The Ship of Fools and the USA

The Grateful Dead song and Alexander Barclay's book

One of my superpowers is to do book reports on books I haven’t fully read. This skill was well honed in my college days, but perhaps I’m a little rusty in this regard. Gutenberg copy here. There is a useful introduction in the 1887 printing linked above. It’s sufficient to say that the book was a great success for the burgeoning book industry of the late 15th century in Germany and London. The public loved it for its humor and satire.

The Ship of Fools is a satirical German language poem by Sebastian Brandt (1494). Hieronymus Bosch’s famous painting appeared in 1500:

“The image of the 'ship of fools' is medieval/late renaissance. According to Jose Barchilon's introduction to Michel Foucault's Madness & Civilization, there was a practice of ridding towns of the insane by putting them on board ships in the care of the sailors--in the theory that madness and the sea went hand in hand.” —Scott McKinstry, NYC USA¹

Google’s AI is an art history expert: “In Bosch's "Ship of Fools," the iconography depicts a crowded boat filled with figures engaged in various foolish and sinful activities, highlighting the theme of human folly and moral decay, with details like gluttony, drunkenness, music symbolizing excess, and a lack of concern for their direction or impending doom, all while referencing the literary concept of a "Ship of Fools" where the passengers are oblivious to their perilous journey; the painting is a satirical critique of societal behaviors and the dangers of unchecked indulgence.”

So google wants to turn it into a morality play, but there is an overtly political aspect to the iconography of the Barclay’s English translation which Google’s AI chooses to ignore. Why does AI always get the details wrong? The devil is in the details. We have to think back farther to the classical roots of the symbolism, to Plato’s Republic and his symbol of the ship. Plato's ship is an allegory for the governance of a city-state. This allegory compares the governance of a city-state to the chain of command of a sailing vessel. All the fools on board Plato’s ship of politics are more interested in status among the shipmates than in the ship actually arriving at port, which it never does. They don’t care if the ship goes in circles, as long as they are in leadership.

The classical and renaissance symbolism of the ship of fools presents a nice backdrop for introducing the Grateful Dead song. It was one of six songs titled Ship of Fools from that generation. ““Ship of Fools” was not a classic cover song, like “Dancing in the Streets”, or “Hallelujah”. Rather, six different songs called “Ship of Fools” were written and performed between the 1960s and 1980s by the Doors, the Grateful Dead, John Cale, Bob Seger, World Party and Robert Plant.”² Have we exposed the idea that RockNRoll was a military propaganda operation? It’s the true story David McGowan died to tell: Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream. This book changed the way I think about popular music and the entertainment industry, and I think by this time the information has saturated the conspiracy audience, even if we don’t all realize the source.

Ship of fools appears on the Grateful Dead album titled: From The Mars Hotel, a favorite of mine. The idea that the Ship of Fools could be an allegory for the USA government and the populace was not lost on Grateful Dead blogger David Dodd: ““Ship of Fools” closes the album that opens with “U.S. Blues,” and that has never struck me as an accident. But as always, Robert Hunter’s lyrics don’t allow for a simple or narrow interpretation; this song isn’t just about the failures of the US government, although I do think it could be partly about that.”³ What is Mars Hotel about? War. Mars is the bringer of War. If you think allegory, symbolism, and iconography have nothing to do with it, check out the music video of “US Blues”:

I see it. It’s the entity again. It’s the cornucopia from which flies all propaganda, pollution, and disease. Has it set in yet that we’ve all been Shang Hied? We’re all lost at sea on a ship of fools. I want to follow this up with a discussion of what I’ve been learning from Robert Maxwell and Anna von Reitz. Join me next time as we continue to undress the entity that has been defrauding us for a long time. Soon the entity is going to be completely exposed, and its fraud laid bare.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-18991,00.html

2. https://litkicks.com/ShipOfFools/

3. https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-ship-fools