[MA-194]
THE LICENSED FOOLS OF MODERN CULTURE
Our feuilletonists are like licensed medieval court fools: it is the same category of people. Half-rational, witty, excessive, silly, they are sometimes there only to soften the atmosphere of pathos with whimsy and chatter, and to drown out with their shouting the all too ponderous, solemn tintinnabulation of great events. Formerly they were in the service of princes and nobles; now they serve political parties, for a good part of the people’s old submissiveness in dealing with their prince still lives on in party feeling and party discipline. However, the whole class of modern men of letters is not far removed from the feuilletonists writers; they are the “licensed fools of modern culture," who are judged more mildly if they are taken as not quite accountable. To think of writing as one’s life’s profession should by rights be considered a kind of madness.