The Tempest: Shakespeare on Freedom and Power

A couple of years ago, I set out to read or watch / listen to all of Shakespeare’s plays, and I recently finished the last one. To crown it all, I went to the Globe Theatre in London (a faithful replica of Shakespeare’s original), and I have now started to jot down a few reflections on Shakespeare.

Here is the beginning of my reflections on parts of The Tempest (more blog posts will follow in the coming weeks):

Italy during the Renaissance. Prospero, the Duke of Milan, falls victim to a plot by his power-hungry brother Antonio, who deposes him. But rather than raise his own hand and strike the blow to finish him off, Antonio takes a course typical of human nature and sends his brother adrift in a little boat. In that way, it would be the elements that killed Prospero, and not he himself. Also in the little boat is Prospero’s little daughter Miranda, as well as provisions and books, smuggled in by someone sympathetic to Prospero.

“By providence divine” the two land on a deserted island, which is only inhabited by spirits and the son of a deceased witch. Prospero makes use of his skills in magic to subdue the few human and non-human inhabitants, and henceforth he lives with his daughter in “a full poor cell.”

Years later, his enemies happen to pass the island in a ship, and Prospero, once again employing magic, raises a storm to force the sailors unto the island and win back his former position as Duke of Milan.

Thus far the broad outline. Most of the play focuses on the various people on the island after the storm, all of whom either strive for freedom or consciously give up freedom for the sake of other desires. In fact, the very last words of the play are “set me free,” but one hardly needs to wait until the last words to notice this theme. It is weaved into the text throughout.

Freedom—now what exactly is that? Many people feel that freedom is power, namely the power to go where they want, do what they want, and think what they want. “Had I been any god of power, I would have sunk the sea within the earth,” says Miranda right in the beginning of the play, after her father Prospero had raised the storm and caused the shipwreck. What Miranda is saying is that if she had as much power as Prospero, she would use it for the good. Of course, at this stage in the play she does not yet know the background story and so does not understand her father’s actions, but the main point is that she desires more power. “If I had the power, I would do so-and-so”—this is the desire of someone who recognizes that she is not completely free. Miranda is in the hands of her father, her “schoolmaster,” and others are in his hands too, and she is tempted to think that she would be more worthy of the power he holds. She would be kinder to others and not use her power to deprive them of their freedom.

Such are the thoughts of many a powerless person, thoughts as noble as they are foolish, for it is less easy to use power correctly once one is in possession of it than when one is merely desiring it. Indeed, the desire to be a “god of power” is a dangerous thing. As the Graeco-Roman gods demonstrate, gods do not always use their power for the good, and neither might I if I were one of them. The gods were personified forces of nature, and, like these forces, raw power tends not to discriminate. It thunders on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Therefore, it might be for the best that I do not have all the freedom I desire. It might give me more power than I can handle.

Judging Books: The Golden Rule of Criticism

The Golden Rule of a good critic is, “Do not criticize what you have no taste for.” That is at least what literary critic and Christian writer C.S. Lewis believed.

If I had an aversion to alcohol, he said, I would be in no position to tell anyone that a certain kind of wine was of poor quality. Any wine would be poor to my taste, even if it happened to be the finest vintage in the history of the world. A deaf man cannot criticize music nor a blind one examine paintings. Only someone who loves good music will recognize bad music and only someone who has seen many great paintings will detect a meager one.

So with literature: People who do not have a taste for a certain genre had better hold their tongue about any particular book of that genre, because they might not be criticizing it at all but the genre in general. Of course they might have good reasons for disliking the genre, but then they should criticize the whole genre instead of a certain book. Someone might have good reasons for disliking alcohol, and it is understandable if he advocates the benefits of teetotalism, but if he criticizes a certain vintage, he will only betray his ignorance on the subject. Such a person will look quite ridiculous.

Since I am not eager to make a fool of myself, I have to turn to my palate before I turn to my subject. Do I have a taste for the genre that my object of examination is a part of? Or am I a blind man criticizing art?

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This post was an excerpt from the book Seven Years at Hogwarts: A Christian’s Conversion to Harry Potter.

Abortion and Stem-Cell Research: Arguing from Continuity or Category?

After reading William James’ Pragmatism and Varieties of Religious Experience this year, I also dabbled in his humungous Principles of Psychology recently. Now in Chapter 3 of the Principles, he uses the term “Argument from Continuity,” which I found to be handy peg for a line of thinking that I’ve never had a name for.

Let me explain the Argument from Continuity by using the controversial issues of stem-cell research and abortion.

