The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    PHILOSOPHY CORNER: Our Anti-Listening Milieu

    By tmccarthy0 on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 2:30pm |

    A friend of mine posted a question on Facebook today,

    Tell me enlightened fb friends - what does "To thine own self be true" mean to you?

    I of course had to weigh in on the subject, if there an excellent discussion of Shakespeare, please invite me, I will attend. But I think the question should be asked, not just what that statement means, but how that particular passage in Hamlet, between Polonius and his son Laertes, is relevant to this day, but also shows the irony in humanity and insight into why the way we change as a society seems to happen on an evolutionary scale, and at the same time how some things about humanity never seem to change.

    Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
    The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
    And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
    And these few precepts in thy memory
    See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
    Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
    Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
    Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
    Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
    Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
    Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
    Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
    Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
    But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
    For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
    And they in France of the best rank and station
    Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
    This above all: to thine ownself be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.
    Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

                                                      Hamlet, Act I, Scene III lines (55-81), Wm Shakespeare

    It is a lengthy piece of advice Polonius is giving to his son Laertes, but the advice has great meaning.  Polonius is telling Laetes that he  must always be mindful of his own character, because he is in control of how it develops, because he make decisions about his own life. Polonius obviously believes listening will go a long way to helping him become fully human, fully developed, a man (human) with character. To develop good character, one must be truthful ultimately with the self, if one cannot accomplish this, one cannot grow to be a better man (human). It is interesting to note however, Polonius spies on his son, so the irony is biting as usual. Ah Shakespeare, his works are always relevant.

    So keeping all this in mind,  I want to say that in the early 1990's we thought the internet would be a great place to find research and share information, a big wide open library, one which people could learn and grow. Oh how wrong we were.  It isn't just listening to each other that is the solution, although it can be a start. It was back in 1995 when I and my friend and fellow holder of an MES degree, that we gave a presentation at the Society for Ecological Restoration, we'd been accepted to give this presentation in this new a budding field of electronic information and how Enviromental Research groups could  utilize the vast government and university research on relevant subjects that were available. It was a pretty popular presentation, and keep in mind at this time we were still using telnet to access information via extensive library resources.

    Who knew it would turn into a place where conspiracy theories run wild and real science is panned and the bible is used to justify the reasons for not legislating to curb some of the more pernicious aspects of climate change. It seems folks believe each and every opinion is worth while when it comes to science, whether or not the dispenser of said information is even knowledgable about said subject. It feels like the dark ages, one where people once again prefer to believe myths, (earth is 7,000 years old, dinosaurs lived with humans, evolution is a myth, CO2 isn't a problem, Computational Environmental Science is meaningless and peer review is a meaningless term. How do we turn the anti-listening milieu to one that welcomes another enlightenment, one that pushes humans towards greater knowledge. If we strive for greater knowledge, if we listen, we may not just build our own character but build the character of our society. We had such high hopes.. just like Polonius, but as always things never work our precisely as we planned, now it is up to scientist to take the fight to the public to try to arm the public with facts. Let's hope they can have an impact, and let's hope individuals will take the time to do their part, not just in terms of acts, but in also by listening. It's how we learn to change, sometimes it helps us become smarter more thoughtful people.

    Comments

    Mmm ... Shakespeare discussions. :-)

    The problem with this internet machine is that while it's a wonderful source of information and research, it's also the greatest vehicle for purveying propaganda ever devised.  And there is no app that has been yet created to separate the two.

    If you're true to yourself, then no man can find you false? Then all truth is experiential?  Polonius, (Not Shakespeare), seems to be saying, that all truth is opinion and to always look out for yourself first. He would make a good present day Republican.


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 4:07pm

    Hah! Point taken Mr.Smith, and a good point it is!


    by tmccarthy0 on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 4:18pm

    ...(internet) it's also the greatest vehicle for purveying propaganda ever devised...

    Internet sites may be good for 'purveying propaganda', but 'purveying' without believing don't amount to all that much. For effective purveying you need TV.

    Internet 'propaganda' covers the entire spectrum so it is not an effective vehicle to turn propaganda into political power. It does not control the messages that general public receives. For that TV is the 'greatest vehicle'. It requires nothing more than a power button on a remote, a warm body, a TV and a couch.

    TV 'news' and 'punditry' which act as a megaphone for government and/or corporate propaganda is the most powerful method of controlling the national dialogue today. I don't think Bush could have ginned the nation into war by trying to spread lies and disinformation on the web, and when election time rolls around, the big money primarily buys TV ads to slime the opponent, not web ads.


    by NCD on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 6:24pm

    I think maybe Polonius is telling his son, above all, to be careful and thoughtful, because others can never truly know us if we fail to know ourselves. 

