Fools, morons and lunatics!

Uberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is a satirical piece full filled with secret societies, medieval manuscripts, codes,  occult, mysteries, and conspiracy theories. 

The core thought of this satirical novel seems to be that you can pick any fact or thought and link it to any other idea to form a solid belief. You can form a solid theory based off facts that teeters on the border between truth and lie. Such a theory is otherwise known as a conspiracy theory.

It is fun to read. When is a satire not fun, unless that satire is targeted on yourself!

Here's some dialog between two characters in that novel - talking about cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.

"Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types."

…

"Cretins don't even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble. You know, the guy who presses the ice cream cone against his forehead or enters a revolving door the wrong way." 

"Being a fool is more complicated. It's a form of social behavior. A fool is one who always talks outside his glass."

"What do you mean?"

"Like this."

He pointed at the counter near his glass.  "He wants to talk about what's in the glass, but somehow or other he misses. He's the guy who puts his foot in his mouth. For example, he says how's your lovely wife to someone whose wife has just left him."

"Yes, I know a few of those."

…

"Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats. Talking outside the glass when someone else blunders helps to change the subject."

…

"Fools don't claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they're magnificent. It's a dying breed, the embodiment of all the bourgeois virtues."

…

"Ah. Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, and therefore cats bark. Or that all Athenians are mortal, and all the citizens of Piraeus are mortal, so all the citizens of Piraeus are Athenians."

"Morons will occasionally say something that's right, but they say it for the wrong reason."

"You can spot the fool right away (not to mention the cretin), but the moron reasons almost the way you do; the gap is infinitesimal. A moron is a master of paralogism."

…

"A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn't know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has a logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy."