[Peace-discuss] [Peace] "...thinking makes it so"

[C G Estabrook]

It might mean
(a) opinion constitutes moral worth - "it’s good/evil if you think it is”; or
(b) opinion misinterprets moral worth - "it’s good, but you mistakenly think it evil.”

HAMLET, 2.2=================================================
	• Hamlet. ... What news ?
	• Rosencrantz. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
	• Hamlet. Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me 
question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, 
deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison 
hither?
	• Guildenstern. Prison, my lord?
	• Hamlet. Denmark's a prison. 
	• Rosencrantz. Then is the world one.
	• Hamlet. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and 
dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.
	• Rosencrantz. We think not so, my lord.
	• Hamlet. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good 
or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
	• Rosencrantz. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your 
mind.
	• Hamlet. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a 
king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
	• Guildenstern. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of 
the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
	• Hamlet. A dream itself is but a shadow.
	• Rosencrantz. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that 
it is but a shadow's shadow. 
	• Hamlet. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd 
heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? for, by my 
fay, I cannot reason.
=========================================================


> On Jul 3, 2018, at 9:08 PM, David Green via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> How is the line from Hamlet misunderstood?
> 
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 6:57 PM C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
> One of the most misunderstood lines in Shakespeare is Hamlet’s “...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
> 
> Here a FOA (Friend of AWARE) brilliantly applies it to current US politics (h/t K. Aram):
> 
> "Today I had two discussions, one with people advocating hate crime laws, and another with people defending Antifa, and it occurred to me that they were pretty much the same people.
> 
> "Hate crime laws are actually thought crime laws, in that they take what is already a crime, and add years to the sentence if the perp was thinking bad thoughts when they committed the crime.
> 
> "Antifas are people who commit crimes, and expect to go unpunished at all, because they were thinking good thoughts when they committed the crime.
> 
> "This is magical thinking, the idea that thoughts are more important than reality. This is very American, since we have had multiple Think Yourself Rich fads, from Napoleon Hill to Oprah. And we are earnestly told that having a president who 'believes' in climate change is more important than actual policy changes. And, of course, the latest fad in which you can think yourself right into the opposite sex. (And not in the old 'think yourself irresistible' way.)
> 
> "I think I'll just be over here, in the corner, visualizing peace.” --Paula Densnow
> 
> 
> 
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