DISCUSSION: Machiavelli's THE PRINCE and Shakespeare's KING LEAR

Good discussion this week.  The 2 texts worked well together, especially as I happened to read THE PRINCE before KING LEAR which worked well.

Stephen started the discussion giving a brief overview of 4 theories of man's progress:

Darwin, who believed in a process of gradual change and progress; Steven Jay Gould proposes "punctuated equilibrium", where the world as a whole evolves slowly & gradually but with occasional abrupt event causing dramatic sudden change.  Thomas Coombs had a theory of a paradigm shift and Toynbee described cycles (no longer in favour) where we think something is new but it is really just a new cycle

I'll have to read more about these and think about them to be able to come to any thoughtful perspective on these theories.

Steve mentioned a few events occurring around the time these texts were written:

Start of Renaissance – 1493-1520

Machiavelli – 1470 – 1503

1453 – Ottoman Turks occupy Constantinople, end of Roman Empire (eastern empire was last bastion), end of Byzantium

1492  - Columbus encounters America; completion of Christian re-conquest of Spain

1497 – Cabot in Newfoundland

1498 – Da Vinci’s Last Supper

15_ _ -Michaelangelo paints Sistine Chapel

1517 - Luther nails his 95 proclamations to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31st.

1520 – Magellan circumnavigates; Cortez invades Mexico

1526 – Suleiman the magnificent conquers Hungary and lays siege to Vienna

Machiavelli called the 1st modern writer – why?

·         Amoralization of politics – separating from personal ethics – were connected in middle ages

·         Focus on nation state - nationalism

Jonas presented The Prince.  He asked us to consider whether Machiavelli's theories could be applied to families.  I had a hard time with this as I felt that Machiavelli was all about winning and power and that isn't the goal we want to strive for in our relationships (whether work or family and friends).  I thought that Machiavelli has a lot to offer capitalism and the corporate world but when you take ethics out of it, or morals, you are left with a pretty inhuman world (not that humans aren't capable of nasty acts of self-interest but we have the capability of looking outward and thinking and acting more broadly and this is what separates us from non-humans.)

We had an interesting discussion about how up until Machiavelli's time, ethics was rooted in religious texts – after the Renaissance we started to move towards a morality that is not rooted in religion, to a secular framework - Machiavelli was starting to move this way and so he is considered modern.  We spoke about the role of Fortune – some things happen that you can’t control but the choices you make and how prepared you are, how you react etc make a difference (50%?).  Bruce brought up luck and how some people are lucky.  I feel there is luck but I don't think there are lucky people (in the 'good luck' sense of the word - Byron pointed out that a lucky person could be a good lucky person or a bud lucky person, both would be lucky).  I think people who seem to have a lot of good luck, make their luck through seizing opportunity, taking risks, or through personalities that seem to take adversity in stride.

I mentioned that rather than just being a text to win favour with a Medici prince, I thought (based on Machiavelli's last chapter) that he was trying to encourage and support Lorenzo Medici in seizing power and maintaining it well enough to continue on and reunite all the Italian states (and maybe expand past Italy's borders).  “This opportunity must not therefore be allowed to pass, so that Italy may find her liberator."  There was not much support in the room for this view.

Steve mentioned Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) and his view that people act out of self-interest and people are self-aggrandizing.  Apparently Rousseau takes an opposing viewpoint (which I'll have to keep in mind in November when we get to him).  We discussed how this view really gained ground as we moved from feudal systems or guilds to atomistic systems during the industrial age where workers get plugged into various jobs.  Unions became powerful:  What do “workers” want?  MORE.

One possible outcome to the terminal collapse of western self-interest (now global self-interest) could be the currently impending environmental Armageddon - though maybe that would be just an example of one of Toynbee's cycles - or Darwin's natural selection given the human race's star role in this Armageddon.

Laura presented King Lear.  She gave us some brief background:

Shakespeare – 1464 – Stratford-on-Avon

Prosperous family

Lived through some plagues

Queen Elizabeth and King James I

38 plays, >158 sonnets, poems

There were 4 folios of his plays produced at about the same time, these vary – so several options for some play – depends on the folio used.

In our previous texts, we have often seen madness as a symptom or result of a character’s excess passion or excess reason. We see the madness, but where is the Passion in this play?

