I missed this when it first came out, ran across it the other day and it so perfectly summarizes our treacherous political situation and the man at the helm with his enablers and sycophants. Want to understand the underlying reality of today's craziness here's a good place to start. Thus, I can't resist adding it to my little collection.
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Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election
By Stephen Greenblatt | October 8, 2016
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. ...
Keep reading at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html
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You may be wondering, who is Stephen Greenblatt PhD and what does he know? Here are some informative links:
The John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities
