"I disobeyed because the law was not The law of Zeus nor the law ordained By Justice, Justice dwelling deep Amont the gods of the dead. What they decree Is immemorial and blinding for us all. The proclamation had your force behind it But it was mortal force, and I, also a mortal, I chose to disregard it. I abide By statutes utter and immutable-- Unwritten, original, god given laws."
-Antigone, from Sophocles' Antigone
The meaning of this passage is so inherent in the descions we make concerneing our morals and laws in today's world. It means that higher law, the law of god, is more important that 'lower' laws, laws made by man.
What do I mean by this? Some of America's most polarizing political topics stem from religious beleifs: abortion and gay marriage. The very heart of the debate is whether or not they are 'moral'. The morality comes from a higher power, it is divinely ordained.
We pride ourselves as a secular nation, seperating church and state.
Hubris is defined as excessive self-confidence by the Old English Dictionary. Most would agree, hubris isn't an attribute anyone should strive to posess. Not surprisingly though, we see it in many successful people, especially in the business world. Not only hubris, but hubris that leads to an eventual fall. This makes sense. If you are doing well, if you are successful, then it is natural to feel confident in yourself. As you reach success, you become overconfident in your abilities and begin to fall. As the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Take for example a study in the magazine, The Speculator, conducted by Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner. Using companies featured on the front cover of Forbes as their variables, they conducted an experiment to see how a company's performance in the stock market would be affected by their appearance on Forbes. Every company featured on the cover from 1997 to the present were studied. The trend was that companies would perform an average of five percentage points worse than the market in the month following their Forbes cover and in line with the market for five months after that.
"...companies perform worse than the market in the month after appearing on the cover of Forbes."
What does this mean? Simply put, companies who experience hubris also experience a fall. This doesn't simply apply to business though. We can see this in tragedy as well, more specifically, in Oedipus Rex. In the beginning of the play, we see Oedipus as the hero of Thebes, and he knows it. He acts as the end-all, be-all of the city, the supreme power. He truly thinks of himself in the highest regard and lets everyone else know as well. He deserves it too. He did save the city of Thebes from the Sphinx after all. This confidence, however, is partly to blame for his fall. Thus, we see that it is not only people in the business world that are hurt by hubris, but tragic heroes as well. Heroes who have hubris fall, but usually in a much more dramatic fashion
Dan Ariely shows us just how much control we actually have over our decisions in his interesting, witty presentation given at TED Global 2008.
Illusions are all around us. Some of the most recognizable illusions are optical illusions. Here is one shown in Dan Ariely's TED presentation:
Which table is longer?
The answer, in fact, is neither.
Take a ruler and measure for yourself
This image deceives our vision, arguably one of our most used mental functions. What if something tricked a mental capacity we use much less often, say, our cognitive thinking? Actually, it happens all the time. These illusions are what Ariely coins as"cognitive illusions". They influence, specifically, our decision making ability.
Take for example the pricing of print and web subscriptions for The Economist. When given the following choices, the percentage of consumers who bought each category is as such:
Print only: $89.00.........................16%
Web only: $125.00........................0%
Print and web: $125.00...................84%
We see that the web only and the print and web options are priced the same. Obviously, some mistake was made. Predictably, no one bought the web only option. However, when this 'useless' middle choice is removed, we see a drastic change in the market shares:
Print only: $89.00.........................68%
Print and web: $125.00...................32%
What just happened? People are given virtually the same choices. In both cases, they would get the same product. Why would the print and web choice become less popular after middle choice is removed? Think about it like this. When the web only choice is present, you are made to 'realize' that the print and web choice is actually a 'fantastic' deal. So even if you don't need the web subscription, it 'makes sense' to get the print and web deal, because you are 'saving' money. However, once the web only choice is removed, you pretty much have two choices, with or without web. If you don't need web, why would you buy it? Thus, the lower market share.
Descisions like these are all around us, and if we study them, they all of them point to one general principle. The choices you make may already be decided for you. It is not what you want that is the most important thing, it is how those wants are presented to you. This ties into tragedy, as many of our tragic heroes are fated to doom. Fate is what we call it when your decisions are already made for you. Sound familiar?
Many have an assumption about tragedy, thinking that it is simply a gloomy and depressing story. This, however, could not be further away from the truth. Quite the contrary, according to Joseph Krutch, tragedy celebrates humanity and everything it is capable of.
"Juliet died, but not before she had shown how great and resplendent a thing love could be; Othello plunged the dagger into his own breast, but not before he had revealed that greatness of sould which makes his death seem unimportant."
Tragedy is more than a simple sad story; it reveals the potential of greatness that we all possess. To become a tragic writer, you cannot have a dark outlook on life. If Shakespeare viewed the world like this (as many critics have imagined in his 'Dark Period'), characters such as Romeo, Lear, Othello, and Hamlet would not have come to exist. Optimism is inherent in tragedy. No man can even begin to comprehend it without the ability to beleive in the greatness and importance of man.
Other genres also have 'tragedy' in them. Comedy laughs at the faults of its characters; drama attempts to solve the problems which infallibly arise; melodrama tries to define good and evil, rewarding and punishing its characters based on its definition of justice. Tragedy, however, is the ultimate of all the genres. It uses the faults and ultimate tragedy of its characters to express a potential for greatness inherent in humanity. Unfortunately, also makes it the one of the more difficult of the genres to conceive.
These ideas come from the essay "The Tragic Fallacy", written by Joseph Krutch.
He kills his father, sleeps with his mother, and then gouges his eyes out. Does that not seem tragic? But seriously, what is tragedy? Let's recap.
1. We need a tragic hero. That, of course, is Oedipus. He is the hero of Thebes, vanquisher of the Sphinx. He certainly acts like he thinks he's a hero. Near the beginning of the play, we see Oedipus viewing himself as someone who can do no wrong; he knows everything (or at least, thinks he does.)
2. We need the tragic mistake. Clearly, a mistake is made somewhere. Oedipus, learning his prophesied fate, took every action he could to live as far away from his 'parents' as he could. This, unfortunately, was his mistake. As Aristotle so eloquently put it,
"The change to bad fortune which he [the tragic hero] undergoes is not due to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind."
Oedipus was not flawed in his reasoning; he truly didn't want to marry his parents. However, because of these actions, because of this mistake, he wound up fulfilling the prophecy: killing his father and sleeping with his mother.
3. We need the tragic fortune, possibly including death. Check, check, and check. No disputing this one. First, Laius dies, albeit unknowingly, by the hands of his own son, the very son who he flung off a cliff as a baby with his ankles tied. Second, Oedipus sleeps with his mother, even raising children with her, causing Jocasta to hang herself. Death, what a shocker in a tragic story. Finally, Oedipus drives pins into his eyes, all documented in the most gruesome manner possible.
The tragic tale of Oedipus is known to many. However, the story of Oedipus is not exclusively told by Sophocles. Many artists, taking inspiration from the tragic tale, have created their own renditions of the famed story. One striking example is a piece by James Mah, Teiresias Accuses Oedipus. Similar to Mah's piece, many artistic renditions of the tragedy focus on pivotal, emotional scenes in the play, the tragic moments. These are the moments that the artists can capture the essence of the characters, when the characters are at their weakest, most emotional moments. This drama is what draws us to these pieces, making them interesting to look at. We can clearly understand the tragedy in these pieces, but we also see a humanity that all of us fear.
Who do we generally see in tragedies? Many of the characters in classic tragic literature are royalty, or at the very minimum, high nobility. In Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues and Capulets are both wealthy, high standing families. The tragedy of Hamlet is centered around the nobility of Denmark. The people in tragedy are as such because we need them to be. The tragedy is when when these people, who are held to the highest standards, fall. We always hold tragedy in this regard, thinking we are below it, or it above us. Insisting however, that this is the 'correct' form of tragedy, that it is the only way, is clinging to the outward, and archaeic, forms of tragedy.
Tragedy applies to everyone. If it didn't, how would be able to cherish and relate to it, or even understand it? Tragedy is all about fighting for your 'rightful' place in society, something nearly all of us can relate to. We know what it is like to fight for something we feel we deserve.
"The tragic right is a condition of life."
This comes from our underlying fear of being displaced from where we feel we belong. This appears in all tragedy.
A misconception of tragedy is that it is, by its very nature, inherently pessimistic. That it is simply a story with a sad or unhappy ending. Tragedy, however, must contain some glimmer of optimism, some chance for hope. Put simply:
"...the possibility of victory must be there in a tragedy."
If there is no hope, no chance, the hero would present no will to acheive his goal. Through this, we can see in tragedies that optimistic beleif that man can improve. Through this, we see that not only kings and queens can be a part of tragedy, but so can the common man.
Alain de Botton makes a witty, eloquent case for finding success in our lives in a presentation he made at TED Global 2009.
In his presentation, de Botton talks about what failure is and how it relates to our lives. He starts by defining a snob. What is a snob? According to Botton, a snob is someone who defines you using only one aspect of your appearance or character to judge you. He then ties snobbery to envy. Envy is a funny thing. Think about the Queen of England. You should be extremely envious of her. She has a bigger house, expensive jewelry, and respect. You, however, are more envious of someone who you can relate to, is your age, of your standing. Because this is when you think, I could have done that. I deserve that too.
This trend thrives in a meritocratic society, or a society that rewards you based on your merits. That's a good thing, right? Take a little talent, add a lot of hard work, and soon, you're on your way to the top. It's literally the American Dream. However, this is a two-sided coin. If we say people are where they are because of their merits and abilities, sure, we say that the people on top deserve it and are wonderful people. Unfortunately, we are also saying that the people on the bottom deserve to be on the bottom, and they're horrible people. They're losers. Failures.
That idea is what many people equate to tragedy as well. Tragedy, according to Botton, is how people fail. So, if failure equals a loser, all of the classic heroes are losers. Romeo, Hamlet, Oedipus, they're all simply losers. This is not the case. Hamlet lost, but he was not a loser. Yes, he fell from his greatness, but it was not because he was a loser. It's this thinking we need to get rid of. Our notions of success and failure come from outside suggestion. We need to make sure that our notions of success should come from ourselves.
Tragedy. We've all seen it (or read it). It comes in so many forms. There's the classic Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet. The opera, Phantom of the Opera. We recognize it when we see it, but what really defines something as a tragedy? If we ask Wikipedia (always right), its a form of art based on human suffering that offers pleasure to its audience. Pleasure...from suffering.
Here's our favorite Greek philosopher's opinion on tragedies, straight from the tragedy page on Wikipedia:
According to Aristotle, "the structureof the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity--for that is peculiar to this form of art." To be a tragedy, this must be caused by the tragic hero's hamartia, which is often mistranslated as a character flaw, but is more correctly translated as a mistake. "The change to bad fortune which he undergoes is not due to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind." This bad fortune is the result of an inevitable but unforeseen result of some action taken by the hero. If a character’s downfall is brought about by an external cause, Aristotle describes this as a misadventure and not a tragedy.
Putting it simply, all tragedies have a few common components. To be classified as a tragedy, the main character must make a mistake. Due to this mistake, he/she will experience some form of bad fortune. In many tragedies, it is death, but this is not always the case. The mistake that the main character makes also cannot be due to any personal moral flaw or be caused by an external cause, otherwise it becomes a misadventure.
