Romeo and Juliet–No Villains!

I had put off reading Romeo and Juliet.  Critics like Bloom (The Invention of the Human) and especially Nuttall (Shakespeare the Thinker) found little to like in the play.  Both search for the sexual complexity, wit, and gender-bending of As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night, and find only Mercutio who, in his role as temperance agent to the swooning Romeo, echoes many of the same sentiments of Benedick or Rosalind or even the Princess of France in Love’s Labor’s Lost but has little of the wit or bite.  He teases Romeo, but has his own hot-headed issues in the Montague-Capulet feud.  His Queen Mab soliloquy is loved by Bloom who says:

Mercutio is the most notorious scene stealer in all of Shakespeare, and there4 is a tradition (reported by Dryden) that Shakespeare declared he was obliged to kill off Mercutio, lest Mercutio kill Shakespeare and hence the play….Mercutio promises a grand comic role, and yet disturbs us also with his extraordinary rhapsody concerning Queen Mab…

Nuttall tries especially hard to find some complexity in Mercutio to make the play worth while, and plays the gay card.  He says:

Mercutio is Romeo’s closest male friend.  He is a good fellow and remorselessly opposed, not just humorously, we guess, to romantic love. The intensity of the antagonism is so great that it is difficult in the present age to play the part without suggesting  homosexual feeling in the background….The incidence of bawdry is higher in the speeches of Mercutio than in those of any other Shakespearean character.  This means that by the logic of the plot Mercutio is the antagonist of Juliet…

and, by Nuttall’s further logic, is her antagonist because of his sexual love for Romeo.  Come on!

Hazlitt (Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays), however gets it right, perhaps because he wrote over 200 years ago, long before the persistence and perversions of Post-Modernist literary theory.  He understands that the greatness of the play is the purity and simplicity of the romantic love between Romeo and Juliet.  After reading all the above-cited comedies with their layered complexity, feisty, witty characters, and cynicism (for all of these element I loved the plays), it was a pleasure to find no villains, no fools, no misogynists, no misanthropes, no incessant puns and witticisms (although Bloom cites a critic who counted 175 of them in Romeo they are unobtrusive, relevant, and easy).  It was a delight to read of young love whose only enemy was Fate – no complex plots, no ingenious ruses and sexual trickery, just unsullied, innocent young love.

Hazlitt comments, ‘There is the buoyant spirit of youth in every line, in the rapturous intoxication of hope, and in the bitterness of despair’.  He goes on to say that in the love of Romeo and Juliet ‘there is nothing of a sickly, sentimental cast. Romeo and Juliet are in love but they are not love-sick’. This is a lovely respite from the oversentimental professions of love in the Comedies.   Hazlitt goes on:

Everything speaks the very soul of pleasure, the high and health pulse of the passions: the heart beats, the blood circulates and mantles throughout. Their courtship is not an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, learnt at second-hand from poems and plays, – made up of beauties of the most shadowy kind, of ‘fancies wan that hang the pensive head’, of evanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, truth, and nature! – It is the reverse of all of this.  It is Shakespeare all over, and Shakespeare when he was young.

Because of this, the exaggeratedly romantic poetry can be forgiven and read for what it is.  Shakespeare asks us to be young again when we thought and felt like this – smitten for the first time, living with the image of our first love, feeling the longing and the desire without really knowing what the feeling was all about.  As Friar Laurence says to Capulet about his daughter’s untimely death: ‘She’s not well married that lives married long, But she’s best married that dies married young’.

Shakespeare in the Comedies is very cynical about love and marriage.  Cuckoldry is always lurking, romantic sentiments pilloried for their silliness and lack of reality.  In this play, however, only these two lines of the Friar and the teasing of Mercutio remind us of the playwright’s darker sentiments.  The innocence and love of Romeo and Juliet are simply too strong.  From the very first lines spoken by Romeo when he sees Juliet:

Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hands upon the cheek of night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear -

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear….

to his last:

Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct; come unsavory guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks they seasick weary bark!

Here’s to my love! [Drinks].  O, true apothecary!

Thy drugs are quick.  Thus with a kiss I die.

the poetry is simple and heartfelt.

The famous and oft-quoted passages (But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?; Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds; O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face); the sonnet in Act I.v (If I profane with my unworthiest hand…), and the aubade in Act III.v (Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.  It was the nightingale, not the lark) are but some of the lyrical yet simple lines of the play.

What keeps this play – and the love expressed – pure and simple, is the fact that Shakespeare has chosen not to introduce villains, like Don John in Much Ado About Nothing or ‘evil villains’ like Iago to disrupt love relationships.  It is Fate which determines the course of the love of Romeo and Juliet.  They are pre-destined, and we know their end:

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes [Montague and Capulet]

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents strife.

