man the unwedgeable and gnarled oak (thoughts on Measure for Measure)

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Duke: Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. … (Act. 1 Sc. 1)

Lucio: Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt. (Act 1, c. 4)

Angelo: … ‘Tis very pregnant [natural],
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t
Because we see it; but what we do not see
We tread upon, and never think of it. (Act 2, Sc. 1)

These are statements in the form of generalizations about human beings. They come from the first two acts of Measure for Measure. The form–a maxim about us–is not unusual in Shakespeare. (Cf. Kent in Lear, “Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well,” and many other examples.) But the frequency seems notably high near the beginning of this play.

In Measure for Measure, the main pair of lovers is guilty of “fornication,” which is a capital offense in the fictionalized setting of Vienna. No one in the play doubts that premarital sex is wrong. The question is whether it is inevitable because of human nature. Lucio claims that fornication is “impossible to extirp … till eating and drinking be put down.” He argues that laws against fornication would prevent the species from reproducing. Speaking of the Puritanical tyrant Angelo, Lucio says: “this ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous.” (Again cf. Lear: “The wren goes to ‘t, and the small gilded fly / Does lecher in my sight.”)

Since Lucio is himself a lecher and a hypocrite, his view is hardly authoritative. But the holy and chaste Isabella has a more persuasive argument against inflexible rules. “Man,” she says, is an “unwedgeable and gnarled oak” (Act 2, sc. 2). She sounds like Kant: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” This is an argument against inflexible laws.

In short, the explicit question facing the characters in Measure for Measure is about human nature; hence the drumbeat of maxims near the beginning. In addressing that question, the characters must remain within the bounds of Christan thought. Their community has  friars and nuns, and Isabella is a source of orthodox theological wisdom. Christians may argue about freedom and original sin, but they cannot claim that all laws and moral strictures are arbitrary human conventions.*

That is why Lear makes an interesting comparison. Its setting is explicitly pagan. Major characters are cast out of society onto the natural heath, where a person is just a “poor, bare, forked animal.” The King (albeit, when mad) comes to see all laws as oppressive conventions. The possibility opens up that life is meaningless: “Ripeness is all.”

Following Stanley Cavell, I think Lear demonstrates that one should not ask general questions about human nature and the purposes of human life. Those questions will yield nihilistic conclusions that are really excuses for avoiding emotional connections and responsibilities for other people. That is a view derived from Montaigne and ancient skeptics. It’s not really acceptable in Christian Vienna, where institutions are derived from providence, and souls are destined for salvation.

*No one uses the word God in Measure for Measure–instead “Jove” is used–but I presume that is because of scruples about taking the Lord’s name in vain on the stage. Also, the setting appears to be Catholic, even though Catholicism was illegal in Shakespeare’s England. Still, the characters are recognizably Christian.

 

nine general but contradictory truths

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My recent post about Native American youth demanding respect makes me think that we must keep several principles in mind, even though they conflict with each other:

1. The odds are against constructing a full and flourishing human life unless you have a secure home and neighborhood, health care, nutrition, and educational opportunities–including informal learning experiences, such as the ability to buy books or afford some occasional travel.

2. Yet the most important aspects of a full and flourishing human life (relationships, cultural expressions, understanding the external world, developing a complex inner life, and having self-respect) must be created by individuals and networks. They cannot be provided by outsiders. Further, individuals and communities can flourish fully on very low incomes, whereas some wealthy communities are hollow.

3. Yet relationships, cultural norms, and the grounds of self-respect are also often the causes of tragedies and injustices. Some cultural norms are just bad–such as discrimination. Others are commendable but have costs because they do not fit with the norms of a broader society. For example, working-class American parents have attractive parenting styles and expectations that do not prepare children well for white-collar careers.

4. To change human behavior on any large scale requires shifting the incentives, the penalties and benefits. We need to get laws, markets, and entitlements right.

5. Yet people are smart enough to subvert and compromise any system of incentives if they do not want to comply with its objectives. Even without incentives, people sacrifice when they motivated to do so and when peers expect them to do so.

6. Wise leadership requires a breadth of experience and knowledge. If you want to influence public affairs, you are obliged to challenge yourself by listening to people who are different from you, by visiting remote places (in person or through media), and by studying difficult topics.

7. Yet communities that cannot afford education or interactions with diverse outsiders still have the capacity for wise leadership. Highly educated people sometimes make the worst leaders.

8. Repressive power is not monopolized by official institutions (governments, armies, corporations) but is diffused through all human interactions and often exercised unconsciously in ways that wound both the ostensibly powerful and the putatively powerless.

9. Yet every venue of human interaction (even the limiting cases, like prisons and psychiatric hospitals) are also sites of creativity, collaboration, and a deepening of human subjectivity.

