Monty Python and Philosophy by Gary Hardcastle (best young adult book series .TXT) 📕

voice, but he has an audience very willing to listen—us, the viewers. By speaking directly into the camera, Figgis needs no interpreter, no intermediary, no doctor to get his points across. He has direct access to us, and we are listening. In fact, we’re eager to listen.

Most importantly, Figgis is keenly aware that he plays a role within society. He explains that “There is a very real need in society for someone whom almost anyone can look down on and ridicule.” In fact, idiots like him provide a “a vital psycho-social service” for the larger community. Unlike Foucault’s assessment of madmen as variously compartmentalized or ostracized by reasonable society, these madmen are socially integrated. Figgis is right that he is serving an important social function. As Porter writes, “All societies judge some people mad . . . it is part of marking out the different, deviant, and perhaps dangerous” (Madness: A Brief History, p. 62). Figgis is performing that job in his society.

But, as the sketch continues, we learn that Figgis and the other idiots are perhaps not as different or deviant as Porter implies. “Arthur,” our narrator tells us, “takes idioting very seriously. He is up at six o’clock every morning working on special training equipment designed to keep him silly.” As we watch Figgis exercise, he finally knocks himself out by ramming his head into a ball apparatus. We also learn that Figgis is quite fastidious about keeping up his appearance. He works carefully on getting his hair just-so, and then jumps into a pond to splash mud on his smock.

Despite the way he looks, the more we get to know Figgis, the more we see that he is not so strange after all. In fact, the narrator compares him to other professionals in the village, such as the doctor, blacksmith, and carpenter. Figgis does things that all villagers must do, like banking. In the sketch, we see Figgis at a teller window depositing things like moss, a dead bird, and wood (which, the bank manager tells us, are deposits involving very complicated rates of interest). The bank manager, moreover, takes Figgis more seriously than others who laugh and point at Figgis as he passes by. The manager explains, “Well, nowadays, a really blithering idiot can make anything up to ten thousand pounds—if he’s head of some industrial combine. But, of course, the old-fashioned idiot still refuses money.”

Figgis is ordinary in another way, as well. He has colleagues, such as Kevin O’Nassis, whom we meet at the end of the sketch, and Mr. Jenkins. All three wear exactly the same outfit, which we now recognize as nothing less than an idiot uniform. Like many professionals, the idiots also have specializations. For example, Kevin “works largely with walls,” and we see him fall off a wall several times.

The more we learn, the more these idiots seem just like other individuals in a given line of work in their community. They are professional idiots, with institutional and educational support. Figgis, in fact, lectures in idiocy at the University of East Anglia. We see him running around, acting loony, leading a group of “third-year students” around a lawn. Later, we see the students receiving their B.A. degrees, along with a kick in the head, and a handful of dirt on their faces.

By this point, the Pythons have turned Foucault’s portrayal of the mad on its head. In his role as a professor, Figgis himself has power over individuals, as well as over himself. Not unlike the hermits who created their own social network, these madmen are functionally integrated into society and not dominated or controlled by others, as much of Foucault’s analysis suggests.

Urban Idiots: Foucauldian and Pythonesque

Differences between what Foucault and the Pythons say about madness narrow when the sketch gives us a brief glimpse into the lives of four urban idiots. A voiceover introduces us to the idiots, all of whom are dressed identically in black business suits. Like the village idiots, they have their uniforms—albeit uniforms that are identical to those of the urban businessman. So, in the urban setting, the Pythons seem to tell us, at least on the surface, it is difficult to differentiate between a “normal” businessman and the urban idiot.

Other differences emerge, however, when these urban idiots speak. Unlike the village idiots, they are not very articulate. Each mumbles about his background before becoming an urban idiot. One says, “Daddy’s a banker. He needed a wastepaper basket.” And, another mumbles, “Father was Home Secretary, and mother won the Derby.” Yet, they too have their professional trappings. The reporter tells us that “The headquarters of these urban idiots is here in St. John’s Wood. Inside, they can enjoy the company of other idiots and watch special performances of ritual idioting.” We see this posh London neighborhood enclosed by a high brick wall, reminiscent of an asylum, within which these idiots variously act idiotically

The Pythons are thus mixing up our preconceptions about madness and idiocy whenever possible. The visibly idiotic are integrated into society, while those that appear to be everyday professionals are confined within a cricket stadium. Things are not as clear cut as in Foucault’s picture of madness, perhaps because the Pythons have turned the question around. Instead of seeking to understand madness by examining how it has been variously excluded, dominated, and medicalized by sane or reasonable society, the Pythons are more interested in the reasonable society and the ways in which madness and idiocy percolate through it. By leading us to see idiocy as something ironic and funny, the Pythons restore that dialogue between reason and unreason that Foucault believes has been lost. Foucault would be happy that, with the Pythons, the mad are accepted as part of society; they speak for themselves; they have agency; and the more we look at them, the more familiar they become.

13

Monty Python and the Search for the Meaning of Life

PATRICK CROSKERY

We all struggle to lead good lives, looking