have a sense of humor in a world filled with tragedy. And we avoid the pitfalls of vanity when we can “laugh” at ourselves. But there’s a loss of dignity in jestors whose acts are self-demeaning, sadomasochistic, or dangerous to others.
Since at least the early 1200s the western culture has supported and encouraged jestors. The formal incorporation of jestors into courts ignores an informal history of royal entertainment that probably goes back not just hundreds, but thousands of years before those medieval courts and clowns. Jestors might even be as old as culture itself. That the tradition continues on the Web should be no surprise. Like the royalty of nearly a millennium ago, our society encourages—and sometimes even rewards—such folly.
The rise of folly arguably coincided with the rise of our species. That we incorporated it in our cyberplaces was probably inevitable. The early inventions that led to motion pictures were indicators of our penchant for foolish display. When William Kennedy Dickson (1860-1935) worked for Edison, he helped to develop the kinetograph, an early “motion-picture” camera. In 1891 he starred in a three-second movie in which he moved his hat from one hand to the other. After leaving Edison’s employ, he founded the American Mutoscope Company. What films did he make? Were they of great consequence? Were they profound? No, he made peep shows of young women undressing or posing in the nude for “artists.” Folly?
So, now, as we enter the Age of AI, will robot versions replace our human jestors? They already have. They play music, do our bidding in limited ways, and even serve as companions for today’s “royalty.” We can’t get enough of jesting, especially when it involves the diminution of others, even “fake” others.
You could argue that the court jestors of our age do nothing to diminish human dignity, that they simply perform harmless entertainment, and that their rising machine counterparts will do more of the same. Maybe you are correct, and the next time you see someone playing court jestor, you might blame me for putting a question about it into your head. Sorry for possibly spoiling your future entertainment.
But you are, in fact, king or queen of your own court. You get to choose the nature of that society, even the virtual part of it.
*This is obviously a vanity. Maybe you consider this website to be the epitome of folly.
Sometime shortly before or after the beginning of the thirteenth century in Europe, royalty began to admit court jesters into gatherings of aristocrats. Either people with disabilities, some associated with brain dysfunction and some with physical problems, or people who were early versions of comedians began to “entertain” at court.
Today, we are all “royalty.” Turn on your computer or TV to see as many jesters as you have the energy to watch. And unlike the thirteenth century jesters whose geographic isolation of one court from another minimized competition, today’s internet jesters are out to “out-jest” competitors. We’ve taken foolishness to a new level. You can sit in a coffee shop and watch a jestor online. We’ve turned every place into a potential monarch’s court, and in doing so, we’ve turned ourselves into bored royalty seeking entertainment in the folly of others. Never a dull moment, is there?
Of course, you might, as a reader of this website, argue that you would never yourself purposefully become someone else’s fool.* And I hope that’s true. But are you tempted at times to see human folly, to experience vicariously fails and falls?
Comedy is great, and laughing is therapeutic. We’re better when we have a sense of humor in a world filled with tragedy. And we avoid the pitfalls of vanity when we can “laugh” at ourselves. But there’s a loss of dignity in jestors whose acts are self-demeaning, sadomasochistic, or dangerous to others.
Since at least the early 1200s the western culture has supported and encouraged jestors. The formal incorporation of jestors into courts ignores an informal history of royal entertainment that probably goes back not just hundreds, but thousands of years before those medieval courts and clowns. Jestors might even be as old as culture itself. That the tradition continues on the Web should be no surprise. Like the royalty of nearly a millennium ago, our society encourages—and sometimes even rewards—such folly.
The rise of folly arguably coincided with the rise of our species. That we incorporated it in our cyberplaces was probably inevitable. The early inventions that led to motion pictures were indicators of our penchant for foolish display. When William Kennedy Dickson (1860-1935) worked for Edison, he helped to develop the kinetograph, an early “motion-picture” camera. In 1891 he starred in a three-second movie in which he moved his hat from one hand to the other. After leaving Edison’s employ, he founded the American Mutoscope Company. What films did he make? Were they of great consequence? Were they profound? No, he made peep shows of young women undressing or posing in the nude for “artists.” Folly?
So, now, as we enter the Age of AI, will robot versions replace our human jestors? They already have. They play music, do our bidding in limited ways, and even serve as companions for today’s “royalty.” We can’t get enough of jesting, especially when it involves the diminution of others, even “fake” others.
You could argue that the court jestors of our age do nothing to diminish human dignity, that they simply perform harmless entertainment, and that their rising machine counterparts will do more of the same. Maybe you are correct, and the next time you see someone playing court jestor, you might blame me for putting a question about it into your head. Sorry for possibly spoiling your future entertainment.
But you are, in fact, king or queen of your own court. You get to choose the nature of that society, even the virtual part of it.
*This is obviously a vanity. Maybe you consider this website to be the epitome of folly.
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