Thus, freed from ruse, treachery, duplicity, and hatred, the play unfolds with and around the two young lovers.  We can know their fate from the first lines of the play, and this foreknowledge does nothing to diminish the pleasure in reading it.  We can focus on Romeo and Juliet, participate in and enjoy their romance and love, feelings heightened by this foreknowledge and not encumbered with trying to figure out the motivations of others.

The other characters are interesting, although to me vehicles rather than players in the drama.  The Nurse is a turncoat, and we wonder how and why she did her volte face so abruptly.  Capulet in Act I talks to Paris about his only partial control of his daughter, Juliet, but then goes berserk later in the play when she objects to the arranged marriage with Paris.  He comes around with true – and very emotional – lines about the love only a father can know, spoken after Juliet’s feigned death.  We cannot hate him for his patriarchal stance.  How could we?  Women were subservient to male figures because arranged marriages were affairs of family fortune, and incidental sex and the risk of interrupting the political/family line were anathema.  But we can like him for his very clear love for his daughter.  I have written about the intrusive and uninteresting Mercutio above.

The play is about Romeo and Juliet.  It is as simple as that, and I am very happy I finally got around to reading it.  I loved it.

Recipes–Garbanzo Bean, Octopus, Basil, and Beet Salad

I just created this, and it is fabulous!  A must.  Of course, it owes much to history and other cuisines, especially the classic Mediterranean dish of chick peas, mushrooms, basil, and garlic; but I have added beets, tomatoes, celery and smoked octopus, and that makes all the difference in the world.  Also, this salad is a 10 minute operation.  Yes, you have to have canned garbanzos, fresh tomatoes and beets, but none are hard to find.  The combination of the earthy garbanzos and beets with the smoked octopus is just right.  The celery, onion, and tomatoes add freshness and some acidity.  The basil and olive oil bring it all together. Here it is, and enjoy!!

* 1/2 can canned garbanzos (chick peas), rinsed and drained.  This recipe is for one serving; so just double, triple for more servings.

* 1 lg. fresh tomatoes, quartered

* 2 lg. Tbsp. dried basil

* 1/2 medium sweet (e.g. Vidalia) onion, chopped

* 2 medium stalks celery, chopped

* 1 medium beet (fresh is best by far), cut into 1” pieces

* 1 can Vigo brand Pulpo (octopus).  You can substitute squid.  This brand is widely available in supermarkets. It is high flavor, moderate salt

* 2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

* salt, pepper to taste

- Place all ingredients in a mixing/serving bowl/dish and mix well

- Serve

Libertarianism; or Goldilocks and The Three Bears

Most of my liberal friends start off with the assumption that anything public is good and most things private are bad.  For years international development was crippled by the belief that governments were the guardians of civil society – only they had all the people in mind when it came to health, education, and social welfare.  Private enterprise, particularly that of multinational corporations, was predatory, exploitive, and interested only in the wealth of the few.  Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and the hated pharmaceutical companies were latter day carpetbaggers, descending on poor Third World countries and robbing them of resources while degrading the value of labor.  These progressives have overlooked the same predatory, exploitive, and venal actions of public officials, riding the backs of the poor to get into power, and beating them down to stay there.

Primary and secondary education should only be public, say liberals.  It is important because public education is the cauldron of civil society – where rich, poor; dumb, smart; black, white are mixed together and emerge annealed by the experience and bonded together to forge a more just and equitable society.  Educational achievement is important, they say, but not at the expense of the social model.  The means are just as important as the ends, if not more so.  Privatization of public education is anathema because it will destroy this model.  It will encourage inequality and unequal opportunity while enriching a few investors.  They overlook, however, the value of private education’s innovation, fostering of individual achievement, competitiveness, and social and economic success. 

The role of private, community organizations while important, serve to diminish the role of the state in social welfare programs.  As with education, public programs are expression of the public trust – we are all in the same social boat, and must all pull together so that we all succeed.  Individualized private programs are selective and therefore unequal.

My conservative friends start off with the assumption that anything private is good and anything public is bad.  They assume that privatizing international development is in all respects a good thing while conveniently overlooking the fact that wealth can be just as easily concentrated in private hands as it can in corrupt public ones with more dollars flowing up than down.  They assume that all education should be private, ignoring the growing trend of exploitive private institutions that skirt accreditation, charge high fees, and promise few returns.   They favor private institutional giving and private action to improve civil society, but overlook the years of corruption, venality, and criminal behavior of “empowered” local non-governmental institutions.

Libertarianism is often mistakenly thought of as a far-right political movement when in fact it is anything but.  There are two basic principles of Libertarianism: 1) individual freedom; and, as a corollary of the first, 2) limited government.  The emphasis in the latter is on limited.  Libertarians are not against government per se as most far right conservatives are.  They only insist on determining those programs or investments which truly belong in the public sector – i.e. cannot or should not be private. 