Because these principles are all true and yet they produce dilemmas when combined, I am especially interested in practices such as Positive Deviance, asking The Right Question, Power Cube analysis, social accountability, and public deliberation (all briefly described here) that start with local knowledge and assets while also developing and challenging people to do better.

Vaclav Havel

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I think my fondness for the late Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) can be explained partly in generational terms. He became world-famous when I was young–the Velvet Revolution occurred the year I graduated from college as a student of political philosophy–and Prague turned into the European destination for young Americans, supplanting Paris. Images of the president of Czechoslovakia walking to his office in the Prague Castle in jeans, leather jacket, and backpack were icons matched only by photographs of Nelson Mandela from the same years.

Havel in 1990, visiting the prison where he had been incarcerated, via Columbia Journalism Review

I was going to write some substantive comments about Havel’s political thought, but I find that I’ve already noted the main points here. In short, his genius was to understand that politics need not be about trying to reach some kind of outcome that matches your values or interests and that can be codified in laws and politics. (He called that a “technological” understanding of politics, taking the terminology from Heidegger.) The alternative is politics as open-ended dialogue and caring interaction with other people, moving not toward a known goal but rather embodying an authentic community.

The limit of Havel’s thought was his inability to bring that kind of “antipolitics” with him into power. The dissidents who opted out of Communist society constructed an authentic community–because they had no ability to make decisions binding on others. Once Havel was thrust, like some fairy-tale character, into the Castle made famous by Kafka, regular politics took over and the magic was gone. His country literally split in half against his wishes, and the “other Vaclav,” Vaclav Klaus, steered the rump Czech Republic in a neoliberal direction. But Havel never lost his personal compass nor his sense of irony, humor, and compassion.

If we could learn how to preserve the ethic of a dissident movement after it achieves power, we would find the key to the deepest afflictions of modernity. Meanwhile, we should salute Havel as one of the few who courageously and skilfully tried.

(By the way: Vaclav is pronounced VATZ-lav. It sounds better that way and it’s correct. Fittingly, it means Wenceslas: the Good King and the quasi-legendary father of the Czech people.)

We have so much more than poverty: Native youth demanding respect

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Even though injustice is rampant and life is very hard in America’s poorest communities, a wise response always requires first appreciating the special assets of every community or group of people (especially kids) as they understand those assets. Otherwise, you will overlook their capacity to shape their own futures, neglect the value of their resources and traditions, and propose solutions inappropriate to their circumstances.

Although I have not watched it, I gather that a recent ABC documentary called “Children of the Plains” depicted a Lakota Indian reservation as a place simply defined by suffering, deprivation, and pathology. The ABC special moved students from Rosebud South Dakota to respond with their own skillful video. “I know what you probably think of us…we saw the special too. Maybe you saw a picture, or read an article. But we want you to know, we’re more than that…We have so much more than poverty.”

young voters as of December 2011

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We at CIRCLE provide detailed data on young voters, including demographic information and voting trends for all 50 states (accessible through the map on our homepage), in-depth research studies on young people and politics, and a recent overview report based on our own typology. Meanwhile, the Harvard Institute of Politics is contributing up-to-date national polls and focus groups in Iowa. Their latest poll (PDF) looks technically solid to me. It contains some interesting findings:

  • Eleven percent of young people support the Tea Party; 21% support Occupy Wall Street. Assuming that those two groups are largely composed of different people, that means that up to 32% of young Americans support an extra-partisan political movement. In 2008, youth activism was strong, but the most unusual aspect was massive support for one official political campaign. I think if youth activism proves important in 2012, it will be about young people participating through a variety of channels, not just presidential campaigns. Lest we get carried away with the potential of the insurgent movements, just 2% of respondents say they have been part of an OWS demonstration and 6% say they are following the movement “closely.”
  • One finding  seems to be attracting media attention today: only 30% of young people expect Obama to win, and 36% expect him to lose. I am not clear why this is interesting, unless confidence in his reelection is correlated with turnout. In 2008, most Obama supporters I knew did not believe he would win, but they worked and voted for him.
  • Barack Obama beats the generic Republican candidate as well as all named GOP candidates, albeit with many undecided. (In fact, the undecideds almost tie the Obama supporters in the generic matchup.)
  • Mitt Romney leads among young Republicans (at 23%). Ron Paul is next at 16%. The Ron Paul boomlet could matter to the nominating race. A recent Public Policy poll finds Paul actually leading among young Iowa Republicans. But that doesn’t mean that the typical young person supports Paul. Obama backers are far more numerous; they just don’t get to vote in the Republican primaries.
  • Young people’s top issue priorities are all economic. That’s also true of older people, according to other surveys. Never in my decade of working on youth and politics have I seen a big gap between young and older people on issues. That means, by the way, that candidates don’t need separate messages or agendas to appeal to young people; they must simply include them in their outreach.