Alan Lindsay's Blog
March 1, 2018
Shakespeare's Henry V: Tragic Hero
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
The more I read Shakespeare's Henry V and reflect by on I and II Henry IV, the more the plays seem to be a serious answer to this rhetorical question. This is what it will profit a man: A French Queen and two kingdoms that he will hold onto for a few years and then leave to the chaos of a near-permanent war culminating in the Elizabethan police state.
The character starts as a conniver. Perhaps he believes his conniving is in the long run for the good of himself and England. But he has to play with hearts along the way, worry his father to death, sidle up to and then reject the man who thought he was his best friend, leave others in delusion. He never stops lying and grandstanding--in the English Court, at Harfleur, at Agincourt where he gives a ridiculous but perfect pep-rally speech to his officers or perhaps his entire army. They buy it, the Saint Crispen's day speech. He doesn't mean it. He couldn't. But he always says what has to be said, and this after a prayer which is really the culmination of his soul-emptying life.
He has a parade. He seduces a princess. In the end he has everything, and what he doesn't yet possess he has promises of--every but the soul he sold to get there. He's empty. So empty that he doesn't know he's empty. But he's been dragged there and he's dragged his audience there with him. Whole theaters, all of Britain in time of war, jumping and cheering for Henry, England and St. George.
But Shakespeare knew better. Outside of Harfleur the soldiers mock Henry's "Once more into the breach" speech. And at Agincourt the absurdity of the appeal to honor is made manifest when Cambridge wishes everyone home but himself and Henry to fight the French. The dauphin's messenger undercut Henry's honor-quest before it ever began, and Montjoy is there to deflate the king at every turn. Henry's subtle, unlike Richard III, unlike Iago, unlike the obvious villains, so subtle he fools even his audience, so subtle he fools himself. But he's a failure in the end because, though he gained the whole world, he had to sell his soul to do it.
The more I read Shakespeare's Henry V and reflect by on I and II Henry IV, the more the plays seem to be a serious answer to this rhetorical question. This is what it will profit a man: A French Queen and two kingdoms that he will hold onto for a few years and then leave to the chaos of a near-permanent war culminating in the Elizabethan police state.
The character starts as a conniver. Perhaps he believes his conniving is in the long run for the good of himself and England. But he has to play with hearts along the way, worry his father to death, sidle up to and then reject the man who thought he was his best friend, leave others in delusion. He never stops lying and grandstanding--in the English Court, at Harfleur, at Agincourt where he gives a ridiculous but perfect pep-rally speech to his officers or perhaps his entire army. They buy it, the Saint Crispen's day speech. He doesn't mean it. He couldn't. But he always says what has to be said, and this after a prayer which is really the culmination of his soul-emptying life.
He has a parade. He seduces a princess. In the end he has everything, and what he doesn't yet possess he has promises of--every but the soul he sold to get there. He's empty. So empty that he doesn't know he's empty. But he's been dragged there and he's dragged his audience there with him. Whole theaters, all of Britain in time of war, jumping and cheering for Henry, England and St. George.
But Shakespeare knew better. Outside of Harfleur the soldiers mock Henry's "Once more into the breach" speech. And at Agincourt the absurdity of the appeal to honor is made manifest when Cambridge wishes everyone home but himself and Henry to fight the French. The dauphin's messenger undercut Henry's honor-quest before it ever began, and Montjoy is there to deflate the king at every turn. Henry's subtle, unlike Richard III, unlike Iago, unlike the obvious villains, so subtle he fools even his audience, so subtle he fools himself. But he's a failure in the end because, though he gained the whole world, he had to sell his soul to do it.
Henry V: Tragic Hero
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
The more I read Shakespeare's Henry V and reflect by on I and II Henry IV, the more the plays seem to be a serious answer to this rhetorical question. This is what it will profit a man: A French Queen and two kingdoms that he will hold onto for a few years and then leave to the chaos of a near-permanent war culminating in the Elizabethan police state.
The character starts as a conniver. Perhaps he believes his conniving is in the long run for the good of himself and England. But he has to play with hearts along the way, worry his father to death, sidle up to and then reject the man who thought he was his best friend, leave others in delusion. He never stops lying and grandstanding--in the English Court, at Harfleur, at Agincourt where he gives a ridiculous but perfect pep-rally speech to his officers or perhaps his entire army. They buy it, the Saint Crispen's day speech. He doesn't mean it. He couldn't. But he always says what has to be said, and this after a prayer which is really the culmination of his soul-emptying life.
