Done with Stupidity
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Done with Stupidity
by Ana Paula Arendt*
BOOK REVIEW – I believe my reader deserves a few words about Ion Parreah’s most recent book, “How Shakespeare Can Save the World: a Survival Guide Against the Apocalypse of Stupidity”. Ion Parreah is a globally acclaimed author, an experienced political actor across several countries in Africa, Oceania, the Balkans, and South America, who chose to write this new book under a pseudonym. He has experienced systems of government that work and those that do not. A political actor who drinks very expensive cognac, he is capable both of setting fire to a political system he deems unjust and of resisting and easing the life of a fatigued statesman, already without hope, granting him renewed longevity. He has a very beautiful wife whom I esteem highly.
Since the author’s biography is very important, and his French cognac very expensive, I take my time to read the work carefully and share with the reader some impressions of this potion of lucidity, a dose of antidote.
The pseudonym aptly summarizes the author’s dynamic personality: an ion, a detached particle leaping across atomic orbits, a restless subject. Parreah, perhaps from some ancient Irish language, finds resonance where I am, in India: pariah, from Sanskrit, the root of the word that defines those excluded from society, who are worth nothing. Does the author wish to be a pariah wandering freely, with nothing to lose? Probably. Does the choice of pseudonym—or heteronym—contain the meaning of what we would like to be? Does he wish to distance himself from himself?
I think not. It seems to reflect rather what we admire, something the author celebrates—a purpose. One may love oneself, and one’s own identity deeply, and still wish to construct a creative space different from the one in which we perform official functions. A pseudonym is something one chooses to live, since writing constructs the reality in which the author lives. And so many authorities chose pseudonyms: Pablo Neruda, Alexis Léger, Gabriela Mistral… Necessary spaces of creation to separate the sacred act of creating from the official sphere, from predictability.
But in choosing this name, Ion Parreah—the author attributes less value and importance to himself. He already begins by clearing our minds of what is superfluous and constructed with the intention of persuading, overvaluing, or falsifying.
And he places himself in a very particular position: the book is narrated by a theatrical court jester, the English “fool,” the only free being in any kingdom, who may say whatever he wishes without ending up in the dungeon of authoritarian and centralized systems. The license is not poetic—it is theatrical. Perhaps in this way he makes the reader the great monarch he wishes to please, counting on this privilege to reach us, almost at the ear. There is, therefore, no more delightful book to read, having been made king or queen by the author’s own hand. He wishes to denounce, to tell the truth—and, narrating as the court jester, to quench the reader’s thirst.
The title also seems to have been chosen carefully. It is a work directed toward the common good. He perceived the evident risk the world faces—destruction and chaos—and sought a possible solution outside decision-making spaces that decide nothing. He sought an appropriate name to ridicule the inoperativeness of the powerful: Shakespeare.
Curiously, the English poet who wrote for the most powerful woman in Europe, the Virgin Queen.
My family, incidentally, has a small story involving the first Queen Elizabeth. When she refused to marry the Spanish monarch, Philip II of Spain, in the late 1500s during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), the issue reached the interior of Portugal, in Alenquer. The mayor of Alenquer aligned himself with Spanish interests, advocating war against England, despite the ancient Windsor alliance between England and Portugal. The people of Alenquer, however, though very Catholic, were nationalists, devoted to the homeland. They were absolutely opposed to Spanish control over Portuguese territory by way of England’s absorption. Thus my family changed its name, in wartime, from Alenquer to Alencar, so as not to be confused with the supporters of that traitorous mayor. From that point on, practically everyone adopted the wartime name, including José de Alencar, my hexa-uncle.
At that time of Shakespeare, there was already a form of folly similar to the general condition denounced in the book I review: the mayor used his office to secure personal advantage. It became necessary to draw a boundary around that stupidity, not to be complacent: we changed our own surname to dissociate ourselves from the very city in which we lived. There was also a civilizational dimension at stake. A woman is not an object; she is a human being. It was something base to disregard a woman’s will, insisting on marrying a woman who did not consent; and only a deeply unworthy alliance could so readily acquiesce to a proposal that dispensed with consent altogether. How could one presume to govern while acting so basely? And how could the Catholic Church accept a marriage without the consent of one of the parties? It was the moral factor, more than the war, that gave momentum to the Protestant movement in Europe. A brief recollection to remind us that history is full of monarchs who fail to recognize their own stupidity.
