Impossible Idealism

Recently I came across a book titled Script Analysis by James Thomas. While analyzing the themes of plays (Hamlet in this case) the author mentions something called impossible idealism. In the play, Hamlet vows to take revenge for his father’s murder, pursues it ruthlessly, kills directly or indirectly some innocent people in the process and disrupts whole of Denmark. At the end evil is destroyed, but at what cost? Is it true that all is well that ends well? The author here observes that the story of Hamlet is in a way a test, or an exhibit of Hamlet’s idealism.

This got me to thinking that isn't this something we all do? We all divide the world in black and white, good and evil, positive and negative, masculine and feminine. We label everything as desirable or undesirable. We forget at times that the world we have created in our heads is a “re-presentation” of reality and not reality itself. It is an idealized version of the world which has many nuances. We forget that some actions that might be right in one situation will be considered horribly wrong in another. We forget that in order to understand something fully we need to understand its context as well.

We need to learn to be tolerant and patient enough to listen to what someone else has to say. I remember a quote by Naom Chomsky,

“ If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all”.

But then there is another quote that I am fond of

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”

For the world to make sense one has to make a genuine effort to be receptive and to make the world understand us, our point of view, one has to in a way speak the same language and be clear on what he believes and why.

Shakespeare in his plays always depicted his characters coming in terms with reality not just the worlds in their minds and heads. We need to strive towards having a broader understanding and a more involved experience of life. To idealize something is to strip it of its richness and convert it into plain old flavor of vanilla which no doubt is quite appealing and easy to conceive but in the long run is neither enjoyable nor sustainable.