He has a parade. He seduces a princess. In the end he has everything, and what he doesn't yet possess he has promises of--every but the soul he sold to get there. He's empty. So empty that he doesn't know he's empty. But he's been dragged there and he's dragged his audience there with him. Whole theaters, all of Britain in time of war, jumping and cheering for Henry, England and St. George.
But Shakespeare knew better. Outside of Harfleur the soldiers mock Henry's "Once more into the breach" speech. And at Agincourt the absurdity of the appeal to honor is made manifest when Cambridge wishes everyone home but himself and Henry to fight the French. The dauphin's messenger undercut Henry's honor-quest before it ever began, and Montjoy is there to deflate the king at every turn. Henry's subtle, unlike Richard III, unlike Iago, unlike the obvious villains, so subtle he fools even his audience, so subtle he fools himself. But he's a failure in the end because, though he gained the whole world, he had to sell his soul to do it.
The more I read Shakespeare's Henry V and reflect by on I and II Henry IV, the more the plays seem to be a serious answer to this rhetorical question. This is what it will profit a man: A French Queen and two kingdoms that he will hold onto for a few years and then leave to the chaos of a near-permanent war culminating in the Elizabethan police state.
The character starts as a conniver. Perhaps he believes his conniving is in the long run for the good of himself and England. But he has to play with hearts along the way, worry his father to death, sidle up to and then reject the man who thought he was his best friend, leave others in delusion. He never stops lying and grandstanding--in the English Court, at Harfleur, at Agincourt where he gives a ridiculous but perfect pep-rally speech to his officers or perhaps his entire army. They buy it, the Saint Crispen's day speech. He doesn't mean it. He couldn't. But he always says what has to be said, and this after a prayer which is really the culmination of his soul-emptying life.
He has a parade. He seduces a princess. In the end he has everything, and what he doesn't yet possess he has promises of--every but the soul he sold to get there. He's empty. So empty that he doesn't know he's empty. But he's been dragged there and he's dragged his audience there with him. Whole theaters, all of Britain in time of war, jumping and cheering for Henry, England and St. George.
But Shakespeare knew better. Outside of Harfleur the soldiers mock Henry's "Once more into the breach" speech. And at Agincourt the absurdity of the appeal to honor is made manifest when Cambridge wishes everyone home but himself and Henry to fight the French. The dauphin's messenger undercut Henry's honor-quest before it ever began, and Montjoy is there to deflate the king at every turn. Henry's subtle, unlike Richard III, unlike Iago, unlike the obvious villains, so subtle he fools even his audience, so subtle he fools himself. But he's a failure in the end because, though he gained the whole world, he had to sell his soul to do it.
February 28, 2018
Why I Keep Doing This
Because if I had anything to say I would have said it by now.
Because if I understood the wild changes in Neruda’s poems
Or why I love them or how they work or all they mean
I would not have to say anything myself. Because
After almost 57 years of earnest trying, I still have no idea
What I’m doing. Because when I actually manage to say something
It doesn’t seem to come from me but from the language
Swirling in my head like free molecules that under these random
And constantly changing conditions suddenly
Bond.
Aha!
There it is.
I used to think it was the voice of God.
Because if I understood the wild changes in Neruda’s poems
Or why I love them or how they work or all they mean
I would not have to say anything myself. Because
After almost 57 years of earnest trying, I still have no idea
What I’m doing. Because when I actually manage to say something
It doesn’t seem to come from me but from the language
Swirling in my head like free molecules that under these random
And constantly changing conditions suddenly
Bond.
Aha!
There it is.
I used to think it was the voice of God.
February 16, 2018
Dog
This sign bolted to the fence declares in no uncertain terms
This house protected by Smith and Wesson
And
Smile you are under surveillance
And
Beware of Dog
And
I see no camera
Hear no dog.
This house protected by Smith and Wesson
And
Smile you are under surveillance
And
Beware of Dog
And
I see no camera
Hear no dog.
February 15, 2018
She Is Dead
That sentence, "she is dead," should sound odd--like a joke or a pun or an oxymoron. It should sound amusing to hear. If she has died then, having died, there is nothing she is. There is only was. We can conceive of a language in which it is possible to say "she died," but not "she is dead" without a smirk. There may be such a language.
It's impossible to "be" dead. But here's the point: if we can say "she is dead" as naturally as "she died" and understand at the same time that there is on on existential level something truly odd about the sentence, we can infer that language does not absolutely limit our perceptions. Language's limitations has its limits. We retain some ability to perceive beyond what we can articulate.
It's impossible to "be" dead. But here's the point: if we can say "she is dead" as naturally as "she died" and understand at the same time that there is on on existential level something truly odd about the sentence, we can infer that language does not absolutely limit our perceptions. Language's limitations has its limits. We retain some ability to perceive beyond what we can articulate.
February 13, 2018
Language, History, Fiction, and Truth Boiling in a Cauldron
Cultures without writing are cultures without history in the Enlightenment sense of the word. But that does not mean that they are cultures without a past. What it means is that the functions that we currently divide between the essential forms of storytelling that we call history and fiction are combined in a single form of storytelling that we call now call myth. This is not to say there are not different types of myth: there are stories about this or that named leader leading the people against this or that enemy in triumph or defeat based in actual events still in or just beyond living memory alongside stories of the magical creation of the world. But the difference between these types of story is never absolute. Historical becomes myths; mythic understandings inform historical events. Writing changes this—or appears to. We can now base historical events on what we name as facts and put them into place in the changeless past. We can rail against those who would presume to “rewrite history.” We can think of the past as a series of complete and immutable events which we can tell in great detail, or when we can’t, we can say precisely what details we don’t have, what holes must remain or be papered over with speculation. We can maintain an absolute distinction between history and fiction. This changes everything. And nothing.
The problem is that the distinction is not in any way real. It cannot be supported. It cannot be maintained by reason. The more you look at history the more you understand that it is organized out of only those facts which are available and which we have chosen to look at out of the infinite number of possible facts, most of which we would consider too trivial to bother with if we thought about them at all or which we have to acknowledge that we just don’t have access to. The stories we tell from the facts that remain are as accurate as they can be, but they are not more accurate in any statistically significant way to the past, to what actually happened, than is myth. Nietzsche was perhaps the first to observe this. In other words what we call history is another form of myth. What we call fiction is also another form of myth. And our attempts to keep them separate academically—one should really say officially—belies the fact that we don’t can’t and shouldn’t try to keep them separate in practice. Historians looking for the facts about the life of Henry V do not rely on Shakespeare. Historians trying to understand Henry V do.
In fact the best historical accounts of the past are no more accurate than the best science fiction accounts of the future. Or a journalist’s account of the present. The thing history pretends to do is something that language cannot do and that the mind could not comprehend even if language could. Nonetheless the idea—the myth, the story—that we tell ourselves that history is possible in history determines the structure through which we perceive that we see the world. This is a false lens. I would not say that the purpose of this discovery—which of course is by no means mine—is not that we should abandon it. The culture that we have built or which history built and placed us in at this moment cannot do without it. Abandoning the structure through which we see reality would be catastrophic. What is necessary, and this is a fundamental insight of Postmodernism (which we are supposed to be past, but which, as Derrida noted, not calling it Postmodernism, is something that we can acknowledge or ignore but which we cannot get through to the other side of because it has no other side, is an absolute barrier)—what is necessary is that we never lose our self-awareness of the insight. Ignoring it has implications. Ignoring it determines who has power over whom. Acknowledging it brings power to the objects of that power, turning them into subjects. Acknowledging it also elevates and clarifies fiction. It elevates the status of fiction, which has retained much of the mythic power it has already had, but had unofficially. We have always as Americans looked at the tradition of the Western to know who we are, looked much more powerfully and effectively to the Western than to that subject we learned in school, to know who we are (or rather to determine and to become who or what we will be), though we give lip service to “history” as the superior discourse since it is supposedly true. (A form of “truth” which is an Enlightenment fantasy.)
Acknowledging the seriousness of our stories takes them out of the false, dangerous, Novocain realm of “entertainment.” Whole realms of scholarly discourse have long understood this. But this understanding has failed to penetrate to the culture at large. Indeed there are powerful forces that serve to prevent this knowledge from escaping the genie-bottle of academic discourse. And there may be those who believe that fiction is all the more powerful for being an unacknowledged, even a denied power—with a power analogous to the Freudian unconscious. I don’t think so. True, the implications and power relations are different. But I think that, as Freud thought of the unconscious, bringing it to light is more powerful, more liberating, than keeping it in the pretended world of entertainment, allowing capitalism to be the cauldron’s dancing, clanking lid.
