Clown World 🤡🌎

In comment sections everywhere, the phrase "clown world 🤡🌎" has been exploding in popular usage. Typically found as responses to the absurdities of modern life, be it within the culture or in politics, I figured that there must be something deeper going on. There had to be a reason that the clown image specifically has become so ubiquitous nowadays. What are people attaching, consciously or unconsciously, to it? Let's investigate.

When you think of a clown, what first comes to mind? Let me guess. Stephen King's 'It'? Or a circus juggler with a red nose and white makeup? Unless you're a history buff, I'm going to assume it's either one of the two, or both. But, stop here. Isn't that curious? I mean the fact that when we think of "clown," on one side we have a psychopathic murderous child-devouring alien, and on the other, a professional entertainer trained in theatre with impressive acrobatic skills. In other words, you have pure evil, and then a joy-spreading comedian, both sharing in the same image. With this paradox, I welcome you to the archetype of the trickster.

Side note, in this article I will be using the terms clown, trickster, and jester synonymously. Alright, let's continue.

To understand "clown world 🤡🌎", we need to first understand the symbology of the trickster; a complex and tricky character, pun intended. He's unpredictable, constantly "on the edge", possesses an oscillating and unstable identity.¹ He embodies inconsistency, contradiction, and ambiguity, but is simultaneously a virile and active figure, full of unusual but energetic movements. In one way, the trickster is the personification of the creative process itself; never settling, never complete, always in motion, always changing. He is the elusive shape-shifter; physically and morally.

Let's take a look at the poles of the jester's moral ambiguity. For in the same way the mother archetype have its own dual-nature (i.e., the good mother and the terrible/devouring mother), the jester too is Janus-faced (two-faced).²

I think of the positive jester as the jester in the king's court. This court jester is not only the respected chief entertainer but also "the fool"; the conveyor of hidden and neglected truths, and a precursor to the savior archetype.³ In a well-functioning king's court (which can be a metaphor for one's psychic state), the jester is given its proper place in court by the king and held there in great esteem where they are able to perform their creative and regulatory function in the constant rejuvenation and innovative development of the kingdom while simultaneously "suss'ing out" potential tyrannical and censorious psychopaths (hubristic complexes). On the societal level, this is why comedians are often described as the canary in the coal mine; when they start getting censored (or executed) for whatever reason, you know that the irrational tyrannical spirit is at large within the society. When the trickster get suppressed (individually or collectively), like all archetypes, he does not vanish; instead he transform into his dark side; the negative jester–the bringer of doom, wiping the diseased slate clean for a fresh new start.

Taking Plato's example in Republic to magnify the micro with the macro, let's take a look at festivals that celebrate or are heavily related to the trickster archetype. Think of these events as "clown zones" or "clown shows," which is an approximation to our focus of this article: "clown world 🤡🌎." By highlighting at what these festivals share in common, we can come to a better understanding of what the shared "clown" element is; thereby allowing us to infer a fuller meaning of "clown world 🤡🌎."

To start with the most well-known internationally-celebrated "clown" festival: Carnival.

Carnival is a Christian festival in celebration of inversion, satire, parody, chaos, and diversity.

It is a period of indulgence where people are reduced and united in their shared base whims; a timely erasure of petty distinctions as a reminder and celebration of our shared human nature. It serves a cultural compensatory function; providing a proper cultural vessel for the scheduled release of otherwise suppressed vital energy.

The word "Carnival" is said to have come from the late Latin expression "carne levare," meaning "remove meat" to signify the approaching fast (Lent). So traditionally, as you can see, Carnival was balanced with Lent, which was a period of sacrifice, strict observances, and self-reflection. I think you can convincingly argue that a Carnival with no approaching fast is an indication of imbalance within the cultural psyche; a surrender to pure whim without moderation.⁴

Historically, Carnival originated from the festival of Saturnalia; an ancient Roman festival and holiday where social norms were overturned and a king of Saturnalia was elected. Saturnalia was the Roman equivalent to the earlier Greek holiday of Kronia, which was an Athenian mid-autumn festival honoring the king of the Titans, Kronos. During Kronia, social restraints were briefly lifted, slaves were released from duties and joined in the festivities alongside their owners. Like Saturnalia and Carnival, the theme of inversion is equally apparent in Kronia, along with the removal of distinctions, limits, and categories.

When it comes to Kronia, more can be said. You could think of the festival as being birthed by our collective wish to return to paradise.⁵ The Golden Age of Kronos, which is what Kronia attempts to replicate, is described as a paradisal time where all resources were abundant and work was unnecessary, where people lived in harmony and without strife, much like The Garden of Eden. Furthermore, in Greek mythology, Kronos is the father of the first generation of Olympian gods. By castrating his father Uranus and throwing his genitals into the ocean, he created the seafoam that birthed the primordial goddess Aphrodite. Now, that's telling. Why? Because symbolically, destruction and dethroning of a past patriarchy through chaos (portrayed by the throwing of the genitals into the ocean; the symbol of primordial chaos), leads to the rise of sex and lust worship (portrayed by Aphrodite; goddess of love, lust, and beauty).

Without a proper culture to limit man, life becomes passionate but dangerous, leading to the prioritization of short-sighted pleasures over long-range goals.

