In the early 1590s, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great country wind up being governed by a sociopath?...
“Richard
III,” which proved to be one of Shakespeare’s first great hits,
explores how this loathsome, perverse monster actually attained the
English throne. As the play conceives it, Richard’s villainy was readily
apparent to everyone. There was no secret about his fathomless
cynicism, cruelty and treacherousness, no glimpse of anything redeemable
in him and no reason to believe that he could govern the country
effectively....
Shakespeare
brilliantly shows all of these types of enablers working together in
the climactic scene of this ascent.
 |
| Richard III's remains were recently found under a parking lot in England |
Sound familiar? Richard III had a twisted spine. Trump is just twisted.
Stephen Greenblatt delves into Shakespeare's Richard III in the NY Times
Sunday Review: Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election.
Now I've become somewhat of a Shakespeare nut recently - last summer I read Richard Shapiro's
"A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599" about the 4 plays Shakespeare wrote that year of strife in London. I went to abridged performances of all 4 plays at
the Irondale Ensemble’s “1599” back in May.
Right now I'm reading James Shapiro's sequel -
Year of Lear - 1605 - central was the
Gunpowder terrorist plot to blow up Parliament and the entire downtown London and kill much of the English ruling class and an estimated 30,000 people would have died in the subsequent firestorm. Yes, Virginia, terrorism is not a new thing - and this was religious terrorism by Catholics hoping to bring down the protestant leadership. ISIS in its various forms has been around since religion was invented thousands of years ago.
I saw Emily Carding's one woman one hour portrayal of Richard III at the
NYC Fringe in August but didn't view Shakespeare's Richard III story in the context of the 2016 election.
Stephen Greenblatt does a great job in parsing "Richard III" in terms of the current election focusing on the stages,
Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election.
In the early 1590s, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great country wind up being governed by a sociopath?
The
problem was not England’s, where a woman of exceptional intelligence
and stamina had been on the throne for more than 30 years, but it had
long preoccupied thoughtful people. Why, the Bible brooded, was the
kingdom of Judah governed by a succession of disastrous kings? How could
the greatest empire in the world, ancient Roman historians asked
themselves, have fallen into the hands of a Caligula?
For
his theatrical test case, Shakespeare chose an example closer to home:
the brief, unhappy reign in 15th-century England of King Richard III.
Richard, as Shakespeare conceived him, was inwardly tormented by
insecurity and rage, the consequences of a miserable, unloved childhood
and a twisted spine that made people recoil at the sight of him. Haunted
by self-loathing and a sense of his own ugliness — he is repeatedly
likened to a boar or rooting hog — he found refuge in a feeling of
entitlement, blustering overconfidence, misogyny and a merciless
penchant for bullying.
From
this psychopathology, the play suggests, emerged the character’s weird,
obsessive determination to reach a goal that looked impossibly far off,
a position for which he had no reasonable expectation, no proper
qualification and absolutely no aptitude.
“Richard
III,” which proved to be one of Shakespeare’s first great hits,
explores how this loathsome, perverse monster actually attained the
English throne. As the play conceives it, Richard’s villainy was readily
apparent to everyone. There was no secret about his fathomless
cynicism, cruelty and treacherousness, no glimpse of anything redeemable
in him and no reason to believe that he could govern the country
effectively.
His
success in obtaining the crown depended on a fatal conjunction of
diverse but equally self-destructive responses from those around him.
The play locates these responses in particular characters — Lady Anne,
Lord Hastings, the Earl of Buckingham and so forth — but it also manages
to suggest that these characters sketch a whole country’s collective
failure. Taken together, they itemize a nation of enablers.
First,
there are those who trust that everything will continue in a normal
way, that promises will be kept, alliances honored and core institutions
respected. Richard is so obviously and grotesquely unqualified for the
supreme position of power that they dismiss him from their minds. Their
focus is always on someone else, until it is too late. They do not
realize quickly enough that what seemed impossible is actually
happening. They have relied on a structure that proves unexpectedly
fragile.
Second,
there are those who cannot keep in focus that Richard is as bad as he
seems to be. They see perfectly well that he has done this or that
ghastly thing, but they have a strange penchant for forgetting, as if it
were hard work to remember just how awful he is. They are drawn
irresistibly to normalize what is not normal.
Third,
there are those who feel frightened or impotent in the face of bullying
and the menace of violence. “I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys,”
Richard threatens, and the opposition to his outrageous commands somehow
shrivels away. It helps that he is an immensely wealthy and privileged
man, accustomed to having his way, even when his way is in violation of
every moral norm.
Fourth,
there are those who persuade themselves that they can take advantage of
Richard’s rise to power. They see perfectly well how destructive he is,
but they are confident that they will stay safely ahead of the tide of
evil or manage to seize some profit from it. These allies and followers
help him ascend from step to step, collaborating in his dirty work and
watching the casualties mount with cool indifference. They are, as
Shakespeare imagines it, among the first to go under, once Richard has
used them to obtain his end.
Fifth,
and perhaps strangest of all, there are those who take vicarious
pleasure in the release of pent-up aggression, in the black humor of it
all, in the open speaking of the unspeakable. “Your eyes drop millstones
when fools’ eyes fall tears,” Richard says to the murderers whom he has
hired to kill his brother. “I like you, lads.” It is not necessary to
look around to find people who embody this category of collaborators.
They are we, the audience, charmed again and again by the villain’s
jaunty outrageousness, by his indifference to the ordinary norms of
human decency, by the lies that seem to be effective even though no one
believes them, by the seductive power of sheer ugliness. Something in us
enjoys every minute of his horrible ascent to power.
Shakespeare
brilliantly shows all of these types of enablers working together in
the climactic scene of this ascent. The scene — anomalously enough in a
society that was a hereditary monarchy but oddly timely for ourselves —
is an election. Unlike “Macbeth” (which introduced into the English
language the word “assassination”), “Richard III” does not depict a
violent seizure of power. Instead there is the soliciting of popular
votes, complete with a fraudulent display of religious piety, the
slandering of opponents and a grossly exaggerated threat to national
security.
WHY
an election? Shakespeare evidently wanted to emphasize the element of
consent in Richard’s rise. He is not given a robust consent; only a
municipal official and a few of the villain’s carefully planted henchmen
shout their vote: “God save Richard, England’s royal king!”
But
the others assembled in the crowd, whether from indifference or from
fear or from the catastrophically mistaken belief that there is no real
difference between Richard and the alternatives, are silent, “like dumb
statues or breathing stones.” Not speaking out — simply not voting — is
enough to bring the monster to power.
Shakespeare’s
words have an uncanny ability to reach out beyond their original time
and place and to speak directly to us. We have long looked to him, in
times of perplexity and risk, for the most fundamental human truths. So
it is now. Do not think it cannot happen, and do not stay silent or
waste your vote.
Pretty interesting stuff.
Now where does Hitler come into this? I am not calling Trump Hitler,
just talking about the process of Hitler's rise to power having some
similarities among the enablers (though I wouldn't be surprised to see
our home grown version of a brown shirt army arising after the election
--- Hitler failed in his early attempts to take power and a street army
helped intimidate people - just like the current Trump social media army
is doing. I
wrote about the Hitler story recently. As per my morning post --
Thoughts on the post election: Repulicans Will Try to Impeach Hillary, Bernie Supporters Will pressure Hillary from the Left --- interesting post-election times to come.
