The Clown and the Person
Our splendid Massimo Francesco di Alghero recently regaled Il Macchiato’s rapidly growing readership with his provocative piece on clowns. After the commonplace calls for silence, terrorism, and humor (you know, the regular stuff), our resident Agambenist prepared his argument’s cheerful denouement: to meet today’s challenges, we need to make room for the Clown. This is the garish mime (crimson of wig, lip, and nose). But it’s also the slapstick clown who delighted clay-hued children on the banks of the Nile. It’s the fat comedian who made Frederick Barbarossa weep from laughter. It’s the silent film actor who received endless banana pies in the face, always with a convincing expression.
Di Alghero distinguishes the Clown from the mythological prankster or the cunning jester. The Clown, instead, is a gesticulatory buffoon, a sort of human octopus, whose mere presence, whose mere bewigged silence, reframes the world. He alters our society for the better. The Clown “grasps his own stupidity, his own evilness, and precisely because of this he finds his place as the most wise and as the most good.” Therefore, it’s the clown of all people, that bumbling idiot, that clumsy creep—always just one leer away from a madhouse—whom we need most of all.
All of this brings me to last week’s presidential debate. The challenger to the throne, Joe Biden (affable moderate; dental miracle) made sure to berate the fat incumbent, Donald Trump (dishonest vulgarian; labial catastrophe) as much as possible. Among the many quips and yelps Biden fired at Trump, there was one which, although mild by today’s standards, caught the attention of numerous newspapers. “It’s hard to get a word in with this clown,” Biden lamented. Then he assumed a strained, mischievous look. “Sorry,” he added. “This person.”
Now, is a clown not a person? In Biden’s estimation—and remember, he’s a guileless fellow—a clown is worse than a person. It’s true; I mean, that’s evidently what he believes. Biden called his loathsome ogre of an opponent a ‘clown,’ but—and here we can extrapolate what beastly relations clownness and personhood maintain in Biden’s fraying mind—apparently even Trump deserved an immediate apology. The final record has Trump as a person, not a clown, in Biden’s eyes.
Yes, this is what we have to work with. On the one hand, I have Massimo telling me that the Clown plays an essential function in modern society, scapegoating and even martyring himself for the greater good. I’m being persuaded that the Clown is a selfless troll who romps about self-flagellatingly in order to defuse mounting tensions. (“The communal joy that these situations ignite is precisely the situationist clown’s only goal, even if he himself must remain in permanent infamy. He induces joy through terror and invites nothing but a burst of laughter.”)
On the other hand, I have the American political establishment robbing clowns of personhood, and implying that a clown is nothing but a selfish moron who gets excited by face-paint and is probably a pederast. If I spend too long under the influence of this culture, I revert to their definition and start to apologize to my own acquaintances after I’ve laughed at their antics. As long as there’s confusion about what a clown is, Massimo and mainstream American discourse will remain hopelessly at odds.
Luckily, I can show that Biden’s view of clowns is disqualified from contest due to logical error. If a clown is not a person, yet a clown is someone with whom it is difficult to get a word in (forgive me, but I am working with limited material here), then a clown must necessarily be a voluble nonperson. According to Wikipedia, a nonperson is a citizen or a member of a group who lacks, loses, or is forcibly denied social or legal status. If a clown is an individual without social or legal status but nonetheless talks incessantly, it’s also reasonable to assume that the clown is aware of his or her nonperson status, and this awareness is recounted in some part of the speech the clown never ceases to produce. Therefore, a clown is an individual who talks about his or her nonperson status, which at least to me seems pretty psychologically advanced and probably sufficient grounds for personhood.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, especially during this decadent phase, that the American elite is so wrong about clowns and reviles them unjustly. But now we know we can dismiss their attacks and misleading statements. So let us reprise: we need clowns now more than ever. And if a corporation can become a person, then our precious clowns should be allowed to make that same transfiguration.
