ABSTRACT
Ridicule and wit make plain to us the folly, humbug, and incompetence of the social structure. For this kind of truth the fool is institutionalized. Clowns play a similarly important part in the life of the Hopi Indians. Anthropologists have found that institutionalized clowning is well developed in all the major cultures. Ludicrous role failures are usually fiascoes, such as the battleship Missouri running aground in her home waters in Chesapeake Bay in broad daylight. Role inadequacy is not always obvious. Discounting types function to detect subtler forms of incompetence and to correct judgments of status to take down people who claim too much. Pompous fool types have an important part in a mobile society where many people make claims that have to be certified. Comic phoneys help prune a status structure of deceitful climbers. They are seen in a comic light because of the petty, it may be preposterous, nature of their fraud.
