One of the central arguments in The Praise of Folly is that folly is more valuable to humans than they may realize. While humans praise gods like Athena, Aphrodite, and Ares and laud their respective, associated virtues of knowledge, beauty, and bravery, Erasmus, through the narrative voice of Folly, suggests that folly is actually more crucial to human happiness and well-being. Folly takes the reader through various categories of men and women, emphasizing how social relations heavily rely on folly—or more precisely, delusion—to sustain them.
In the context of friendship or marriage, Folly claims that if people were to truly acknowledge the faults of their loved ones, they would likely find them intolerable. By overlooking their shortcomings, even transforming them into virtues, however, humans can find their loved ones pleasant despite their flaws. In fact, Folly goes as far as to suggest that without foolishness, one would never be content with oneself; if all people were to become wise, she argues, they would be unable to bear themselves and likely resort to suicide.
Although not Folly's primary intention, this line of argument presents a tragic depiction of the human condition. Humans, Folly suggests, are selfish, prone to rashness, and incapable of handling harsh truths. Only through foolishness can humans alleviate the suffering they would otherwise inflict upon themselves and each other. As such, Erasmus’s praise of folly is somewhat of a double-edged sword. While folly may be a functional antidote to human suffering, it is not necessarily desirable on its own merits; in other words, were humans not so flawed, they might be better without folly.
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Happiness, Delusion, and the Human Condition ThemeTracker
Happiness, Delusion, and the Human Condition Quotes in The Praise of Folly
But aside from the fact that I refrain throughout from using names, I have in addition tempered my style that the judicious reader will easily perceive that my end is pleasure rather than censure.
However mortal folk may commonly speak of me (for I am not ignorant how ill the name of Folly sounds, even to the greatest fools), I am she – the only she, I may say–whose divine influence makes gods and men rejoice.
So it is from this brisk and silly little game of mine come forth the haughty philosophers (to whose places those are vulgarly called monks have now succeeded), and kings in their scarlet, pious priests, and triply most holy popes; also, finally, that assembly of the gods of the poets, so numerous that Olympus, spacious as it is, can hardly accommodate the crowd.
Old age would not be tolerable to any mortal at all, were it not that I, out of pity for its troubles, stand once more at its right hand; and just as gods of the poets customarily save, by some metamorphoses or other, those who are dying, in like manner I bring those who have one foot in the grave back to their infancy again, for as long as possible; so that the folk are not far off in speaking of them as “in their second childhood.”
For do you not see that the austere fellows who are buried in the study of philosophy, or condemned to difficult and wracking business, grow old even before they have been young–and this because by cares and continual hard driving of their brains they insensibly exhaust their spirits and dry up their radical moisture. On the contrary, my morons are as plump and sleek as the hogs of Acarnania (as the saying is), with complexions well cared for, never feeling the touch of old age; unless as rarely happens, they catch something by contagion from the wise—so true it is that the life of man is not destined to be happy.
In sum, no society, no union in life, could be either pleasant or lasting without me. A people does not for long tolerate its prince, or a master tolerate his servant, a handmaiden her mistress, a teacher his student, a friend his friend, a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a partner his partner, or a boarder his fellow-boarder, except as they mutually or by turns are mistaken, on occasion flatter, on occasion wisely wink, and otherwise soothe themselves with the sweetness of folly.
If something is to be bought, or a contract made, if in short, any of those things without which our daily life could not be carried on must be done, you will say that this wiseacre is no man, but dead wood. Thus he can be of little use to himself, his country, or his family, and all because he is inexpert in everyday matters, and far out of step with general ways of thinking and modes of life among the folk; by the same token he is bound to fall into odium, through the great diversity between his and their lives and minds. For what that passes among mortals everywhere is not full of folly, done by fools in the presence of fools?
As nothing is more foolish than wisdom out of place, so nothing is more imprudent than unseasonable prudence.
Although that double-strength Stoic, Seneca, stoutly denies this, subtracting from the wise man any and every emotion, yet in doing so he leaves him no man at all but rather a new kind of god, or demiurgos, who never existed and will never emerge. Nay to speak more plainly, he creates a marble simulacrum of a man, a senseless block, completely alien to every human feeling.
Consider, among the several kinds of living creatures, do you not observe that the ones which live most happily are those which are farthest from any discipline, and which are controlled by no other master than nature? What could be more happy than the bees—or more wonderful?
And yet a remarkable thing happens in the experience of my fools: from them not only true things, but even sharp reproaches, will be listened to; so that a statement which, if it came from a wise man’s mouth, might be a capital offense, coming from a fool gives rise to incredible delight.
Hence there is either no difference, or if there is a difference, the state of fools is to be preferred. First their happiness costs least. It costs only a little bit of illusion. And second, they enjoy it in the company of so many others. The possession of no good thing is welcome without a companion.
To work miracles is primitive and old-fashioned, hardly suited it our times; to instruct the people is irksome; to interpret the Holy Scripture is pedantry; to pray is otiose; to shed tears is distressing and womanish; to live in poverty is sordid; to be beaten in war is dishonorable and less than worthy of one who will hardly admit kings, however great, to kiss his foot, and finally, to die is unpleasant, to die on the cross a disgrace.
And yet through a cloud, or as in a dream, they know one thing, that they were happiest while they were out of their wits. So they are sorry to come to themselves again and would prefer, of all good things, nothing but to be mad always with this madness. And this is a tiny little taste of that future happiness.
