In Western culture, the character of the court jester has served both entertainment and social critique. Shakespeare's King Lear is its most successful literary expression. The affectionate treatment the king bestows upon this character is reciprocated with maxims, song lyrics, and audacious phrases capable of revealing the machinations of power and the vulnerability of the human condition ("You had little sense in your bald crown, when you yielded to another, golden one," Act I, Scene 4).
By clumsily dividing the kingdom among his heiresses, Lear precipitates contempt for his senile condition. Faced with the king's fickleness, the eldest daughters agree to remove him from decision-making, denying him all privileges. Cordelia, the youngest, disinherited in the division of inheritance for not emphatically expressing her appreciation for her father, has characteristics similar to the Fool: she does not disguise the truth to gain benefits, unlike her sisters.
In the first act, Lear asks if Cordelia is speaking from the heart . The young woman replies that she is, but the king calls her impolite and "too young." "So young, my lord, and truthful ," she replies. Expressing the truth of the heart betrays the group's expectations and calls for a certain ironic audacity. Cordelia, the disinherited daughter, and the Fool, the only one who remains loyal to the king, represent, respectively, these two demands of truth: the heart and reason.
These characters are excluded from the political game, but this, in the logic of dramatic action, invests them with a dual power of a different kind: the power of feeling and reason. These investments reveal, respectively, a tragic and a comic side. The tragic side resides in Cordélia's murder at the end of the play. The comic appears in the Fool's provocations, indicating the contingent nature of human relationships. Political power is laid bare, leaving a crucial question: how to reconcile, in institutional spaces, the tragic truth of feeling with the comic truth of reason? In other words, how to survive in spaces of power?
In an exercise of imagination, we could propose these roles in our context. Why not create, for example, the position of "Court Jester" in the academic sphere? Similar to the Shakespearean character, he would enjoy the esteem of the leader, remaining loyal to him in his critical moments. Balancing between tragic sentiment and comic reason, he would have license to speak, through jokes and irony, the unspeakable truths in the spheres of decision-making. True to his irreverence, he would be present at official ceremonies (from graduation ceremonies to thesis defenses) and institutional meetings (from student assemblies to the University Council). It would be a unique and innovative case in 21st-century public administration.
What would be the criteria for his probationary period? How would he be classified when requesting funding from agencies for his comedic activities? Would he have to be a competitive international leader in the field of satire? Would he be exempt from the ordeal of the Sucupira platform? Would his output be measured by the number of likes and cancellations?
In this academic fable, the Fool would mock the promotional videos of institutional bodies, with their belief in the redemptive nature of the university entrance exam and affirmative action policies. He would request a "permanent housing grant," with lifetime access to the university cafeteria and public transportation. His only compensation would be to display, at the beginning and end of each semester, a confident expression and utter the following slogan: "No one lets go of anyone's hand."
Given the unhealthy nature of this position, perhaps it would be wise to offer him automatic promotions, with increases in his salary. When invited to take the oath at medical school ceremonies, he would hypocritically promise "the truth, without the diaphanous cloak of fantasy." With the verve of a Nelson Rodrigues, he would proclaim himself reactionary and libertarian. A court jester, unfiltered, who would aspire to this position? Who would be capable of uttering his words in the third act of King Lear: "Fool is he who trusts in the gentleness of the wolf, the health of the horse, the love of a young man, and the oath of a whore."
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