The problem is that the distinction is not in any way real. It cannot be supported. It cannot be maintained by reason. The more you look at history the more you understand that it is organized out of only those facts which are available and which we have chosen to look at out of the infinite number of possible facts, most of which we would consider too trivial to bother with if we thought about them at all or which we have to acknowledge that we just don’t have access to. The stories we tell from the facts that remain are as accurate as they can be, but they are not more accurate in any statistically significant way to the past, to what actually happened, than is myth. Nietzsche was perhaps the first to observe this. In other words what we call history is another form of myth. What we call fiction is also another form of myth. And our attempts to keep them separate academically—one should really say officially—belies the fact that we don’t can’t and shouldn’t try to keep them separate in practice. Historians looking for the facts about the life of Henry V do not rely on Shakespeare. Historians trying to understand Henry V do.
In fact the best historical accounts of the past are no more accurate than the best science fiction accounts of the future. Or a journalist’s account of the present. The thing history pretends to do is something that language cannot do and that the mind could not comprehend even if language could. Nonetheless the idea—the myth, the story—that we tell ourselves that history is possible in history determines the structure through which we perceive that we see the world. This is a false lens. I would not say that the purpose of this discovery—which of course is by no means mine—is not that we should abandon it. The culture that we have built or which history built and placed us in at this moment cannot do without it. Abandoning the structure through which we see reality would be catastrophic. What is necessary, and this is a fundamental insight of Postmodernism (which we are supposed to be past, but which, as Derrida noted, not calling it Postmodernism, is something that we can acknowledge or ignore but which we cannot get through to the other side of because it has no other side, is an absolute barrier)—what is necessary is that we never lose our self-awareness of the insight. Ignoring it has implications. Ignoring it determines who has power over whom. Acknowledging it brings power to the objects of that power, turning them into subjects. Acknowledging it also elevates and clarifies fiction. It elevates the status of fiction, which has retained much of the mythic power it has already had, but had unofficially. We have always as Americans looked at the tradition of the Western to know who we are, looked much more powerfully and effectively to the Western than to that subject we learned in school, to know who we are (or rather to determine and to become who or what we will be), though we give lip service to “history” as the superior discourse since it is supposedly true. (A form of “truth” which is an Enlightenment fantasy.)
Acknowledging the seriousness of our stories takes them out of the false, dangerous, Novocain realm of “entertainment.” Whole realms of scholarly discourse have long understood this. But this understanding has failed to penetrate to the culture at large. Indeed there are powerful forces that serve to prevent this knowledge from escaping the genie-bottle of academic discourse. And there may be those who believe that fiction is all the more powerful for being an unacknowledged, even a denied power—with a power analogous to the Freudian unconscious. I don’t think so. True, the implications and power relations are different. But I think that, as Freud thought of the unconscious, bringing it to light is more powerful, more liberating, than keeping it in the pretended world of entertainment, allowing capitalism to be the cauldron’s dancing, clanking lid.
February 12, 2018
from Aphorisms in the Book of the Damned
I said, What is the function of literature?
He said, to burn down the house before the others get in.
He said, to burn down the house before the others get in.
February 5, 2018
All the Reasons to Support Trump
Note: Earlier I noted that Trump supporters are driven by fear. I wasn't happy with that analysis. I've done some more thinking on the subject.
There are a number of reasons why a person might support Trump. But they all come down to one of two fundamental failures. Either a failure of morals or a failure of intellect. One could support Trump because one believes his policies will increase prosperity. They won’t in the end. But one could nonetheless believe it. One could support Trump out of fear in the belief that his policies will make America safer. Again, they won’t have that effect. But one could believe it. Underlying these beliefs is the acceptation of the hope that some few people whom one values will prosper, and it makes no difference what happens to the others or how many of them there are, or that some small and well defined group of people will be safer and it doesn’t matter who or how many that causes to suffer as long as my people are among the safer.
Underlying all Trump support is a lack of compassion or a lack of sound thinking or both. Whatever short term economic gains might be experienced by the wealthy in America and elsewhere will be more than offset by the increasing costs of climate change, which he ignores and which becomes more and more expensive to fix every year until it reaches the point where it is unfixable. (A point which we cannot be sure we have not passed by the way. That’s how urgent this problem is.) As his policies invest more and more of the wealth of the world in the hands of fewer and fewer people, those people—who were not made rich by their superabundance of compassion—increasingly will treat the others as the means by which they increase their absurd wealth. Money is power. The influence of wealth on the US Congress has never been more widespread or more nefarious. Trump is doing all he can to act in the interest of this small coterie of his billionaire buddies against the interests of everyone else, against the interests of the planet itself.