Setting aside this anecdote, and recalling something of the spirit of Shakespeare’s time—when he was still a relatively unknown playwright, writing for his modest Globe Theatre—he entertained Queen Elizabeth, a singular monarch among European rulers, who fought with full legitimacy to defend her dignity and her right to govern as a virgin. Shakespeare undoubtedly offered her what she most needed to triumph: the brilliance of ideas, the determination of spirit in language, the meeting of emotion and thought, with poetry as the place where justice realizes its poetic dimension. Without Shakespeare, Elizabeth might well have won the war against the Spaniards, thanks to English military virtue; but her triumph would not have had the same flavor—so meaningful, especially for women, in posterity.
True kings and queens often have a great poet as the mark of the benign purpose of their power. Or else they dismiss him, as proof of a malignant one. King David had Nathan, whose criticism he always received; King Solomon had the Queen of Sheba, whose beauty became poetry in his verses, whom he honored with poems; Emperor Claudius, and later Nero, had Seneca, whom they could not endure; and Elizabeth had Shakespeare. Poets, prophets: those who say what must be said, even when it is inconvenient.
One measures the success of a ruler by how they treat poets—and prophets—who warn them and place before them the limits between what is morally plausible and what is inadmissible, through the many allegories that literature and poetry allow in the freedom of creation. Or even directly… Seneca was condemned to suicide by Nero, which he carried out with dignity. Yet he did not cease to write what needed to be written. Fernando Pessoa kept nearly all his verses in a trunk, certain he would be met with hostility, having written, at times, with such irony against the symptoms of Salazar, especially through the contrast of the individual.
Today, perhaps, times are different—more favorable to poets? At least in wisdom, poets may have advanced, avoiding such proximity to high office, writing at a greater distance so as not to risk displeasing power.
I have no intention of being the poet of any statesman, nor does it seem that Ion Parreah had such an intention in choosing the title of this book. It is far more fitting for poets of our time to be their own statesmen, to publish their own books, rather than waste time with the traps that the market and power—intertwined—like to weave, in order to control the thought of those who write.
But considering that every reader and internet user today behaves like a monarch whose opinion and will cannot be questioned, always assuming that they must have the final word in social media commentary, the figure of the court jester becomes particularly apt to awaken the reader from this narcissistic torpor, and to set aside—if only briefly—the idea that their opinion should prevail over all others, including the facts.
If my reader enjoys Fernando Pessoa, they will certainly take pleasure in reading Ion Parreah. The text strikes hard.
The book is thus narrated by the Shakespearean court jester, who comments on the contemporary world. Shakespeare already knew that the court jester tells truths the king cannot hear, and the author updates this insight with intelligence, making such figures central in his work—Fool, Feste, Touchstone, Lavatch, Pompey, the gravedigger, Hamlet himself, Bottom, Dogberry, among others. They are the conscience of the king, they perceive others’ illusions, they ridicule everything and everyone, often with a melancholic undertone.
The narrator is therefore sarcastic, free, and morally incisive. To dress as the court jester allows one to say harsh things without sounding didactic—something with which I strongly identify. And the “fool,” fortunately, suffers no harm: if he says something that appears ridiculous, he is merely fulfilling his role of being laughed at. The most exquisite irony occurs when the fool tells the truth with precision, without softening it: then the true fools become those who pretend to be serious, feigning wisdom.
Regarding the content of the book, I believe I should not give spoilers, so as not to spoil the reader’s feast, nor their process of recovery, so numbed by the news of generalized stupidity. I offer only a few comments in defense of the book, because I need to persuade my readers to open its pages and keep it close; if not as a reference work, then as an amulet in the midst of contemporary degradation. It should be appreciated like a strong drink—taken after the hangover—to protect oneself from the outbursts of irrationality of authorities; from the crowds that kneel to autocrats in their highest offices, so busy praising themselves, while proclaiming democracy.
