Contact: rwetheri@smu.edu
April’s Fools
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Fools rush in where angels fear to tread wrote Alexander Pope on the eve of the 18th century. Fools (quick to accept casual lies, easy prey to false claims, hoodwinked by practical jokes) are both celebrated and exploited in good fun on the first of April worldwide. We all fall for the practical jokes. We are all on occasion taken in by charlatans.
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On April Fool’s Day, though, we come to expect it. The prepared mind enjoys the tricks played on it.
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But the day has lost its edge in recent years. There seems to be a constant barrage of deception, little of it intended to be comical or prankish. Every day is April Fool’s Day.
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Snake oil hawkers saturate the marketplace with miracle claims. Carneys transform daily news into side shows. Politicians flaunt rhetorical skills in a high-wire act of marginal accuracy, and fact-checkers occupy a new and necessary niche in our lives.
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Daily we confront new words describing the world, or we face invented meanings of old words, “alternative facts” we have been told. It’s a “post-truth” world we’ve inherited.
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Humpty Dumpty told Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”​
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things,”
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“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
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It’s all so very confusing. And if it weren’t confusing, it would be comical. And if it weren’t comical, it would be absurd. There you have it: today’s reality and the facts that surround it are alternately confusing, comical, and absurd!​
We fools are not the fools we used to be. Because being fooled is no longer what it used to be. Alas!
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Ron Wetherington