All The World's A Stage

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.” (Oscar Wilde, from The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891)

“We're actors - we're the opposite of people.” (Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1967)

Sometimes, when you think you know it all and know exactly how to say it, someone or something comes along that reminds you not to be so confident in your own ability to spit out explanations for everything. I am a person who hates to be wrong and loves correction, since living under a false pretense or idea is an anathema to my person, being both counterproductive and just plain useless. New ideas, along with the regular rethinking of accepted ones, are my ‘religious’ experience, and if you give me a good idea or some new and useful information, I will glow for days on end in appreciation and pleasure from it.

I was watching C-Span Books the other night, where the topic was a book called “The Anatomy of a Suicide Bomber.” The authors interviewed dozens of adolescent suicide bombers, and those who wished to become suicide bombers and their families in order to ascertain the pathology of this particular type of behavior. (I do not defend the action by calling it ‘martyrdom’, as I believe needless sacrifice of one’s life to be destructive to both self and society.) The book itself seemed rather redundant to me, and other than the fact that these researchers did conduct the interviews, ran the statistics, and objectively reviewed the data which, considering the volatility of the region and the people involved, was surely not an easy venture, I was unimpressed by its content.

Normally, at the end of each review, the authors hold a short question and answer session. This is the most interesting part of the presentation, because this is when over-educated, pedantic, pseudo-intellectuals like myself get to put in their two-cents worth, trying to think of something that the authors may or may not have missed. It is in the responses to these questions, good or bad as they may be, that the real background of the book is revealed, and in those cases, what becomes known is something very basic and, if I may use the term, ‘simple-stupid’.

One such response came to a question of individual psychology. Did the various suicide ‘candidates’ display any outward signs of depression, anxiety, or distress, or were they for the most part calm and seemingly rational? The latter seems to be true, but why? The answer was not ‘suicide bomber’ specific at all, and pointed to a greater psychosocial phenomenon that I had never heard put in such simple terms before. Meshing this new idea with my understanding of history, psychology, and religion, everything became even clearer and easier understood than was until this point.

The researchers said that the reason these men and women choose to calmly martyr themselves is because their religion and nationalism write the script that they are to act out, much as any society, through its norms and mores, authors a ‘script’ that is more or less rigidly followed by its members. The word ‘script’ opened up a completely new view of culturalism and the psychology of religious and nationalistic intolerance. These people are playing a role that they are expected to play. Nothing more. In that, most of humanity does what is expected of them by society. Those who radically differ from the norm, choosing to ad lib their way through life, are often unsuccessful or even persecuted by those who take the script quite seriously. It is akin to the Dramatists conducting an Inquisition to root out the hidden Comics from their society, vigorously punishing anyone who dares to question the authenticity or purity of their chosen theatrical genre.

Spinoza spoke of freedom as self-determinism. This is an act of reason tempered by experience and experience tempered by reason. To be self-determined, one has to know the difference between the script one chooses for oneself, and the role that society demands that one play. Religion claims gods as the playwrights, rabbis and priests as the directors, we the actors, and the world as our stage. The directors, in spite of their additions and subtractions, claim to hold to the original intent of the author, and the ever-faithful cast willingly submits to directors to guide them. Where there is such blind allegiance there is no self-determination and no societal freedom. The sign of a free individual within a free and tolerant society is where there are various theatre companies, many scripts to read, several roles to act, with the liberty to choose the roles or no role at all at a whim without any pressure or undue force placed on the individual who deviates from the chosen script. Spinoza wants you to be your own playwright and cast yourself in the lead role to the betterment of yourself and those around you. The script is founded in reason and the stage is wherever you want it to be.

For the present, you can call my act “The Heretic Monologues”.

“If we live according to the guidance of Reason, we shall desire for others the good which we seek for ourselves.” (Spinoza in Ethics, 1677)

“It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.” (D. H. Lawrence, 1885 - 1930)