Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Shakespeare: Relentless War Silences Those Who Demanded Peace
May 2nd, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Shakespeare is a greater psychologist and political strategist than most famous others.
Shakespeare spoke more insightfully and poignantly about what happens when a republic/ empire becomes mired in war than the current candidates, Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, who essentially speak of timelines only, “100 years” if need be, or “Out” right now. Their points are useful for placing each candidate’s view somewhere on the ‘war graph’ for measuring runners.
But Shakespeare spoke about the real cost of war, not to the treasury and the tax payers only, but to the human heart and soul of all the people of a nation. Maybe, Shakespeare for Veep?
More seriously, from the play “Julius Caesar” (Caesar was a dictator, ‘appointed in perpetuity’ who also had, it might be said, ‘a perpetual war sickness,)’ …Antony is speaking:
“Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.”
Antony speaks of how USUAL war has become, so much so, that the people have become senseless, inured, flattened of real emotion and thought; that they will accept anything now…
– that mothers no longer shelter their babies from being fed to the maw of war, but only have one reaction left to them: they smile solely to see their offspring with weaponry in their hands,
–that mothers’ highest hopes are that their children will rise into the ranks along with the minds that love war, living in the same room with the War God. No God of Love in sight.
–that ‘dreadful objects’ images and ideas of ever more weaponry being built–
weaponry meant to gut and poison the enemies– that these ideas are good
– that stories and images of torture and maiming of children, young men and young women, and old people– shall become so common, that no one is any longer shocked
–that it has becomes a tradition, a national custom to menace and pillage others,
–that ill deeds have become so exciting, and thus have doused elements that make a human, human: feelings of tenderness for and pity on other human beings
–and that the leader of the nation, ranges about looking for places to take revenge, rather than defending the home country
–and that the leader does so with the ‘Ate from hell’ at the leader’s side. Ate, is the Greek Goddess of Folly, Lack of Restraint, Lack of Thought, Bumbling and Delusion
– that the leader shall use the ancient cry, “Havoc!” meaning abject permission to lay waste to all in one’s path, and to revert to “animal only” nature to do so without one dit of reason or mercy, as one sees in vicious fighting and ripping that wild dogs do.
–and that this all is exciting to the leader(s) because it shall be seen and heard about by the entire world
– so that the smell of iron blood, acrid smoke and stink of decaying bodies after shall rise up so far, it will reach heaven
– and those with devastating wounds, of loss of body parts and loss of jaws and shot in the spine by arrows so they will never walk again, will be understood after the battle, as only meat for the buzzards, and that those men will beg to die
In those few lines of Shakespeare, the entire excitement and laying waste to the psyche through incessant war… is laid out sharply.
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h/t Neocon
I am sorry, I accidentally did not cut two articles apart, so they originally ran as one under a tentative title instead of a final title as you see above. The second article posted just now is higher up on the TMV scroll. And it is on “normalization of violence” and Orwell’s 1984. Again, my apologies. Have to keep my elbows off the keyboard.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