Kent – passion and reason – is the Machiavellian minister that will speak truth to the king – this (according to Machiavelli) is who the King should keep around him but he dismisses him – keeps the flatterers around him

Edgar – passion (not a lot of reason)

Lear – passion - his love for Cordelia changes to hate; later Greed – lots of greed in this play (Edmund as well, Goneril & Regan)

Edmund – passion and cunning, some reason (fairly cold-blooded or Machiavellian)

Cordelia – reason – one of only characters who doesn’t change, is “constant”

Goneril and Regan – passion, strategy, reason?

Laura felt that Lear was being punished because he went against his duty by dividing his kingdom amongst 3 daughters (instead of keeping it intact).  I don't agree completely as he said he was dividing it now to avoid strife after he dies (if he didn't put in place a succession plan before he died).

We saw both reason and passion in this play.  I'm not sure at the end whether one quality was transcendent.  Passion caused the most change (primarily death but that seems to usually be the case) but the only ones left standing at the end were the less passionate, more reasonable characters (Kent, Edgar, Albany).  I'm still curious to explore good passion vs bad passion and good reason vs bad reason.

Shakespeare's KING LEAR

Assigned text: Shakespeare, King Lear  Oxford Paperbacks, 2008
Text I read: The complete Works of William Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press, 1982, London.

As our texts get within 1000 years of the current time, I find them more appealing.  I've enjoyed the ancient texts and the more of them I read, the more I get out of them but now being able to read  Shakespeare felt a bit like coming home.  I have only read a couple of his plays (aside from high scool assigned readings that sadly did nothing to make me appreciate Shakespeare - I hope English teaching is more inspiring today in this regard).  Every time I see a good production of Shakespeare (and thank god for Bard on the Beach and other Shakespeare festivals) or read one of his plays I'm astounded and thrilled by his language.  I hadn't read King Lear before and had never seen it performed so my only knowledge is hazy and pieced together from occasional references.  I enjoyed the play and it worked very well to read it the same week as Machiavelli's The Prince.  Even before actually knowing what Machiavellian might denote, I would have called Edmund Machiavellian in his plotting and his amoral decisions and actions.  I don't think I'd ever heard of Kent before and he was a Scarlet Pimpernel-type character for me.

This play was full of lots of passion and a bit of reason.  King Lear seemed to make his decisions solely based on passion.  He may have been a more reasonable leader in his prime but in his dotage he seems a creature of impulse and passion.  He throws years of love away with Cordelia based on her very reasonable and thoughtful (and NOT passionate answer to his question about how much his daughters love him).  Yet he is more than taken in by Goneril and Regan's fawning and hypocritical replies - he obviously didn't study Machiavelli's chapter 23 on "How Flatterer's Must be Shunned".

Goneril and Regan, the two eldest daughter's (why are the eldest always the evil siblings?), seem to just be evil.  It's hard to say whether they are governed by passion or reason.  They seem motivated by greed and though they can plan and act amorally, I'm not sure it qualifies as reason.  I think it is just evil passions and animal cunning.

Edmund is motivated by anger, jealousy, greed, feelings of vengeance, bitterness.  He can reason much more effectively and in a very Machiavellian way.  He probably balances passion and reason but in all their negative connotations - which for me puts him more in passions camp and less in reasons camp.  We haven't really been considering qualifying passion and reason into good passion and bad passion; good reason and bad reason but Edmund would end up solidly in the BAD camp for both qualities/emotions.

Kent has both passion and reason in a good way.  He is passionate in his devotion to King Lear and in his bravery and integrity bu he is also very reasonable in his ability not to have his judgement clouded by passion.  He seems more to act based on HONOUR and we haven't discussed where this falls in the passion or reason camp.  That would be an interesting discussion.

I have to include some favourite lines to remember:
Act 1, Scene 1
40-41  ...while we unburdened crawl towards death...
56 ...dearer than eyesight, space and liberty
60  ...:A love that makes breath poor and speech unable
90  Nothing will come of nothing  (A "shout out" to Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius, Epicureans and Stoics)
148  ...when majesty stoops to folly
164  kill thy physician, and the fee bestow on the foul disease
181  Freedom lives hence and banishment is here
199  ...but now her price is fall'n
205  Dowered with our curse and strangered with our oath
249-251  ...that art most rich, being poor; most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised
279-280  Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, who covert faults at last with shame derides

