I.
In an early school report, one of my teachers noted: "Stephen's work suffers due to his insistence on playing the clown. He has to understand that he is in school to learn and not merely to amuse his classmates."
Despite this po-faced attempt to nip my talent for comedy in the bud, this insistence on playing the clown - influenced in part by Cesar Romero's performance as the Joker in Batman - continued all the way into adolescence, when that fabulous grotesque, Johnny Rotten, the clown prince of punk, became a great inspiration.
II.
As a matter of fact, I never regarded myself as a clown: certainly not the type who relied on slapstick or other forms of physical comedy; and certainly not the type who was solely interested in entertaining others.
Even at six-years-old, I was more interested in challenging authority and provoking laughter through the use of language - including the language of fashion - than by throwing buckets of water (not that there's anything wrong with throwing buckets of water, as Tiswas demonstrated).
Admiring as I did fun lovin' criminals like the Joker and, later, anarchic pranksters like the Sex Pistols, meant there was always a bit more of a subversive edge to my fooling around, refusal to care, and mockery (of self and others). I may have worn Grimaldi's whiteface makeup, but that's just about where any point of comparison ends.
As a matter of fact, I never regarded myself as a clown: certainly not the type who relied on slapstick or other forms of physical comedy; and certainly not the type who was solely interested in entertaining others.
Even at six-years-old, I was more interested in challenging authority and provoking laughter through the use of language - including the language of fashion - than by throwing buckets of water (not that there's anything wrong with throwing buckets of water, as Tiswas demonstrated).
Admiring as I did fun lovin' criminals like the Joker and, later, anarchic pranksters like the Sex Pistols, meant there was always a bit more of a subversive edge to my fooling around, refusal to care, and mockery (of self and others). I may have worn Grimaldi's whiteface makeup, but that's just about where any point of comparison ends.
III.
If not a clown, then what was I really? Some might say a fool and I've nothing against those who rush in where angels fear to tread.
But I'd probably be happier with the term trickster, as there's something more ambiguous about such a shape-shifting figure and the manner in which they often push things beyond a joke; are they being mischievous, malicious, or both? Either way, they seem to act with the full intelligence of evil.
Primarily, tricksters violate principles of social and natural order. That is to say, tricksters playfully deconstruct reality and dissolve binary distinctions. And that's why Jordan Peterson is absolutely right to describe Derrida as a philosophical trickster - though his ignorant dismissal of Derrida's work (without even attempting to engage with it) is as shameful as that of those four Cambridge dons who, in 1992, opposed the awarding of an honorary degree to M. Derrida on the grounds that his thinking failed to meet accepted standards of philosophical clarity and rigour.
But I'd probably be happier with the term trickster, as there's something more ambiguous about such a shape-shifting figure and the manner in which they often push things beyond a joke; are they being mischievous, malicious, or both? Either way, they seem to act with the full intelligence of evil.
Primarily, tricksters violate principles of social and natural order. That is to say, tricksters playfully deconstruct reality and dissolve binary distinctions. And that's why Jordan Peterson is absolutely right to describe Derrida as a philosophical trickster - though his ignorant dismissal of Derrida's work (without even attempting to engage with it) is as shameful as that of those four Cambridge dons who, in 1992, opposed the awarding of an honorary degree to M. Derrida on the grounds that his thinking failed to meet accepted standards of philosophical clarity and rigour.
Ironically, Peterson has himself just had an offer of a visiting fellowship rescinded by Cambridge University following a humourless and politically correct backlash from members of both faculty and the student body, who seem to regard him in much the same way he regards Derrida - that is to say, as a dangerous charlatan.
Ultimately, culture requires its clowns and tricksters - almost as comic saviours. Indeed, that's something I would have thought Peterson, as a great reader of Jung, would readily agree with. Thus his loathing of Derrida is, in some ways, surprising as well as disappointing.