The key to this determination is cost-benefit analysis: a) what is the objective to be achieved; b) what are the measurements to determine achievement of objectives; c) what are the most cost-effective means of achieving that objective; and d) which sector (public or private) or institution is best placed or most appropriate for carrying out the actions which lead to stated objectives.

It is often argued that such an economic-based algorithm is too narrow, and it leaves out factors and outcomes to which I have referred above.  Not only should we have the goal of educating children, it is argued, but it is in the national interest to have a public-based system which fosters inclusion and integration.  While subsidies are usually wrong, there may be cases for which they are important.  Do we want to cede key agricultural staple production to the free market, with the possibility that we lose control?  How many actual combat forces – if any – should be privately contracted without losing the strategic and operational integrity of the military?  Although many municipalities are privatizing certain former police functions (like traffic control, parking enforcement, etc.), is it in the civic interest to privatize most or all of them?

The point is, these factors and variables must be included in the cost-benefit equation.  What, for example, would be gained and lost by privatizing the police force?  What do past data indicate?  If there is sufficient supervision, regulation, and monitoring of a private force – just as there is to a public – and if the force is answerable to civil authorities, as it is now, why shouldn’t a municipality privatize?  What are the real, measurable, and compelling reasons to keep it public?

There should be no investment off limits to this kind of analysis whether defense, education, social welfare, regulation, infrastructure, fire/police/security, etc.  The debate over the budget, deficit spending, and debt is a good thing for it focuses on this very subject – which are the public expenditures which are worthwhile or important to retain; and which are those that can be easily jettisoned.  Some are easy.  There are many unnecessary subsidies which carry already competitive industries.  A good case can be made for reducing support to the Departments of Energy, Education, and Health and Human Services.  A good case can be made that education belongs in the hands of the state; health and welfare in the private and/or non-profit sectors; and energy in the private sector. 

There is no doubt that the Pentagon budget can be trimmed, that pensions and health care be treated no differently than other employment, and that subcontracting be increased in selected areas.  Road transportation can be partially privatized (i.e. fee-for-travel), and maintenance and new construction subcontracted; but there seems to be a compelling need for overall network coordination which should be public.  Most airports are semi-governmental, with private operations and government oversight which appears reasonable.  The list goes on.

The main principle that underlies this argument is measurement.  Too few programs are subjected to objective analysis.  Do current publically-financed school, welfare, health programs work?  Do they meet the objectives and goals set for them?  Is student performance improving?  Are health indicators showing a positive trend?  Is local delinquency down?  Are our vast public expenditures in the military paying off and by what criteria?

There is no doubt that measurement is not easy.  Simply getting people to agree on the criteria for measurement is problematic, for such determination is fraught with political overtones.  Nevertheless using the difficulty of measurement as a reason or excuse not to scrutinize both public and private programs is wrong.  There will be no rational allocation of public resources until we agree to put everything under the microscope.

A complex and problematic issue in the debate over public-private influence in the delivery of products and services is regulation.  Most Libertarians would agree that some regulation is required.  History has shown that a totally unregulated banking industry has been a major cause of one depression and one deep recession.  However, too much regulation can stifle innovation; too little can lead to the most arcane and risky financial instruments.  Consumer protection can be useful.  Would drivers have worn seatbelts without government regulation and incentives?  Would smoking have dropped so significantly had taxes (a form of regulation) not been raised (smoking is very price-sensitive)? Can one wholly trust the pharmaceutical industry to regulate themselves in an environment where the populace is either uninformed or poorly informed through random Internet searches?

A third consideration is the rate at which services are privatized or deregulated; and this should be a function of the above-described cost-benefit analysis.  It may not be necessary to eliminate or privatize the entire Department of Education, but much of it; and objective analysis will determine which public educational expenditures at the national and local levels are justified.   Not all police or fire functions need to be privatized, nor immediately.  Both professional and political factors argue for progressive reform; and properly designed and implemented evaluation mechanisms can allow for the gradual change-over of investments.

Libertarianism, then, is neither conservative nor liberal when assessing the role of the private and public sectors.  It is neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.  Get the balance right, say Libertarians, by demonstrating the need for public investments in terms of results, and by showing the proper role of the private sector in assuring civic goals.

As a final note, not enough people realize how many liberal positions Libertarians take in the name of their first principle, individual liberty.  They favor a woman’s right to choose, liberalizing drug laws, limiting foreign adventurism and military intervention, ensuring free speech, protecting against the invasion of privacy, etc.

For more information on Libertarianism, please check the website of The Cato Institute www.cato.org  It is free from cant and partisan politics and in its events, publications, and statements, adheres to a classic Libertarian position as I have tried to express it above.