Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Today we pulled out Macbeth's seven soliloquies to examine the arc of his character, the trajectory of his fall from grace. In Act 1.2, he has it all: valiant warrior, distinguished thane, a new title.

Then he meets the witches, the weird sisters. He misreads their cues. He might have listened and walked on. But like the investment bankers, CEOs, and regulators, his interpretive skills are skewed. He wrestles with subtext. He mistakes sorcery for reliable sources. He is as good (and evil) as his advisors.

Macbeth heard only what he wanted to hear. Bewitched, he listened to whispers that fed his "vaulting ambition" and killed goodness everywhere. Regicide, parricide, war with foreign invaders. Noble soldier, weird brother that he is, Macbeth trammels or slays the entire next generation. A failure of the imagination. Childless, he cannot be a steward.

By Act 4, he mourns "that which should accompany old age/As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,/ I must not look to have; but in their stead/Curses"... Greek tragedy speaks of the moment of recognition, or anagnoresis.

Too little, too late.

The parallels are easy. Timing is everything, for traders and kings. The moments pass. "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/... It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing."

Policymakers have recently announced the death of the humanities. They cry out for scientists, mathematicians, engineers. Too bad the number-crunchers, MBA's, and quant specialists, oriented toward pragmatism and utility, do not read more literature, or remember it.

Every high school student has read this play.

Humanists matter. It is time to remember to remember.