Almost daily Corner bashing
The Post’s headline on its Cheney series this morning (in the print, not online edition) is stunning: “The Unseen Path to Cruelty.”... “Cruelty?” That is much too freighted a word to appear in a news headline. Surely the editors of the Post realize that the question of how to treat enemy combatants is a complex policy question. If Cheney took the position that the executive has broad constitutional authority in this area, as the article suggests, it was not because he is a cruel man, but out of genuine conviction that this was the best way to protect the American people.
(Pretension alert) I think even Hamlet, well descended into lunacy, was able to understand the idea here pretty well. After stabbing Polonius and rattling his mother with an epic tirade, Hamlet says, "I must be cruel only to be kind. Thus bad begins and worse remains behind." This is the supposed Cheney conundrum in couplet form and yet it seems that Hamlet--in all of his insanity--was more capable of reflecting upon himself than Mona Charen is of reflecting upon the vice president.
Now that's not to say that I think that any "kindness" will come out of the Cheney torture policies, or that I think Cheney gives weighty issues any moral consideration at all. But the view that it's not cruelty if in his heart of hearts he thinks it's for the better is a pretty deranged one. Very few powerful people torture for purely sadistic reasons, and yet it's not by coincidence that the practice itself--despite any rosier motivations behind it--is widely described as cruel and unusual.
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Thinking that maybe I didn't have a clear idea of 'cruel', I went back to my trusty dictionary.com:
1. willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others. check
2. enjoying the pain or distress of others: the cruel spectators of the gladiatorial contests. maybe: hard to know what is in the Cheney heart.
3. causing or marked by great pain or distress: a cruel remark; a cruel affliction. check
4. rigid; stern; strict; unrelentingly severe. check
But the synonyms help some:
Synonyms 1. bloodthirsty, ferocious, merciless, relentless. Cruel, pitiless, ruthless, brutal, savage imply readiness to cause pain to others. Cruel implies willingness to cause pain, and indifference to suffering: a cruel stepfather. Pitiless adds the idea of refusal to show compassion: pitiless to captives. Ruthless implies cruelty and unscrupulousness, letting nothing stand in one's way: ruthless greed. Brutal implies cruelty that takes the form of physical violence: a brutal master. Savage suggests fierceness and brutality: savage battles.
Maybe defining this is like pornography, as the SCOTUS has tried to do, and one jurist finally ended up saying "I know it when I see it".
Perhaps the Cheney tribe would argue that it isn't cruelty if it is motivated by a good objective. This is usually described as the ends justify the means, which at one time the US denounced as the motto of the heartless communist totalitarians.
Hamlet merely feigned madness. In the scene that you reference, he acts impusively for perhaps the only time in the play. As a result, he kills the wrong man and brings about his own demise at the hands of Laertes (another grieving son, but one who is able to act without considering the consequences of his actions).
So there may be a parallel here, just not necessarily the one you were trying to make.
BTW, I just remember a play called MacBird, which parodied LBJs ascendancy to the presidency. Funny at the time. Wonder which
Shakespeare play would work for Bush? I'm thinking Richard III as played by Bottom...
You, jubeu, whoever you are, seem to think you know a thing or two about Hamlet!
What makes Hamlet such a compelling character is the uncertainty about which of his actions are true madness and which are madness as a tool of manipulation. Polonius' death is the result of a mistaken impulse, but at that point in the play--when Hamlet utters those lines--he's on the descent.
No comparison was intended here other than to say that Hamlet, though crazy, had a clearer understanding of himself than conservatives have of Cheney.
You, jubeu, whoever you are, seem to think you know a thing or two about Hamlet!
What makes Hamlet such a compelling character is the uncertainty about which of his actions are true madness and which are madness as a tool of manipulation. Polonius' death is the result of a mistaken impulse, but at that point in the play--when Hamlet utters those lines--he's on the descent.
No comparison was intended here other than to say that Hamlet, though crazy, had a clearer understanding of himself than conservatives have of Cheney.
Hamlet: "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?"
Cheney: What's Hecuba to me?"
Bush: "What's Hecuba?"
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