The first aspect that struck me in this book was this shift in psychological disposition: the choice of rupture, the refusal to be complicit in the most foolish acts of the powerful. In order to profit, to survive, to work, the reader might justify that it is not possible to break entirely with generalized stupidity. But the author refuses complacency, addressing stupidity case by case in the contemporary world. The reader ends up having to refuse alongside him. The fool takes the reader by the hand—and if the reader resists, he drags them through the book until they confront themselves soberly once again.
In this, I see as benign the purpose of repetition, its weight, rhythm, humor, and aggressiveness. He seeks to provoke—and succeeds, for he writes with energy. The book does not merely analyze stupidity: it seeks to delegitimize it as spectacle. Repetition, intensity, and ridicule function as blow after blow upon the complacent mind of the reader who might wish to find nuances, contradictions, and ways to relativize events. The book carries a strong ethical intention and adopts a less subtle literary form—a satirical work. The attempt to “destroy” stupidity through repetition and force is a necessary aesthetic choice.
It also dispenses with laudatory comments on the back cover—something I did in my early books, and unfortunately abandoned… This book makes me nostalgic for when I was what I should have been: a disturbance, whenever I was disturbed.
The author also transforms Shakespearean figures into recurring models of contemporary behavior: Macbeth becomes the brilliant man without moral restraint, or the intellectual paralyzed by analysis; King Lear, the ruler driven by vanity; Othello, the manipulator who destroys without gaining anything; Dogberry, the incompetent bureaucrat invested with authority. This may seem like a simplification, since these characters are complex within the framework of each work; yet the force of immediate functional analogy is undeniable. The “fool,” narrating the book and exposing the world to the reader, skirts, underscores, reveals, and dismantles the avalanche of stupidity. He updates Shakespeare’s stage, where power, ego, and illusion culminate in collapse.
It is a powerful idea: that the problems we face arise from stupidity rather than from evil. Macbeth does not begin as a villain, nor King Lear as a tyrant; Othello does not enter the play as a murderer. By the time the reader of Shakespeare realizes it, he or she has become complicit. It is a significant leap to revive this theatrical system within a collapsing reality of which the book itself is a part. It seeks to expose our cognitive failure, translating it into present-day terms: incompetent politicians, manipulable masses, and technologies that amplify error. The tragedy (or comedy) unfolds in real time, as we read what the fool has to say.
After reading an almost dogmatic manifesto against stupidity, there comes a point at which the reader may question whether the work achieves its aim. They may ask whether the author does not end up mirroring what he criticizes: noisy stupidity, the repetition of slogans, simplification. Shakespeare never “hammers”: he shows Lear and allows the reader to suffer with him, shows Macbeth and lets the reader recognize something within themselves, shows Iago without ever fully explaining him; never destroying stupidity, but revealing it and involving the reader in it. Very well: Shakespeare is more dangerous. He never says, “look how stupid they are,” but leaves you thinking: “where does this live in me?”
But I am of the humble opinion that the historical moment may no longer allow for such delicacy and sophistication. There are moments when it is necessary to break, not to insinuate—to mark a boundary with certainty. And, in this sense, I defend the book that invokes Shakespeare in order to surpass the Bard, for it is not literature alone—but an intervention. The book seeks to awaken the reader through shock, repetition, and denunciation.
Ah! Great literature does not awaken by shouting; it awakens by displacing the reader… Poetry must infiltrate delicately, to reveal the moment when someone exchanges truth for applause, the instant when silence is abandoned… But this is another form of stupidity that the book denounces. No! There are moments when it is necessary to awaken by shouting, yes… One must reach the height of Hannah Arendt’s wisdom, spare the reader the richness of great theses, and simply say what must be said: that guy is an idiot!
In its development, the book begins from a harsh intuition: stupidity is no longer marginal—it is applauded, amplified, elected, and, worse, admired when it performs with confidence. The fool’s hammer exposes all of this; it ceases to be excess and becomes a strategic necessity. In the present scenario, the author refuses neutrality, light irony, and comfortable distance from events. He insists, repeats, and exposes. We have passed the point at which it was enough merely to suggest.
The addicted reader—the automaton of literary interpretation—will certainly disagree with me in their appreciation of the book. They will argue that it is difficult to preserve what is being defended when one combats noise with greater noise. They will say that other forms deepen, sustain, transform silently; that Shakespeare would not do this. But I affirm: this book is necessary. Not reacting with force is a form of complicity. The book responds with clarity; it is frontal, without concessions—a manifesto against cynicism. It takes the side of reality against its distortion. It names the enemy: it does not dissolve everything into infinite complexity. It refuses moral fatigue: it does not accept that “this is simply how things are.” It creates urgency: it transforms diagnosis into action.
It is necessary to read this book to the end, word by word, until one detoxifies the entire spirit from generalized stupidity.
At the end of the book, after the uninterrupted blows, the reader breathes. They contemplate the simplification that has gained strength, in the clear boundaries established between “us” and “them,” and encounter accelerated thinking. They become aware. And finally, they can relax, detoxified, having discovered where stupidity resided within themselves: they have cleansed themselves, washed the soul. The author is not right because he explains better. He is right because he refuses complacency and becomes conscious—something much of contemporary writing has lost.
The reader should not expect Shakespeare’s solution, but will find something far better than a style: the condition for the survival of lucidity. Catharsis as a defense of the mind, in an environment where lies are repeated until they seem natural, superficiality is rewarded, thought is ridiculed, and gossip has become a kind of legal opinion used to elevate those who do the least.
The fact is that consciousness cannot be sustained by analysis alone, and it should never allow itself to seek a complete formula within a book. Without this mental hygiene—this emotional discharge, clear affirmation, and visceral refusal that reestablishes the ground of things—lucidity cannot endure. I sign beneath this manifesto: a reaffirmation of criteria, a cry against the normalization of the absurd. In times of intellectual degradation, lucidity must first resist, and only then understand.
There are also passages of great interest, inviting deeper reflection, in the contemplation that stupidity sometimes arises spontaneously to rebalance an injustice that has disregarded truth. The reader is left wondering whether the writer himself fully grasped the wisdom of what he set forth, in a breadth that depends on a part to be completed by the attentive reader.
No book solves anything: the solution to stupidity must lie outside the book, in the reader who transforms and commits to the end of complacency. The work “How Shakespeare Can Save the World” does not contain the solution—and it could not. What it can do is interrupt inertia, break complacency, and make the reader incapable of continuing as before, bringing them to the threshold of decision, where one finally allows concrete refusal and adopts a new posture toward the world. The solution must lie outside the book!
And in this, the work succeeds, since generalized stupidity demands and rewards books that do everything—including thinking on behalf of the reader. Here, one avoids the mistake of presenting a complete and round system of thought, a book that the reader closes satisfied only to return unchanged to their affairs. It is a text that manages to be disturbing—almost a spell. Evoé!
I hope my readers will be moved to open this book and, in doing so, lose their comfort, break with their environment, and refuse certain forms of social admiration: to stop tolerating what they know to be false, empty, or destructive, even when it is popular, rewarded, and normalized. Raise a glass and make a toast to rupture! Break the glass against the edge of the table. I'm done with stupidity! Strike the table, rise from it. A breath of being outside all this. I'm done!
A book can hardly save the world, and indeed… I also doubt that even a great author like Shakespeare can save the world when stupidity becomes so widespread and rewarded. But this book tests whether the reader wishes to participate in their own salvation: it demands a position. It is important not to surrender to a gloomy atmosphere.
I can only offer my congratulations to Ion Parreah for completing this necessary and wide-ranging work, and for its success. I hope the book will receive additions with new events, and many editions, until it becomes the Bible against the stupidity of our time. Time is urgent!
Book:
“How Shakespeare Can Save the World: a Survival Guide Against the Apocalypse of Stupidity”, by Ion Parreah
Book in English. Released on January 20, 2026, 297 pages.
Link to purchase the book:
Author’s Instagram page with excerpts from the book:
@ionparreah
* Ana Paula Arendt is a Brazilian political scientist, poet, and diplomat.
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