Act 1, Scene 2
14-15  th' creating a whole tribe of fops got tween a sleep and a wake
21  Now, gods, stand up for bastards
51  the oppression of aged tyranny
30  by an auricular assurance  (I have to admit I like this turn of phrase solely for its medical interest); also Act 1, Scene 4 child of spleen
134-135  An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
136  My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail, my nativity was under Ursa Major.
151  How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

Act 1, Scene 4
185  and be athwart disnatured torment
289  sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
Scene 5
as a crab's like a apple

In Act 2, Scene 2, Kent has a wonderful speech where he recitesa long list of epithets about Oswald.
70  anger hath a privilege
81  epileptic visage  (I'm not sure what this means, contorted?)
51  Fortune that arrant whore
116  I'll beat the drum till it cry sleep to death
130  sepulchring an adultress (you have to admire Shakespeare's economy of language - he says so much so succintly and pithily)
165  you fen-sucked fops

Act 2, Scene 4
221  Thou art a boil, a plaque-like sore or embossed carbuncle
232   for those that mingle reason with your passion (Regan speaking about her father's old age)
275  women's weapons (tears)

Act 3, Scene 2
I am a man more sinned against than sinning
70  The art of our necessities is strange and can make vile things precious
79  a brave night to cool a courtesan  (about a cold night)

Scene 3
21  o, that way madness lies
75  pelican daughters

Act 5, Scene 3
137  A most toad-spotted traitor
173  The wheel is come full circle

Discussion: Antigone and Phedre

On one level a play about conflicting laws, on another level a play about passion and duty.  The play ANTIGONE was full of dualism, a word I've never really thought much about prior to this class.

Youth [Antigone]  vs. Age [Creon]
Female [Antigone] vs. Male [Creon]
Ruler [Creon] vs. subjects [Antigone]
Passion [Antigone] vs. reason [Creon]
Duty to Family and Gods [Antigone] vs. duty to the State/Thebes [Creon]

Some of the group felt that Antigone was a rebellious teenager and the main conflict was between youth and age.  I didn't get that perpective from my reading of the text.  For me the main conflict was between the duty to the gods to bury a family member vs the duty towards the state to stand strongly against threats to the city state (and NOT bury the body of a traitor - as a warning to others who might try to attack Thebes).

Stephen set possible resolutions out as Aristotelian moderation vs a Hegelian requirement for synthesis (a better and more progressive solution, working out a way to have family loyalties AND loyalty to state).  Creon eventually did bend and decide to provide a proper burial and to pardon Antigone but too late.

Antigone is very single-minded: her duty to her family (brothers, parents) comes above all.  She even says that she would not go against the state for her husband or children as they can be replaced.  It's hard to know how she feels about her sister as she doesn't seem too concerned about any duty towards Ismene.  Creon feels equally strongly (though I'm not sure if he is equally passionate) about Thebes.

182    

But it’s even worse when he plays favourites

Puts family or friends ahead of fatherland.

Someone mentioned that in Greek plays, women are the holders of passion and men are the holders of reason but they get thrown off course by passion.
Lorraine mentioned that the cover of the text is a photo of Simone Weil.  I hadn't read the note about the photo.  Simone Weil died for holding to her principles, just as Antigone did.

Other than Creon, no one in the play seems to question Antigone's decision and actions.  At the end, Antigone who has been so strong, suddenly bewails her fate:

…They are taking me against my will.

Look at me O you lords of Thebes:
I am the last remnant of kings.
Look at what these wretched men are doing to me,
For my pure reverence!

Did Antigone feel that the gods would save her?  She seems to suddenly be fighting against her [self-induced] fate – being murdered for her reverence to the unwritten laws of the gods.

During the course of the play, Creon is the only character who really changes.  Unyielding and unwilling to bend at the beginning, before the end of the play he decides that holding to his original positions will lead to injustice.  He changes his mind but too late to avert tragedy.

In Phedre as well, passion seems much stronge than reason though those whose actions are most governed by passion seem to end tragically.  The play by Racine is based on a play called Hippolytus by Euripides.  Stephen mentioned that Racine was raised and educated in a Jansenist monastery in Port Royal.  Cornelius Jansen argued that since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man has not possessed free will.  Our lives are guided or directed by "concupisentia" (ardent desire) and subject to grace.  Most people are driven by their desires with only a few being guided  by grace.  This was compared to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.  Neither the Jansenists nor the Calvinists wanted to admit they felt desire because that would show they were not one of the "elect".

