The Politic Fool

‘That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool,” wrote Isaac Asimov in his Guide to Shakespeare: “that he is no fool at all.” The days of Shakespeare are past, but the fool, to our good fortune, remains. You’ll find him not at the king’s court, but at the comedy club.

But as Shakespeare knew, the comedian — whose jokes are never without a bit of truth — is forever precariously situated. As King Lear’s fool laments: “They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace.”