Some people argue that there is an unbroken continuity from the male sperm and female egg to the growing lump of cells after conception. After all, this lump of cells doesn’t much resemble a human baby yet. Sure, nine months later there would be a baby, but it is a gradual process from unfertilized cells to fertilized cells to fetus and unborn baby, born baby, child, and grown-up. There is no absolute, definite line between any of these stages.

Therefore, if we want to pass laws to protect human life, we have to be somewhat arbitrary. We might, for instance, draw a line at twelve weeks after conception. This arbitrary line is needed because we certainly do not want to prosecute a man for not saving the lives of all his sperm cells, and—so the Argument from Continuity goes—likewise we do not want to prosecute anyone for using fertilized human cells for medical purposes. But we do want to prosecute someone who rips out an eight-month old baby from the womb of its mother and kills it. It’s a gradual process from the lump of cells to the baby with no definite natural line, but we do have to draw a line somewhere.

So far, so good (or not good, depending where you stand on this issue). But what might we call the opposite of the Argument from Continuity? Perhaps the Argument from Category?

The Argument from Category would counter that at the moment of conception there is a category change of what we are dealing with. Before conception, we just have cells. After conception, we have fundamentally a human being. From then on, there is only a change in degree, not a change in kind. Therefore, if we want to have laws for the protection of human life at all, we have to include even those who are only just starting out on the human journey.

Within each category, there can be a lot of change, but none of the changes merit treating the object in question as something fundamentally different.

This latter argument is essentially Aristotelian, and, due to Aristotle’s great influence on Catholicism, probably has a lot to do with the Catholic Church’s stance on stem-cell research and abortion.

Proponents of the Argument from Continuity would of course criticize the Aristotelian notion of categories as something that imposes human concepts onto nature, even though nature really cannot be quite so neatly divided. For instance, our common conception of different animal “species” cannot be a hundred percent matched with what we actually find in nature. Ernst Mayr defined a species as a group of population that can successfully interbreed and cannot interbreed with other groups. This is true of many groups of animal populations, but it is not true of all. There are some groups we call species that can interbreed with other species and there are other groups that very much seem like a single species, except that that not all can interbreed within the group.

This is just one example how we tend to quickly form neat categories in our minds, even though nature is more complex than those categories. On the other hand, clearly nature is not completely chaotic or unvariable. It makes sense to see things in terms of categories, but not at the expense of becoming victims of our own categories.

What do you think? Is the supposed category change at the moment of conception an example of our becoming victims of our own categories, or is it a line given by nature that we should not trespass?

Christmas Present for Christian Harry Potter Fans (or skeptics, for that matter)

My new book is now ready to order at Amazon! If you’re still looking for a Christmas present for someone interested in Harry Potter, Fantasy, and Christianity, maybe this would be an idea:

Seven Years at Hogwarts: A Christian’s Conversion to Harry Potter

www.amazon.com

Blurb and Back Cover of My New Book on Harry Potter (soon to be released)

After sharing the cover for my new book, here’s the back cover and the blurb. A link to order the book will follow soon.

“Harry Potter has not only had many fans, but also many critics. Some of the criticism has been religiously motivated. But is Harry Potter really as un-Christian as these critics suggest?

Come and join Jacob Schriftman as he explores the world and worldview of J.K. Rowling’s Fantasy, drawing comparisons to Christian writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, as well as to explicitly non-Christian ones like Philip Pullman and H.G. Wells.

In the process of analysis, Schriftman deals both with literary and existential questions. Should Harry Potter be understood as a parody of our own society? How does Harry Potter treat serious issues? It is common for humans to ask, “Where do we come from? What can we know? What should we do? Do we have a purpose? And how do we approach death?” These questions are woven into Harry Potter, and some of the answers take a surprising turn.

A book that delights as much as it instructs, a challenge to fans and skeptics alike.”

Delighting in Pessimism: Schopenhauer and “Melancholia”

An online acquaintance who watched the movie Melancholia remarked the other day how similar it seemed to be to the pessimistic worldview of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). In Melancholia, the main character is utterly depressed because it actually seems rational to be depressed and disgusted with humanity, and, so she thinks, it would be better for humanity not to exist. Just like Schopenhauer wrote: “We have not to be pleased but rather sorry about the existence of the world.” He wrote that “its nonexistence would be preferable to its existence,” because at bottom it “ought not to be.”

Cheery stuff, I know. In line with that, in the movie there is a planet called “Melancholia” about to collide with the earth, promising to make the wish for its nonexistence come true.

