On "To thine own self be true"

[Kevin Christensen]

I've got an essay up in just published Spring 2016 issue of Square Two, "A Mormon Rashomon".   My original version had the following rant on use and misuse of "To thine own self be true" which turns out to be thematically important in all three of the books I'm reviewing.

Quote

After all, as Steven Fales reminds us,[1] Shakespeare says, “To thine own self be true.” The quote continues beyond what Steven gives, adding: “And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

 

Though, of course, this is not Shakespeare speaking for himself to humanity in the role of enlightened sage, but as a dramatist in Hamlet, giving lines to Polonius, the King’s counselor, who cynically aligns his own self-interest with his political career.  So in being true to himself, Polonius doesn’t ask politically unhealthy questions about the succession from Hamlet’s father to Claudius or Gertrude’s hasty marriage to the new king. He gives Laertes advice designed to ensure that while at school the boy does nothing to embarrass his father’s career. He sets a man spy on his son to make sure, and conspires with the King to set his own daughter, Ophelia to spy on Hamlet. And in being true to himself, he decides to hide behind a wall hanging in Gertrude’s rooms, hoping to hear something useful by spying on the apparently mad Prince Hamlet, a fateful decision that does not go well for either his personal aspirations, his mortality or the welfare of his son and daughter. And Hamlet, in the name his own sense of being true to himself, pretends madness (that is, he deliberately becomes false to everyone except Horatio and Marcellus). In being thus true to himself, he treats Ophelia badly, stabs blindly through a wall hanging and unintentionally kills Polonius, whose death has the effect of driving Ophelia past the heartbreak and rejection he had already given her and on to madness and drowning. And of course, Hamlet’s unintentional murder of Polonius gives Laertes exactly the same moral justification that Hamlet thinks he has. And in meeting Laertes before the fatal duel, Hamlet blames the actions that harmed Laertes on his madness, and asks to be excused, since Hamlet claims to also be a victim of that same madness, that is, the feigned madness. Hamlet’s choices lead to the subsequent deaths of Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,[2] Laertes, Gertrude, Claudius, and finally, Hamlet himself.  And Claudius and Laertes, in being true to themselves, feel justified in lying to Hamlet about the non-friendly nature of the fatal duel. The course of the plot in Hamlet vividly raises the question of what it means to say, “To thine own self be true” and constantly displays such a notion as justifying false and destructive behavior by those who adopt the premise. Was Claudius being true to himself when he poured poison in the King’s ear as a means to secure the throne and Gertrude for himself?  Was Claudius being true to himself when he tried to poison Hamlet during the duel, or when he knowingly allowed Gertrude to drink the poison meant for Hamlet?  And when the dead and damned King’s ghost meets Hamlet in the first act, what was the ultimate effect and benefit of those sincerely felt, passionately delivered, and honestly believed words that encourage young Hamlet to take revenge?  What exactly did the ghost pour into Hamlet’s ear?  Truth and wisdom? A divine commission to seek justice and revenge, as if a demand for bloody revenge is just what to expect in a divine commission? As if God typically sends messengers who are by day, “confin’d to lasting fires, till the foul crimes done in the days of nature are burnt and purg’d away” to send such glad tidings of peace and joy and personal redemption?  Doesn’t it seem obvious that what the ghost pours into Hamlet’s ear is just more poison?

 

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[1] Fales, “Confessions of a Mormon Boy,” Sunstone 130 (December 2003), p 52. Also see Dancing with Crazy, “They’re Here, They’re Queer, Get Used to It”, Gerald tells a young Emily, “I’m finally being true to myself. I denied who I was for so long.”  Notice that Mario too, in talking to Carol Lynn had alluded to the same thought from Hamlet. Incidentally, Steven quotes from the email he was writing to the friend when Emily caught him, and there he describes his post binge behavior as “being true to myself the past six months.” Which self? The definition controls what it means to be true to self.

 

[2] Which Hamlet dismisses as morally negligeable collateral damage, as becomes any who come between “mighty opposites,” meaning, himself and Claudius. No one else matters much, being pawns between dueling kings

 

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park PA

Edited May 12, 2016 by Kevin Christensen

[Buckeye]

I'm no bard expert, but why assume that the value of the advice is contingent on the players following it?  Couldn't it be that the downfalls seen in hamlet are a direct result of the players NOT following the counsel, as you so adeptly point out?  

[Kevin Christensen]

40 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

I'm no bard expert, but why assume that the value of the advice is contingent on the players following it?  Couldn't it be that the downfalls seen in hamlet are a direct result of the players NOT following the counsel, as you so adeptly point out?  

It's a matter of which self a person is being true to.  My essay at Square Two talks about that.  

Quote

What is self-interest really?  When a person says, “I have to be true to myself,” the meaning is tied up with what their view of the self is.  What self am I primarily to be, or not to be?  Am I primarily a biological self, a sexual self, a spiritual self, an economic self, a political self, a social self?  Is there anyone who can or cannot make any legitimate claims on my behavior?  

Despite Steven’s assurance to his audience that he is being true to himself in following his sexuality, wasn’t he being false to Emily and Carol Lynn, and his own promise to himself that he would never do to Emily what Gerald had done to Carol Lynn? [33] Eugene England points out that the famous “To be, or not to be” question is not about suicide, but addresses the issue of whether a person lives in readiness to meet God, or in taking action against any opposition to personal desire in the here and now. [34] The tragedies in Hamlet all fall from the choice “not to be” whether or not the characters presume to be “true to myself.”

 FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Bobbieaware]

9 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I've got a essay up in just published Spring 2016 issue of Square Two, "A Mormon Rashomon".   My original version had the following rant on use and misuse of "To thine own self be true" which turns out to be thematically important in all three of the books I'm reviewing.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park PA

Along these same lines, I've heard it said Ben Franklin's aphorism, "honesty is the best policy," can also be viewed in a cynical light. Point being that even if one is inclined toward dishonesty, he might come to understand that it's in his pragmatic self-interest to to be stricly honest because dishonesty will quite likely only serve to sabotage what he"s hoping to obtain or accomplish. So someone might be a dishonest creep at heart, but his greed might very well overrule his impulses toward dishonesty. And remember, as is so often voiced on this board, policies can shift and change like the wind, and a policy and an eternal verity are two different things. Even so, when I was growing up my grandmother often recited polonius' words to me, as if they did represent a very profound eternal verity; and when understood in the light of the Gospel of Christ, and not in the distorted llight of Shakespeare's Hamlet, they do represent a great eternal verity that all saints would be well to treasure and live by. I guess the moral of the story is that Satan can twist anything and everything toward his own nefarious ends.

[Meadowchik]

Yesterday a brother testified about his own culture being replaced by the culture of Christ, when he was baptised.

It's an interesting concept, the depths of which merit researching. Thanks, Kevin, for sharing.

[Ahab]

translation: "be yourself".

Not a good idea when 'yourself" is less than the total perfection of all you could be.

How many pages did you devote to that idea?

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Yesterday a brother testified about his own culture being replaced by the culture of Christ, when he was baptised.

It's an interesting concept, the depths of which merit researching. Thanks, Kevin, for sharing.

I have been thinking a lot about this topic/problem of late and it becomes an interesting question for the church.Our major growth right now is in Latin America, and in my experience, there have also been some cultural clashes between Anglo and Hispanic culture even in the church.

I wonder how much our church is infused with American Protestant culture.  As we become a worldwide church, I think it will become more and more clear that even church members striving to become the culture of Christ are still tending to become "the culture of Christ" as interpreted through the eyes of American Protestantism.  From the beginning we have been very much a part of the American idea of manifest destiny, of going out there and turning the desert into a garden of roses, of making the world a humanized place full of malls and parking lots, trees chopped down for log cabins and bison and beaver gobbled up for pelts and hides.

On the other hand native Americans do not see the world that way.  Hinduism and Buddhism see the influences of this world as traps to be avoided in a spiritual quest- while our leaders encourage "making a living" as of prime importance.Some cultures even believe that education beyond a certain point is a fruitless search for useless knowledge.  We even have some of that in the church, surprisingly.  We must get enough education to be able to get a good job, but being a "professional student" is frowned upon.  And yet we also affirm that the knowledge we have found here is all we will leave this world with when called home.

Don't get me wrong- my personal values are very much in line with "church culture" as it is presently represented, but I wonder if indeed my personal culture- and that of the church, brings us closer to Christ or not.

Is having a 15 hour work day on Sunday- as a church leader- keeping the Sabbath or not?  That it IS, is definitely, I think, part of the Protestant work ethic, but is it really keeping the Sabbath?  How do we find balance?

I guess all I am saying is that yes we should all leave our personal cultures and cultivate a culture of Christ, but the sometimes implied idea that "foreigners" have the wrong culture and "we" have the right culture to achieve being close to Christ is wrong-headed.

