Book contents
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Shame and Guilt in Personality and Culture
- Chapter 2 The Cycle of Violence in the History Plays
- Chapter 3 Fathers and Mothers
- Chapter 4 Make War, Not Love
- Chapter 5 The Motives of Malignity
- Chapter 6 Moral Nihilism and the Paralysis of Action:
- Chapter 7 Apocalyptic Violence
- Chapter 8 Transcending Morality, Preventing Violence
- Chapter 9 The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare’s Time and Ours
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 9 - The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare’s Time and Ours
What Shakespeare Shows Us about Shame, Guilt, Love, and Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2021
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Holding a Mirror up to Nature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Shame and Guilt in Personality and Culture
- Chapter 2 The Cycle of Violence in the History Plays
- Chapter 3 Fathers and Mothers
- Chapter 4 Make War, Not Love
- Chapter 5 The Motives of Malignity
- Chapter 6 Moral Nihilism and the Paralysis of Action:
- Chapter 7 Apocalyptic Violence
- Chapter 8 Transcending Morality, Preventing Violence
- Chapter 9 The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare’s Time and Ours
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Shakespeare, the first and still greatest psychologist of the modern (post-Medieval) era, shows us in his plays the psychological evidence leading to and confirming three great discoveries. First, that the moral emotions of shame and guilt, along with the moral value systems they motivate (shame and guilt ethics), although intended to prevent violence, actually stimulate violence, toward others (shame) or the self (guilt). Second: with the scientific revolution, the traditional sources of moral authority (custom and tradition, God and religion, and beliefs consisting of assertions unsubstantiated by evidence) lost their credibility. Thus, Hamlet could find no answer to his question: What should I do? Third, violence can be prevented by replacing the moral emotions of shame and guilt with love, the emotion that transcends morality, making it unnecessary and redundant, and replacing moral value judgments and commandments with psychological understanding and evidence-based knowledge – thus restoring relationships and trust.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Holding a Mirror up to NatureShame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare, pp. 137 - 151Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021