The Imposter

Ah, there you go – extravagant as ever!
Why can you not be rational? You never
Manage to take the middle course, it seems,
But jump, instead, between absurd extremes.

You’ve recognized your recent grave mistake
In falling victim to a pious fake;
Now, to correct that error, must you embrace
An even greater error in its place,
And judge our worthy neighbors as a whole
By what you’ve learned of one corrupted soul?
Be cautious in bestowing admiration,
And cultivate a sober moderation.
Don’t humor fraud, but also don’t asperse
True piety; the latter fault is worse,
And it is best to err, if err one must,
As you have done, upon the side of trust.

Translated from “Tartuffe” (1664) by Moliere into English “The Impostor”

I am actually shocked by how much this very old poem translates into our modern times. I feel tempted to provoke and ask who Moliere could have had in mind if it would have been written today, and then slowly the realization sinks in and I look at it as a reminder that what we complain about today, has been already lived through by others way before our times and I assume it will be relieved over and over until the end of time.

Perhaps humans will never change because simply put we can’t. Like a tiger can’t hide its stripes, we can’t deny our true colors either.

When the comedy “Tartuffe,”* by French playwright Molière, premiered at the Palace of Versailles in 1664, it was banned because church leaders, including the Archbishop of Paris, believed it attacked the foundations of religion. Tartuffe, a character in the 1670’s comedy, can now, 350 years later be found in the dictionaries to describe a religious hypocrite.

That all alone, the banning of books or plays because they might point out the flaws of certain people and their politics or beliefs, is downright scary. Has it always been like that? Will it always be like that?

Back then it was “Tartuffe” now it’s the poetry of Amanda Gorman, and THEIR newest victim Margaret Atwood “The Handmaid’s Tail”.

Isn’t what I read up to me? When will we stop censoring the mind? Isn’t my mind still my choice?

It makes me angry, it makes me sad and I can’t help but go to Amazon and buy the most banned book “The Gender Queen” just for the fudging fun of it, because I still can (I hope).

We need to continue to expose hypocrites on a daily base.

I didn’t know “The Handmaid’s Tale” was banned until yesterday. It made me furious and I needed to write this post today, even though I know I am going to shoot myself in the foot again.

*Tartuffe, a comedy in five acts by Molière, was produced in 1664 and published in French in 1669 as Le Tartuffe. The character Tartuffe is a sanctimonious scoundrel who, professing extreme piety, is taken into the household of Orgon, a wealthy man. Under the guise of ministering to the family’s spiritual and moral needs, he almost destroys Orgon’s family. Elmire, Orgon’s wife, sees through Tartuffe’s wicked hypocrisy and exposes him.