A current trickster in our society is someone who displays wit and knowledge, more so than the average Joe. A trickster is one who moves like a snake and is always willing to pounce on helpless pray when the moment arrives. A trickster has little to no morals and feeds off of others pain to further his agenda. Tricksters are politicians. Be honest and put aside the "well in the name of the debate...", have you ever heard of an honest politician? The correct answer would be no, and if you have an ounce of an argument that starts with "Well there are some..." You are wrong and you know it.
Politicians are modern day tricksters. They are snakes in the bushes, fangs glistening in the moon light, waiting patiently to kill their next oblivious victim. If a politicians were asked a question regarding weather or not to take $1,000,000 or to save a family members life, I and just about the entire rest of the American population would place a solid bet that the money would be taken first.
Leland makes the argument (or so I picked up) that tricksters are deceivers, and although they may not be the physically strongest in the bunch, they use their knowledge to make others do what the tricker wants. The connections between politicians and tricksters is uncanny. I guess every generation has a sort of trickster, and the fact that media and other news sources are more readily available, we are able to see exactly how these guys operate. Not to say that politicians haven't ever not been slime balls, just with technology, we are made more aware of their actions then past generations.
Before you take me for a Benedict Arnold, how is what I am saying dishonest or unpatriotic? The underlying message here is to trust no body. The story about the monkey deceiving the lion: The lion could have avoided getting his butt whooped and looking like a fool if he had chosen not to take words at face value. I also think Leland makes that argument as well, to trust no one, but in a much more settle sort of way, as in you would have to look for it. That is what I picked up from chapter 7, to be some what of a critical thinker and that tricksters are indeed as much a apart of hip as hip is apart of our everyday culture.
I think this falls under the category of perspective. For example, I have a much different perspective on who is a trickster then you do. Perspective is apart of my definition that makes hip, hip. I kind of have a hard time conveying this in my essay, but what I am trying to get at by using perspective is that hip is ambiguous and is defined by the "beholder" if you will. I use perspective because I feel that, as I said, perspective is directly related to hip because it is based upon what the viewer decides is hip. This probably makes zero sense, and like I said, I have a pretty hard time putting this on paper, but I think perspective is definitely a major part of hip.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. The role of language is central to the Trickster, as you point out in politics and the Signifying Monkey story.
ReplyDeleteYou're missing your annotated bibliography, though.