by Ave Maria
The essence of Greek comedies, like most good comedies, consisted of a straight man and a buffoon. The straight man, or ironist, understates his own abilities, eliciting a knowing chuckle from the audience in on the joke. The buffoon, or alazon, overstates his own talents to the point of absurdity. The alazon’s self-deceptive boastfulness, and his inability to see what is going on in front of his face, assures victory to the ironist. He does not even understand the ironist's sly jokes.
In the realm of geopolitics, the West of 2014 is the world's alazon. We have such a wide cast of characters in the role of the ironist that the odds seem rather unfairly stacked against us. Not only are the non-Western countries taking us for fools, but also the non-Westernized populations within our own countries, and sometimes, it seems, the chorus of the cosmic play itself.