Trump will not make you safer. Even putting aside the fact that neither Muslims nor foreigners from Latin America or Africa are making you unsafe to begin with (fearmongering for the people who refuse to think and who refuse all evidence), increasing global nuclear tensions does not make you safer. Alienating allies does not make you or the world safer. Increasing the damaging effects of climate change does not make you safer. Loosening gun laws does not make you safer. Ballooning the national debt does not make you safer. Nothing he does makes you safer. He gives you the illusion of safety by scapegoating foreigners and immigrants so he can protect you from them while he increases daily the real and material dangers in which you are living.
All of this aside from the moral vacuity, the incessant lies, the egomania, the lack of impulse control, the, narcissism, and lack of both intellect and curiosity that would make him unfit for office even if he were pursuing policies that tended toward the good of the nation or the world. The sooner he is forced out of any position of power, the safer we’ll all sleep.
There are a number of reasons why a person might support Trump. But they all come down to one of two fundamental failures. Either a failure of morals or a failure of intellect. One could support Trump because one believes his policies will increase prosperity. They won’t in the end. But one could nonetheless believe it. One could support Trump out of fear in the belief that his policies will make America safer. Again, they won’t have that effect. But one could believe it. Underlying these beliefs is the acceptation of the hope that some few people whom one values will prosper, and it makes no difference what happens to the others or how many of them there are, or that some small and well defined group of people will be safer and it doesn’t matter who or how many that causes to suffer as long as my people are among the safer.
Underlying all Trump support is a lack of compassion or a lack of sound thinking or both. Whatever short term economic gains might be experienced by the wealthy in America and elsewhere will be more than offset by the increasing costs of climate change, which he ignores and which becomes more and more expensive to fix every year until it reaches the point where it is unfixable. (A point which we cannot be sure we have not passed by the way. That’s how urgent this problem is.) As his policies invest more and more of the wealth of the world in the hands of fewer and fewer people, those people—who were not made rich by their superabundance of compassion—increasingly will treat the others as the means by which they increase their absurd wealth. Money is power. The influence of wealth on the US Congress has never been more widespread or more nefarious. Trump is doing all he can to act in the interest of this small coterie of his billionaire buddies against the interests of everyone else, against the interests of the planet itself.
Trump will not make you safer. Even putting aside the fact that neither Muslims nor foreigners from Latin America or Africa are making you unsafe to begin with (fearmongering for the people who refuse to think and who refuse all evidence), increasing global nuclear tensions does not make you safer. Alienating allies does not make you or the world safer. Increasing the damaging effects of climate change does not make you safer. Loosening gun laws does not make you safer. Ballooning the national debt does not make you safer. Nothing he does makes you safer. He gives you the illusion of safety by scapegoating foreigners and immigrants so he can protect you from them while he increases daily the real and material dangers in which you are living.
All of this aside from the moral vacuity, the incessant lies, the egomania, the lack of impulse control, the, narcissism, and lack of both intellect and curiosity that would make him unfit for office even if he were pursuing policies that tended toward the good of the nation or the world. The sooner he is forced out of any position of power, the safer we’ll all sleep.
January 18, 2018
On Abusing Words to Make them Mean Things
We want to believe that we use our language to promote our morals or to describe our situation—we want to believe that the origin of language is a desire to know or a desire to do what is or what is right in reference to what is. But it turns out that our language, in its whole compass, exists in other ways from other causes that at best are in tension with these which we want to believe or at worst simply overwhelms them and uses them for cover, like the wolf who kills the sheep and wears its skin to kill other sheep. Nietzsche was obsessed with this other thing as power. The will to power. Instinct, the unconscious—there are various ways to formulate this (but again, we’re using the belief what we are using language to find out what is when we say this and not admitting that we too are caught in this other dynamic of language, more profound, more frightening). Our concepts are arranged to make it possible for us to do certain things, act certain ways, gather to ourselves what we are really after, be it power or security or freedom from fear or the illusion of immortality or love or meaning.
On Beauty. What is it?
If you ask, “What is beauty” you are assuming that something exists which the concept “beauty” applies to. How do you know this? Why do you assume it? Can you ask whether your assumption is true without first having an understanding of what beauty is? Are you therefore not really asking, “When I use the word beauty, what do I mean?” And if that is the question you are asking, aren’t you avoiding the question of whether “beauty” exists? Is there any way out of this closed circle? Is it actually possible to ask, on its own terms, the question, “What is beauty?”
