11/10 The Praise of Folly (#11a)

Folly

Folly is the goddess that celebrates the bliss of ignorance. Folly describes her self as the ruler over the “greatest lords” because all of humanity, and even the gods, worships her in their acts of foolishness and stupidity(1923).

Folly is the daughter of Plutus. Folly brags of her father being the governor of “war, peace, kingdoms” including “all the affairs , public or private” (1922). He is the god of wealth and abundance, which is the desire of everyone. So, over everyone he rules.

Folly greatly pities the wise-men. The wise-men fight to rid themselves of emotion to think all the more logical, but in doing so they loose their humanity and become miserable. Folly explains it is the academics that suck the marrow out of life, causing so much grief and strife. On the other hand the man that rejects logic and embraces Folly finds pleasure in pain, perceiving loss as gain. Folly gives the example of the foolish man, who thinks his ugly wife beautiful or his broken home delightful.

I do not think that Folly’s character is meant to represent or symbolize something as much as she is supposed to draw attention to an observation. The observation is how the happiest people are the ignorant ones without a care in the world. While the educated population is bogged down with the weight of reality.

Christian Folly

The author, Erasmus, goes out of his way to point out how especially ridiculous the Christian faith is in all of its folly. Interestingly, the character Folly does not applaud Christians, as she does to other fools, but insults and sort of rebukes them, because their foolishness is so outrageous. One problem Folly has with the faith is that the Christian God encourages ignorance, because Christians have no reason to think because God will think for them.

Though, Erasmus does point out true flaws in the way many Christian practice their faith that Christians should take note of. One of the flaws is when Christ’s mother is exalted above Him in worship and praise. Another, is when saints are given a position of responsibility and Christian pray to that saint for help in their area of responsibility. When it would makes sense to just pray to God, because God has not delegated roles of power to any of the saints.