OK. I admit that was a lot of information. If you made it this far, that's pretty impressive. Now, let's tie everything together to shine that bright beam on the "clown world 🤡" phrase.

From these festivals, we now have a decent idea of what a "clown day" or "clown week" might look like. Combine that with the information about the symbology of the trickster, and we now have a multi-dimensional, multi-level picture of a "clown world 🤡🌎"; that is, a "clown day," everyday.

We can also conceptualise a continuum from "clown day", to "clown week", then "clown month", and eventually "clown world 🤡🌎." What this scale-based spectrum measures is the prevalence and status of the clown/trickster archetype. The "bigger" the clown so to speak, the more prominent the trickster within the hierarchy of the metaphorical (and often times literal) king's court. The phrase "clown world 🤡🌎" therefore, being a limit phrase, denotes a world where the jester has been elevated to the highest position; as king. No longer is he a mere court jester, he has now usurped the king⁶ and is running the whole damn show.

If a "clown day" is a single day of inversion, then "clown world" is eternal inversion. There is no difference between an unobstructed inversion and an endless revolution; neither are sustainable, and both are self-defeating by design. They "eat their own" so-to-speak. Clown world 🤡🌎 = a celebration of eternal inversion = revolution for the sake of revolution = Chaos (or a pulling down of all established structures; be it conceptual, sociocultural, or physical). This is precisely why evil tricksters aren't constructive, they only destroy.

When the jester replaces the king, the land is wrought with chaos.⁷

When our collective symbolic associations of the "clown" tilt toward the derogatory rather than the humble, the evil rather than the good, it is a sign of cultural deterioration, of a collective sense that the court jester has been replaced by the predatory chameleon. When the trickster steals the microphone, this famous French expression now takes on another meaning:

Après moi, le déluge. (English: After me, the flood.)

French expression attributed to King Louis XV of France.

If you don't want to get swept up by the flood that comes after the suicidal rule⁸ of Your Majesty the Jester, then perhaps it's nigh time for a return to a psychological Lent. Work to return the proper King (or value) to your court, psyche, family, community, country, and, ultimately, the world. You might need to find him first. Then, put the jester in his proper place, learn to relate to him productively, and reestablish homeostatic balance and harmony to your life.⁹ Done en masse, a cultural renaissance will come (it's already happening) and clown world will be nothing more than a transitory stage towards a better world for humanity.

No pain, no gain.

2. Janus is the two-faced ancient Roman god of transition. A trickster character. Bet you didn't know that the month of January is named after him. Giving him the number one spot in the months speaks highly of his importance to the ancient Roman pantheon.

3. The ability to play with your expert subject matter, regardless of the seemingly seriousness of its content, is the highest mark of mastery.

4. Can you think of any modern day Carnival-like events or parades with "no approaching fast"? Where established roles are made ambiguous and parody runs rampant?

5. Jungian Analyst Dr. Anthony Stevens wrote, "nostalgia for the womb, for the Golden Age, for the life of Rousseau's Noble Savage, represents a desire to put the clock back to a more innocent, unpolluted past, to live in harmony with nature."

Stevens, A. (1998). Ariadne's clue: A guide to the symbols of humankind. Princeton University Press.

6. This is cool. So in Norse Mythology, it was foretold that when Loki (the trickster god) would battle the gods for supremacy... what would happen? Ragnarök, from which only two humans would survive (Líf and Lífþrasir) to repopulate the world. In terms of "refreshing the world", you can also think about the well-known character of the Joker (evil jester) from the Batman series here. Psychologically, he's not motivated by personal gain or status (e.g., he burns the money he steals), but by a deep denial (and resentment) of reality. In short, he's on a quest to annihilate existence itself, and he wants to do it in the worst way possible; as his grand middle finger to a world that fell short of his expectations. Someone so deeply possessed by the Jester archetype is not only extremely dangerous but also highly unpredictable. Make no mistake, these individuals exist, and they're on another level of evil.

7. "What is the secret of the grail? You and the land are one." What is within, so too is without. What a great movie. 10/10!

Movieclips. (2019, January 28). Excalibur (1981) - The holy grail scene (8/10) | Movieclips [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61nCIyBCmjg

8. Apoptosis is the medical term for cellular suicide, which is when the compromised cell (e.g., one infected with a virus) initiates a self-destruct program to protect the organism as a whole. This is the same program the Jester King will initiate if left unresisted.

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1. See, it's tricky, because the moment you say the trickster has an unstable identity, that becomes a stable identity, which means it's no longer the trickster. In short you can't nail him down... or maybe you can? Nah. But yeah? Hm. This problem is precisely why you'll notice from people possessed by the trickster archetype (think of individuals with unstable identities) an utter refusal to properly define their self-appointed identities, since, the moment they do, the trickster abandons them. He survives only in ambiguity.

9. I should mention that I am personifying these dynamics purely for pedagogic purposes. Please don't actually look for a king or jester in your head or in your thoughts. "Relating to the jester" means relating to your creative spirit; that developmental drive within yourself that keeps you from becoming stale and dead. Realistically, this element will show its head here and there, like an involuntary laugh at something your ego thinks should offend you. These "sightings" are opportunities for greater awareness and positive change. It's ultimately up to you to seize the moment and do something with it.