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

[David Green]

I'm not sure of the precise origin of the notion of "hate crimes" in the
law in our own country, if there is such an origin; but my sense--perhaps
more directly applicable to European and Canadian laws that directly
monitor speech--has long been that what Norman Finkelstein has called the
"Holocaust Industry" contributed to the development of such a notion, by
equating the actuality of the Holocaust, anti-semitic beliefs, and
criticism of Israel's very real crimes.

DG

On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 9:47 PM C G Estabrook <cgestabrook at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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> 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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