Monday, February 28, 2022

Useless Asshole

Let's pause there and go to the tape: Now, what were we saying? I call it the Iago Effect: society functions on the assumption we all act for reasons plain from our actions. Iago, the great villain of "Othello," purposefully acted in a way that hid his intentions. This is what makes Iago Shakespeare's greatest villain (IMHLiteraryOpinion): It is only after the corrosive damage of Iago's actions is plain that he is revealed for what he is, but by then the tragedy has unfolded and nothing can be remedied. And Iago succeeds because we cannot questions the intentions of everyone we meet, doubting what they do is done for the reasons they profess, else society itself comes to a complete halt in a paralysis of paranoia. No social system can function with a madman or a figure of pure evil (Iago inverts the statement of God to Moses: "I am not what I am," he tells Roderigo in Act 1) in power or near enough to it (Othello is the military governor of Cyprus, Iago his trusted aide). The lesson of Trump is not the inherent weakness in the system; it is that people like trump can never be allowed even near the center of power, much less being the center of power themselves.

Just saying, this: Is not going to win friends and influence people, If anything, it's going to remind 81 million people why they didn't vote for Trump when they had a second chance.
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1 comment:

  1. rustypickup12:28 PM

    "I call it the Iago Effect: society functions on the assumption we all act for reasons plain from our actions... And Iago succeeds because we cannot questions the intentions of everyone we meet, doubting what they do is done for the reasons they profess, else society itself comes to a complete halt in a paralysis of paranoia." Thank you for this. I have been thinking quite a lot about trust (I also bookmarked and revisited multiple times your post "Whales and Nightingales and Bottles" which discusses the difference between belief and faith, which faith and trust being synonymous), how it is fundamental to our relations to each other. It's not only the trust we have in those we know, but even to other anonymously. For example I trust the other drivers I don't know will drive on the right and stop for red lights. Trust is critical to our close relationships. Trust (faith) shows up in our religious beliefs. It's important to our relationship to our government and fellow citizens. A study on how well a country managed the health of their population during the pandemic found only two significant factors: age of the population and the level of trust people had in their government and fellow citizens. The US is suffering for the moment from high levels of distrust. A headline caught my eye a few weeks ago, drug addicts trust their dealers more than they trust vaccines and the medical community. Trust shows up in so many ways. It is even a factor for our inner life. Do we trust our own judgement? Do we trust or distrust ourselves in certain circumstances?

    A few years ago a wrote each week on the theme of gratitude and posted on my Facebook page. I ended up do that for a year. I was going to pick a new topic but job loss, relocation, pandemic, moving and all took priority. Now that life is slightly more settled, I am starting to write again, this time on trust. I have saved this post too and now I need to go reread Othello because I think Iago could be a good discuss of how our trust can be abused and the baseline trust we need to extend to just function in society.

    Already I can see there are plenty of reflections that can be made around trust to fill a year of posts at one every week or two.

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