The idea of the ‘trickster’ as rebel, able to subvert the nature of church, is seen to be captive to the process of consumption. The rebel is not a rebel at all, but is rather complicit and pandering to the agenda of consumerism. St Augustine’s warned of the danger of loving love itself, of how the direction of our affections can become about escape into simulacra in place of real things, such that we might see how the love of revolution, the anticipation and excitement in being ‘rebellious’ panders to the titillation of consumer agency while resulting in no real revolution at all.
The trickster who seeks to subvert the church, to draw attention to the failings of the church, can end up as absurd as the man in a story from Immanuel Kant’s lectures on anthropology who, on seeing a child fall into water and start to drown, complains that there is no one taking action to save the child.