We had a discussion about guilt.  Phedre resists her attraction to Hipploytus because she feels it is wrong but her life is blighted by the guilt she feels over her feelings (though she feels she has been cursed by Venus and this is why she makes poor choices in love).  Hippolytus was a strong character, upright, chaste, strong and brave but he becomes weak and doomed when he falls in love (with Aricia).

Finally we discussed Aristotles' championing of "moderation" and how his works would have been known to the audiences of both plays.  Both Antigone and Phedre would have demonstrated what happens when you go to extremes and don’t practice moderation.

Discussion of the Bhagavad Gita and of Genesis

One of the interesting facets of this course already is how each text builds on the other texts we have read or are reading.  This of course is one of the main reasons this master's program interested me but it’s also making me want to read so much more: either by the same authors or their contemporaries, or to read about what was going on in the world at the time – and I don’t have time to do this!

Today we spoke about Genesis (the 1^st book of the Old Testament) and about the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Sanskrit text that was part of the Upanishads (records of conversations between teachers and students about the nature of reality).

We were told that there are some themes that will recur through many of the texts we’ll be reading.

• Dualism – (male/female, black/white) - is this limiting or simplifying?
• Anthropocentrism – humans and the natural world
•  Mutuality – opposite of dualism

There were some similarities in both texts.  Both evolved over many many years as oral texts before being written down (in about 1250 BCE for Genesis and in about 150 BCE for the Gita).  There was some discussion about how these texts would have changed many times during the oral period but then would have become fixed once they were written down.  During our discussion of Plato's Phaedrus, we had learned how Socrates did not want to write any of his ideas down because then they would become fixed, and for him the value was in discussing ideas and then rethinking them, having them continually evolve.

Both texts are smaller parts of larger works: Genesis is the 1^st book of the Old Testament which in turn is part of the Bible; the Gita is part of the Mahabharata epic which in turn was part of the Upanishads.  Both texts try to explain man’s role in the natural world and to provide some hope of a better world, achievable if certain rules or paths are followed, though the Gita seems to be a more coherent work than Genesis.

In discussing both texts, the class spoke about how the Gita came out of a pantheistic viewpoint whereas in Genesis there was only one God, something very unusual in religions at the time.  The Gita conceived of the divine being the universe.  The Gita was very repetitive, with much of the same information or teachings being mentioned over and over again.  Part of this may be because it was originally an oral text and a teaching tool, and the repetition would help with learning and memorization.  Some of it may also be connected to the fact, as Surinder mentioned, that Eastern thought is not linear but is more circular.  Things are repeated but each time you should develop a deeper understanding – like peeling away the outer layers to get to the deeper core.

In contrast Genesis doesn’t really seem to have a master structure or plan.  It seems to be a recounting of some historical events, and occasionally events are used to provide guidance on how to act (or how not to act) but it is not very cohesive and does not seem to be formally organized the way the Gita is.

In the Gita, there is no mention of society, it’s all about the individual whereas Genesis is about lineage, and the cities and tribes founded by various descendants of Adam.  There is less focus on the individual and more focus on the family unit and by extension, eventually, society.  The main message in Genesis is to worship the one God, be loyal to the one God - as well as a message of healthy respect and fear of God.

We had a brief discussion about the theory of the bicameral mind: that the mind in ancient peoples (over 3000 years ago) was divided between the “speaking” mind and the “listening and obeying” mind.  Some propose that this would explain the importance and the quotidian nature of communications between mankind and gods – and the vividness of the accounts of these interactions.

We discussed whether Genesis is an historical account, a sacred text or a fable.  My perception is that it is an attempt at a historical text (though much altered by the centuries of oral transmission) as well as a text to explain the world and guide readers.  The book begins with much anger and punishment as mankind is banished from paradise, destroyed in a great flood, condemned to a life of hard labour and pain, and condemned to confusion and misunderstanding between various peoples.  I hadn’t picked up on the change from this to a religion more about love and forgiveness which occurs by the end of Genesis, being so distracted by the sacrifices, slaughter, famines & plagues, incest, rape, betrayal etc.  But in fact, this 1^st book ends with Joseph forgiving his brothers and alleviating their suffering during the famine.  Genesis suggests that suffering is mankind’s lot in life but if we worship God and follow his rules, he will take care of us.  