On the other hand, Schopenhauer did actually argue against suicide. If I remember correctly, his argument went something like this: You need to get to the point of not caring whether you live or die, and since you don’t care, why bother killing yourself? The problem of living will take care of itself soon enough. Why shoot yourself while you are already falling down a cliff? Just let yourself fall until you hit the ground.

I must confess, I’m not always in the mood for reading Schopenhauer. Although he can be quite amusing at times. In fact, he sometimes seems to take great delight in formulating his pessimism, seasoning it with a large dose of wit. He positively revels in his pessimism. And therein lies a paradox. He wishes to deny life, and yet in the act of formulating his denial he affirms life. Writing about his pessimism, clothing it in delightful language, becomes his way of escaping pessimism.

Though I haven’t yet seen the film, maybe the same could be said about Melancholia. The movie is said to be hauntingly beautiful, and isn’t creating a beautiful movie about life on earth being meaningless an oxymoron? Creating a movie, especially a beautiful one, is not an act that denies life; it is an act that affirms life. The appreciation of beauty has long been one of the major ways in which people have found meaning. If one is a true pessimist who doesn’t believe in meaning at all and wants everyone to not care about life, one should create destructive art—art that is ugly and fragmented and confusing, as some 20th century art has been.

Some philosophers, of course, have said that it is only by staring long and hard at the approaching planet Melancholia, so to speak, that we gain a true appreciation for life. Heidegger, for instance, thought that it is by deeply contemplating one’s own eternal non-being that one begins to understand what being is. And another Existentialist, Sartre, considered the approaching annihilation of oneself to be a kind of liberation. Since nothing mattered in the long run, you are free to choose what you want to do with life. Nietzsche, too, saw in existential despair the hope for creating a new humanity.

As different as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre were, they all shared an atheistic outlook on the world. And what I appreciate about them is that they did not gloss over what they perceived to be the consequences of their atheism. They looked long and hard at the approaching planet Melancholia, and they asked: Given that it’s all coming to nothing, what ought we to do? How shall we live? What choices shall we make?

Whether we are atheists or believers of some kind, it seems that many of the activities we occupy ourselves with are designed to distract us from these ultimate questions. If we watch movies like Melancholia at all, we are very happy to see a comedy again or joke with friends or do our work so that we don’t have to think about our approaching death.

On the other hand, is Heidegger right? Isn’t there something to be said about simply living in the moment, without pondering death? If you are an atheist, you don’t think your pondering will change your eternal fate anyway. So why not simply eat and drink and be merry, like David Hume, another atheist, was so good at doing? And if you are a believer, most religions seem to stress that taking care of your neighbor who is in need right now is more important than worrying about your particular rewards in the afterlife.

Given the atheistic presuppositions, who is right? Heidegger or Hume? Or neither?

Cheers.

My Book on Harry Potter Finally to be Published

Yay! After some delays, my long-announced book on Harry Potter is finally about to be published.

Here’s the cover. More information coming soon …

Does Democracy Equal Freedom?

In response to this post on mixed economies and mixed constitutions, someone asked me: “What is that feature defining a good constitution, if not the degree to which that government is democratic itself?”

I would say this feature is the value of freedom, not democracy as such.

Pure democracy does not equal freedom. If the free speech of a Socrates starts to get on the nerves of the majority, a democracy can simply decide to bump Socrates off, as in fact happened. In order to ensure as much freedom as possible – in order to ensure that even ugly, potbellied Socrates with his unnerving questions about the definition of words can freely walk around the Agora and talk as much as he wants – one needs to have non-democratic safeguards within a democratic system. As Rosa Luxemburg said, “Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit der Andersdenken” (“Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently.”)

But not only individuals may lose their freedom in a democracy, a democracy may actually take away everyone’s freedom by terminating itself. It can vote in a dictator. This happened in the German democracy prior to Hitler, and for this reason the new German democracy after the war tried to build in safeguards that would make it much harder for the democracy to terminate itself.

Something similar may be said about the United States. Since the Founding Fathers valued freedom, they recognized that a pure democracy would not be the best vehicle for ensuring freedom. Hence such extremely non-democratic institutions as the Supreme Court.

Not maximum efficiency in decision making nor stability as such, but as much long-term freedom for as many people as possible – this is the mark of a good constitution. To believe this, however, one obviously needs to value freedom. Implicit in the question of what makes up a “good” constitution is the question of what we value. Do we value individual freedom? Then a good constitution is that which promotes freedom and equal opportunities (=justice). Do we value unity? Then a good constitution is that which promotes conformity with the polis.

And what constitutes a good economy? Well, what do we value? Material prosperity, freedom, human happiness, the happiness of the many non-human sentient animals on this planet …?