“What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”
William Lamb, Lord Melbourne
Back in early December, after a dinner between the British negotiating team and their EU counterparts, a photograph was released that, it was said, “sums everything up”. A characteristically dishevelled Boris Johnson was unflatteringly contrasted with the smartly dressed Michel Barnier. “Johnson’s loose tie, shapeless suit and messy hair alongside Frost’s errant collar stood out somewhat beside an immaculately turned out Ursula von der Leyen and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier” reported the Huffington Post, while reproducing a series of damning twitter observations. “Torvill and Dean meet The Chuckle Brothers” was one. Benny Hill and Worzel Gummidge were other points of comparison.
The subtext was clear: Brexit chaos. It has become a favourite headline over the last few months. Chaos at the posts, chaos in the negotiations. The EU represents order, the UK disorder. Fool Britannia. As Der Spegel described it:
“The United Kingdom is currently demonstrating how a country can make a fool of itself before the eyes of the entire world. What was once the most powerful empire on earth is now a country that can’t even find its way to the door without tripping over its own feet.”
As a scholar of medieval French, the lead negotiator of the British delegation, Lord Frost, may have allowed himself a wry smile at these comparisons. In medieval Europe, and in France especially, the period between Christmas and New Year was often marked by the Feast of Fools. Some traditions centred this on Monday’s Feast of Holy Innocents, others on today’s Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. Young boys would be elected as bishops, authority was mocked with ridicule, the established order was temporarily overthrown. These traditions began in the late 12th century, often as liturgical enactments of various New Testament passages that spoke of the world being turned upside down.
“He has brought down the mighty from their seats and lifted up the lowly,” says Mary in the Magnificat from Luke’s gospel. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise,” writes St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. Armed with texts like these, a kind of populist and disruptive revelry was given licence, first in the churches and cathedrals and soon spilling out beyond them. By the beginning of the 15thcentury the official church had had enough. The Feast of Fools was banned by the Council of Basle in 1435.
Conventional thinking always prioritises order over chaos. Indeed, even the Bible presents the founding work of creation as the imposition of order on chaos. Order = good, chaos = bad. Chaos is dangerous. The vulnerable are harmed. The wicked prosper. But there is a minority report on chaos that regards it as the necessary birth pangs of a new order, and represents the recognition that human freedom is often experienced as chaotic by those who would overly regulate our lives. In his introduction to In Praise of Chaos the theologian Sean Caulfield writes: “I have written a book in praise of the splendid chaos of life that saves us from the fate of clones and robots, and opens the way to incredible futures.”
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