There was much passion in Genesis, mostly negative passions: anger, jealousy, fear.  The Gita was more about ridding oneself of passion.  It was more difficult to find examples of reason in Genesis.  It seemed to be more a case of cause and effect: God dictating and mankind either obeying and surviving, or disobeying and being punished.  Towards the end of the book though, reason does seem to emerge. God seems to take a step backwards from direct involvement in mankind’s decisions and actions and we see Joseph interpreting the Pharoah’s dream and then acting in a thoughtful and reasonable manner, a compassionate and forgiving manner, and explaining his actions and the reasons for them.

The Gita contained much ‘reason’ with the entire text revolving on questions about how to live life and how to act, and then a well-reasoned, structured answer about the various ways one can live one’s life with the ultimate purpose being to rid oneself of desire, of clinging to the consequences of actions, and thus eventually achieving Nirvana.  

In both texts there is emphasis on following a circumscribed path to a better existence, with no support being given to straying from the common path or for aspiring anything different.

Imagination è Desire è Suffering

I found both texts very interesting and will continue to think about what they had to impart but I'm still looking for different answers, as a life without imagination is not one I wish to contemplate.

GENESIS

GENESIS
(online text)

It was interesting to read Genesis after reading the Bhagavad Gita.  Both texts begin with a listing of family members: in the Gita both Dhritarashtra and Arjuna, his nephew, list family members as the cousins prepare for battle, a battle between the sons of Dhritarashtra and the sons of his brother Pandu.  Genesis contains a recounting of mankind’s lineage beginning with Adam (and Eve) and extending down to Joseph, younger son of Israel (Jacob) and Rachel.

Lineage and family seem to be important in both cultures and times (India before 150 BCE and the Middle East prior to 1250 BCE.  In the Gita the family relationships are in the background but in the Old Testament the lineages described comprise the main framework of the text.  It describes mankind's original descendants and in particular their interactions and covenants with the Lord.  Genesis ends with mention that from the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) came the 12 tribes of Israel.

Genesis seems to be an attempt to explain how mankind came to be, and why life in the world is so hard: 

• the fall from grace when Eve and Adam ate the apple and were banished from the Garden of Eden, when Adam was condemned to a hard life of labour and Eve was condemned to the pains of childbirth;
• the great flood which was punishment for the wickedness in the world, wiping out all living things except Noah, his family and the pairs of animals he had selected to save in the Ark;
• the Tower of Babel where man’s one language was forever confused by God because mankind had dared to aspire to reach for heaven;
• the covenant with Abraham and his descendants, a covenant renewed with Isaac, one of Abraham’s descendants.

Both texts (the Gita and Genesis) deal to some extent with living a good life (as opposed to living "the good life"), though the Gita’s message or advice is more structured and consistent.  Genesis seems to be more descriptive of ‘historical’ events that led to the known world (or as it was known prior to 1250 BCE) rather than a  carefully thought out set of advice on how to live one’s life.  Aside from fear and devotion to one god, there is no consistent message in Genesis on how to reach Paradise.

I was struck while I was reading Genesis on how much of it still is present in our everyday conversation or literature.  The text itself has a very archaic style and structure but the words and concepts are very much present and in use today:

In the beginning, God created…

And God saw that it was good

Let us make man in our image

Be fruitful and multiply

Garden of Eden

And on the 7^th day…he rested

You are dust and to dust you shall return

Cain & Abel

Am I my brother’s keeper?

A mark on Cain

Dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden [where Cain dwelt]

40 days and 40 nights

Two and two, male and female, went into the ark

The dove came back to the ark after the flood with an olive leaf in her beak (so Noah knew the flood waters had subsided from the earth)

For God made man in his own image

Sold his birthright for a mess of pottage

Tower of Babel

Sodom & Gomorrah

Sold into Egypt

The great Flood

The 12 tribes of Israel

There were many sections that I did not know or remember from growing up in the Catholic school system in Quebec, such as God saying that he would set his bow in the clouds as a sign of his everlasting covenant with the earth that he will never again wipe out all living things with a great flood.   I can see how the terms “old testament” came to mean a severe God and harsh punishment.  There were definite, harsh consequences for actions or sins.  I have more remembrance of New Testament readings from going to mass as a child.  These were very different with their themes of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and of forgiveness and redemption: the forgiving of the prodigal son, of Judas, of Mary Magdalene, the concept of repentance.

As a guide on how to live a good life, the Bhagavad Gita seems more useful and relevant than Genesis.