I am placing this post here because of its conclusions,
not because of its content…
we have two historical figures, one clearly fictional and
the other?
I see Hamlet as being a continuation of the Abraham story…
what the fuck, Kropotkin? what are you smoking?
nothing hear me out…
let us set the stage…
Abraham hears the voice of god… who demands he kills his son,
Isaac, as a sign of devotion to god… Abraham being a “believer”
takes Isaac on a three day journey to obey God’s command…
at the appointed place, Abraham lifts the knife and…
an angel appears and stops this event… replacing
Isaac with a random Ram who was wondering by…
and in Hamlet, Hamlet see’s a ghost of his dead father who commands
that Hamlet avenges the father’s death by killing the new king,
King Claudius… who killed Hamlet father and took his throne and wife…
Hamlet mother…
so we have two voices, one claiming to be god and one a ghost claiming to be
Hamlet father, asking their respective protagonist, Abraham and Hamlet
to kill the objective of the voices…
we can see that Hamlet is the more modern story because of the
hesitation of Hamlet to kill that isn’t in the biblical story…
Abraham doesn’t seem to have the hesitation of Hamlet…
and I believe that comes from the introduction of the state that so
dominates our lives and Hamlet’s life…
there is really no mention of the state/nation in the biblical story
of Abraham…it is simply the actions of people being people…
whereas the entire background of Hamlet is about the state…
recall that Hamlet is the son of the King who was slain,
by rights, Hamlet should be King, not Claudius…
so this voice of Abraham and Hamlet, tells them they must kill
certain people because of… one because of devotion to god,
the other to revenge the death of the father…
both are strong and powerful actions that are being demanded…
revenge and devotion… powerful stuff…
and opposing these powerful emotions, are also powerful idea’s…
thou shall not kill thy son… infanticide brings up powerful feelings
and emotions within us… as does killing the uncle, which is
regicide … another action which brings out powerful emotions
and feelings…both acts requires the killing of a family member…
emotions doesn’t really get any stronger then that…
and oppose to these emotions lie equally strong feelings as I mentioned…
we love our children… I am a father myself… and I have uncles, no longer alive,
but I did and some of them did do me wrong… nothing worth killing over for sure,
but nevertheless…
so how am I to resolve this situation?
I have been told/asked to kill another human being to fix some human situations…
to seek revenge and to hold a god in proper respect…
we see in the old testament that the highest example of being human is to
hold to our devotion to god… and because of that, Abraham doesn’t seem to
object…whereas Hamlet seems to have a great deal of trouble with his command…
to put this into other terms… we have an inner, personal voice telling us
to act in a certain way, in defiance to the rules of society… we have this
“TRUTH” which we can only hear advocating actions in defiance to the rules
of society…who do we listen to? do we hold to our inner truth
or do we bow down to the “TRUTHS” of the society and do not act
as our own inner voices have commanded us to?
this dilemma is one which faces practically every human being…
I have faced this dilemma my entire life as has most of you…
we are faced with two impossible actions… and both actions require
us to defy a “TRUTH” be it a personal truth or be it a community/social
"TRUTH’…the society/state demands that we do not kill our children
and, and we do not kill our leaders/monarchs…
which "TRUTH’ will you hold for? your inner voice that demands that you
do/speak as it requires you to or do you answer the call of your society/state
and do not act as your inner truth requires?
the respective stories of Abraham and Hamlet bring out some very real
human possibilities and “TRUTHS” that we face every single day…
which “TRUTH” shall we follow? our own personal, inner truths or do we
follow the community/state “TRUTH” that demands we don’t kill our son
or our uncle/monarch?
this is a lifelong struggle we face… which truth shall we abide by?
the voice inside of our head or the voice from outside… the society/state voice…
the voice you follow will decide/determine who you are and what it means
to you to be human… we are social creatures that must, must make
allowances for our need for us to be social creatures… we as human beings
must, must engage with our fellow human beings and our culture/state/society…
we die if we cannot engage with on a constant basis with our culture/state/society…
and we cannot go against that which we must be, social creatures that need to
be connected to the culture/state/society… we connect or we die… pretty simple
actually…
but those pesky voices in our head… telling us our own personal and quite often oppose
to…against the needs/wants/desires of the culture/state/society we live in…
and how do we solve this dilemma? which voice shall we listen to,
the state/society/culture or do we listen to the voice in our head?
Kropotkin