"Being true to ourselves" must include being true to a Restoration culture encompassing all God's children, that in my opinion, has yet to be defined, and that may include a softer work ethic, more of a family orientation, less of a rat race, and more "fiestas" and time to stop and smell the roses.  

Perhaps a whole half-hour a day devoted to scripture study without worrying about getting the kids to daycare might be nice.  Maybe some time for meditation and contemplation on top of that couldn't hurt. And then there is a real concern for our fellow man, the plate of cookies to a neighbor, stopping off to say hello to and elderly person, or writing letters to missionaries.  REAL home/visiting teaching visits, maybe 5 minutes once a week to let people know we really DO love them

Wouldn't that be nice?

But how do we do that in our present culture?  THAT is where the question lies, in my opinion. I haven't figured all that out yet.

[Meadowchik]

35 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have been thinking a lot about this topic/problem of late and it becomes an interesting question for the church.Our major growth right now is in Latin America, and in my experience, there have also been some cultural clashes between Anglo and Hispanic culture even in the church.

I wonder how much our church is infused with American Protestant culture.  As we become a worldwide church, I think it will become more and more clear that even church members striving to become the culture of Christ are still tending to become "the culture of Christ" as interpreted through the eyes of American Protestantism.  From the beginning we have been very much a part of the American idea of manifest destiny, of going out there and turning the desert into a garden of roses, of making the world a humanized place full of malls and parking lots, trees chopped down for log cabins and bison and beaver gobbled up for pelts and hides.

On the other hand native Americans do not see the world that way.  Hinduism and Buddhism see the influences of this world as traps to be avoided in a spiritual quest- while our leaders encourage "making a living" as of prime importance.Some cultures even believe that education beyond a certain point is a fruitless search for useless knowledge.  We even have some of that in the church, surprisingly.  We must get enough education to be able to get a good job, but being a "professional student" is frowned upon.  And yet we also affirm that the knowledge we have found here is all we will leave this world with when called home.

Don't get me wrong- my personal values are very much in line with "church culture" as it is presently represented, but I wonder if indeed my personal culture- and that of the church, brings us closer to Christ or not.

Is having a 15 hour work day on Sunday- as a church leader- keeping the Sabbath or not?  That it IS, is definitely, I think, part of the Protestant work ethic, but is it really keeping the Sabbath?  How do we find balance?

I guess all I am saying is that yes we should all leave our personal cultures and cultivate a culture of Christ, but the sometimes implied idea that "foreigners" have the wrong culture and "we" have the right culture to achieve being close to Christ is wrong-headed.

"Being true to ourselves" must include being true to a Restoration culture encompassing all God's children, that in my opinion, has yet to be defined, and that may include a softer work ethic, more of a family orientation, less of a rat race, and more "fiestas" and time to stop and smell the roses.  

Perhaps a whole half-hour a day devoted to scripture study without worrying about getting the kids to daycare might be nice.  Maybe some time for meditation and contemplation on top of that couldn't hurt. And then there is a real concern for our fellow man, the plate of cookies to a neighbor, stopping off to say hello to and elderly person, or writing letters to missionaries.  REAL home/visiting teaching visits, maybe 5 minutes once a week to let people know we really DO love them

Wouldn't that be nice?

But how do we do that in our present culture?  THAT is where the question lies, in my opinion. I haven't figured all that out yet.

I recall a short  sci-fi story by an LDS author that was intriguing. In the story, any religion was apparently not tolerated and "church" amounted to extremely clandestine almost imperceptible gestures between people as signs of spiritual solidarity.  That's as much church that could exist in that world.

Imagine a Star Trek world where science and humanism has eliminated poverty, ignorance, unwanted pregnancy, and probably minimized the need for family relationships. What does Christianity look like within such a culture?

I think the Culture of Christ must be more related to attitude than anything else. We are to turn away from sin and look to Christ, simply put.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Meadowchik

[Ahab]

I just watched the "Meet the Mormons" movie yesterday and the main message of the movie to me was that we Mormons strive to follow the example of Jesus Christ by living like he lived.  

So maybe our message is not so much "be true to yourself" but "be like him", or "be all you can be that is good".  

The phrase "be all you can be" isn't good enough because we can be a very evil person, so we need someone better than that to follow.

By the way I like to tend my gardens at home on Sundays, along with my wife, as we figure that is a good thing to be doing because Adam and Eve were told to do that and enjoy it.  And that was before they fell and had not done anything that was bad.  So think of that the next time you see one of your Mormon neighbors looking askance at you when you are mowing your lawn or tending your gardens on a Sunday.