    Careful and thoughtful are two good rules of thumb for posting something online, but it's not advice that's universally heeded. And I have no ideas for how to combat the vast stores of misinformation in cyberspace.



    by Orlando on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 7:58pm

    On the other hand, when it's said...to thine ownself be true...one should evaluate what they read off the internet in their terms, not that of the writer. After all, my gist of the selection above is one where every one you meet in your lifetime, be they friend or stranger, will be impressing their character upon you. So you have only your values to use to judge their intent. Your character as a person defines your judgment and values you hold so if it is false then it's really nothing more than a caricature of the person you pretend to be.

    In simpler terms, the internet is a vast array of data, info and various points of interest. Think of it like an egg....only scrambled. It's still an egg though regardless the state.

    One of the real problems with the internet is it was turned into a marketeers paradise.

    Another is it was meant to be self-regulated...it was developed for the military and scientific communities.

    And because it was meant to be self regulated, there wasn't any need for security or anti-viral components. There were many attempts to disrupt it in the bad old days of the text-based internet, but they weren't serious enough to devote tons of research and money to resolving.

    Once the web took charge it became a fools paradise. Only a fool would take serious anything they read off the net. Simply because there isn't any authority to refute, deny or even approve the content of what is out there. And without that approving authority, nothing on the net is valid...it has to be verified by some other source not related to the original source that is a reliable reference the info is correct.

    So the net is nothing more than a scuttlebutt of info that has some ring of truth but includes some added twists, turns, folds and so forth that gives info a whole new meaning beyond the fact itself.

    The other devilish part is the net is used to steer people towards specific areas of info and away from others. Your typical search engines are well equipped to give your tons of links to useless urls that have nothing to do with your query and only by accident shed some light on how to get to info you are looking for. And along the way, one finds tons of info that is skewed, slanted, fabricated and so forth. And there are those who stop, read and ponder and gives the scammers creditability a reasonable person would refute.

    So is the problem not listening to what we hear or is it not knowing what is right when we hear it?

    Gotta go..oh'dark 45



    by Beetlejuice on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 8:49pm

    Don't we have to remember that Polonius is sort of a bag of wind?    Not to say that Shakespeare put no words of wisdom in his mouth.  But you can also see him as simply spouting commonplaces.

    Hamlet might've asked him but who is this self you speak of old man?  


    by anna am on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 10:34pm

    Agreed. Oftentimes, you see this speech done for comedic effect. I think Shakespeare for most of the speech is parodying the contradictory stuff parents tell their children that they don't embody themselves. And Laertes is kind of rolling his eyes because he's heard his father give this speech before.  But of course, then Shakespeare sticks the one truism in at the end.  My feeling is, if we think too seriously of Polonius and don't think of him as a somewhat hypocritical figure, (spoiler alert), we'll be a lot more upset when Hamlet kills him later when Polonius is eavesdropping from behind the curtains.


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 11:48pm

    That is the thing isn't it,  Polonius is a hypocrite, like so many parents, telling his kid to do right all the while spying on his kid... well what could be more true, and of course Laertes is rolling his eyes at his pops, he even says after the big speech he will take his leave. Bascially saying, whatever dad, but Polonius is correct, that the struggles are the same as we all have the struggle to be better, even if he cannot follow through himself. I think.


    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 12:19am

    Do as I say, not as I do?

    P.S. That's not the thing, the play is the thing. ("...by which I'll catch the conscience of the King.") :-)

     


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 12:44am

    Yes..yes.. yes.

    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 12:50am

    tm, I'd look to Portia's great speech for guidance.  But a great discussion you opened here.  Interpretation of Shakespeare  on the net.  What a thing. 

    the quality of mercy is not strained...

    I mean, Hamlet himself is adrift and in an existential hell, with no idea who or what he should be, while Claudius is more true to himself than any other character in the play.  Dick Cheney was true to himself too.  And then you have G.W. Bush, true to the image of what he wanted his self to be.  Still doing it with the book.


    by anna am on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 10:28am

    Hath not a Republican eyes? If you prick them, will they not bleed ... and scream they want Health Care?

    Personally, I think we need to take more than a pound of Dick Cheney's flesh in repayment for what he did.


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 12:36pm

    No fair.  No application of Shylock's speech when you're not talking about underdogs.

    The pound of Cheney's flesh is a good idea though. 


    by anna am on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 12:50pm

    What do you mean? Republicans always think of themselves as underdogs.


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 1:38pm

    They do, you are right! And you all really crack me up!!!!

    I love this whole discussion, because Shakespeare is always relevant.


    by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 2:21pm

    Unh unh unh.  They adopt the role of underdogs in order to draw the part of the country that feels let down and left out to them. 

    It's the Checkers Speech approach to politics.  Dick Nixon lit the way for them.

    But the bastards actually hold all the cards (and I know you know that and you're just funnin' me, and making me smile).


    by anna am on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 6:43pm