Clowning ethics or about red-nosed morals

We know throughout history several human categories or distinct groups that place themselves outside of ethics. People suffering from mental illnesses, children, fools/pranksters or acrobats, etc. This category could, of course, also include sex workers, stigmatized but accepted as part of the world in which we live. Beyond all these categories of individuals that transcend ethics and morality, there is another character, a cultural archetype born at the dawn of human civilization, having a winding, unpredictable and determining evolution at the level of the collective unconscious: the clown. The clown, a hypersensitive being who does not have a security of identity and who is characterized by confusion of consciousness, violates all the rules of ethics. In this sense, he uses the abnormal and the unusual as tools of manifestation. But can its expression be considered a breach of ethics, as long as it is born outside the norms, outside the generally accepted morality, its role being to highlight what lies beyond the limit? If we assert that this archetype is useful to ethics, what then are the attributes of this utility?

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Publication Details

Published
2024-11-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.35218/icds-2024-0016
Primary Topic
War, Ethics, and Justification
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Clowning ethics or about red-nosed morals

Andreea JIGHIRGIU
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War, Ethics, and Justification
article

Clowning ethics or about red-nosed morals

Andreea JIGHIRGIU
article en

Abstract

We know throughout history several human categories or distinct groups that place themselves outside of ethics. People suffering from mental illnesses, children, fools/pranksters or acrobats, etc. This category could, of course, also include sex workers, stigmatized but accepted as part of the world in which we live. Beyond all these categories of individuals that transcend ethics and morality, there is another character, a cultural archetype born at the dawn of human civilization, having a winding, unpredictable and determining evolution at the level of the collective unconscious: the clown. The clown, a hypersensitive being who does not have a security of identity and who is characterized by confusion of consciousness, violates all the rules of ethics. In this sense, he uses the abnormal and the unusual as tools of manifestation. But can its expression be considered a breach of ethics, as long as it is born outside the norms, outside the generally accepted morality, its role being to highlight what lies beyond the limit? If we assert that this archetype is useful to ethics, what then are the attributes of this utility?

Bucharest National University of Arts (RO)
Openalex Percentile: Top 51%
War, Ethics, and Justification
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