Of Dullards and Buffoons

During my undergraduate college carreer at the SUNY College of Forestry at Syracuse University I was exposed to a philosophy developed by Vaughn Bode' in a running cartoon strip in the Daily Orange: "Cheech Wizard." In the world of the Cheech Wizard there were only two kinds of beings Dullards and Buffoons. It wasn't until I discovered Ambrose Bierce's Devils Dictionary definition of a Dullard that I began to realize that the Cheech Wizard's world provided a useful model of our own. Bierce's definition of Dullard follows:

"DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois, but the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral."

Bierce did not define Buffoon. But in the Cheech Wizard's world if you weren't Dullard then you were a Buffoon. So how do we apply the Cheech Wizard's world to our own? Its all about power and out of power. I was a middle manager so to those I bossed I was a dullard while to those who bossed me I was a buffoon. So it is easy to see why it is so hard for a person to accept that they are either a Dullard or a Buffoon since they are likely both but not simultaneously.

Applying this to politics and our two party government. The democrats who currently control congress and the presidency would be dullards while the republicans would be buffoons. Indeed president Obama would be the dullard in chief. Right before an election all candidates are buffoons while the voters are dullards. Right after an election the successful candidate becomes a dullard while his opponent stays a buffoon and the voters status changes to buffoons. Now being dullard does not preclude one from engaging in buffoonery. Indeed the chief buffoonery of a dullard is to indicate that he is looking out for us buffoons.

In this world you are either a dullard or a buffoon. The only exception I can think of is David Letterman who is a dull buffoon.