Long live the king!

Dear Blue,

Despite being asked a question in the first line of the play and hearing a command in the second, the corporeal self we use to “be,” the one that might speak or obey, does neither.

What makes us "there" in the world outside of the theater does not exist here when we are part of an audience.

(And yet the drama of recognition means that we live as if on stage of someone who can see that we see them seeing us.)

By not answering, standing, or unfolding we divide once and again from ourselves and move further into our ghostly selves.

Not an easy thought, that we grow more solid as ghosts. 

Or is it that we grow more solid in our role as ghosts?

*

As we move further from ourselves the people on stage move further into the selves they pretend to be.

That is, had we answered Bernardo's question or obeyed Francisco's commands then the two figures on stage would have turned toward us rather than toward one another.  The authority of pretend, so to speak, has held.

Now the question for those on stage is, "by what authority will we, the figures in this world, recognize each other." 

Unsurprisingly for the world of Denmark in 1400, that authority is "the king!"  In essence, for the moment, both of these figures agree to acknowledge the same authority so they can move on to re-know each other as something other than enemies.  

But as I just  began to suggest at the end of the last post, authority is much less "solid" than we sometimes think.

You could, for instance, rewrite the third line of the play so that Bernardo does not say:

Long live the king!

But says instead:

Long live Simba!

or,

Long live the Avengers!

or,

Long live Hogwarts!

Or even,

Long live ALA!

We might think any of those rewritings odd but you can quickly imagine the various worlds which would demand strangers reach out to these authorities to prove to each other they belong, rather than reaching out, as these guards do, to a guy who wears a crown. 

Authority can shift and this can be a troubling and complicated idea. 

There is a similarly complicated idea connected to this, which is that words are often placeholders.  (I introduced this idea when I asked if I should have used the word "scripture" to discuss the authority of theater and have given an example of how words can be placeholder by shifting Simba into the place Bernardo says "king.")

And yet as I set out to pursue how authority is a kind of role and words can be placeholders, I must also admit that not all authority can shift altogether and that not all words can be placeholders for all other words. 

For instance,  I can say anything I like, point to any idea I might think up with words:

2+2=5,

Ice melts fire

Down is up

But while I can write these things, if I cannot point to them in reality.  Reality has some authority words cannot change. 

Another is that if a fire starts in the theater, then the authority of oxygen and heat will threaten everyone, those on stage and those in the audience.  We would all need to recognize that we are in danger.  The authority of being dead rather than being alive is about as absolute as any there is. 

(And yet watching Hamlet, we are in the theater, not dead, and yet not exactly alive either.)

Nor will it do for any word to replace any other word.  Long live Simba might have enough contextual charge to provide what two people who do not recognize each other to begin a Disney drama.  But while it is possible to say

Long live cottage cheese!

Or,

Long Live shoes!

Or,

Long Live asdfghjkl;!

At a certain point, we can longer accept the thing the word

By doing so I implied that the authority here can be measured against the authority of a scared text, The Bible or The Koran say.  You might take offense at that or just not like the idea that a silly play operates in the same realm as holy books.  You object, in essence to how I play with the

Indeed the authority of "should" comes, you might say from just those books

In the drama of identity, as played out in these situations we often feel like no one because that is what we are, papers to be stamped, not people to be known.

And any such reduction is part of the drama of life.  If the authority of customs says "be a passport," you know how the authority of school says "be a grade" or how the authority of your parents says "be good."

It also suggests how silly sometimes authority can be.  Isn't there a point at which your life story should get you on that plane?

But mostly the point is that authority differs in different contexts. The authority of pretend says "be a ghost." You might argue these different contexts or stages do not change who you "are" but surely your answer to Bernardo's question differs in each space, if only slightly because of what you wear or what you must present so that others can identify you.

Now, as it turns out, neither Bernardo or Francisco are spies.  Both are guards.  But if one were a spy they would need to know how to say "Long live the king!" in the right way to be "recognized" by the other. 

One thing happening in the world we share, the world of stage and audience, is that now these two people pretending to be people they are not are now confident enough that none of the ghosts watching them will speak that they can speak to each other in their pretend roles.  In a sense, the play starts with this line about wanting the king to live long because now the drama of recognition can begin.  And to some degree any drama 

How do you makes sense of how words hold a place in a space that does not exist unless the words are there?. 

Some things we point to with words, things like "ghost" or "guard," or"person" might be pointed to in pictures instead of words.

Other things like "democracy" or "justice" or "identity" are more difficult to convey in pictures, they are too abstract or, in a sense, only exist because we can create them from words.

You could say that this barrier, like democracy, justice, identity, does not exist until you use words to point to it.

Since words fail to point to things exactly we often use words as placeholders in meaning.

For instance, who's there? and "what's there?" differ rather little in a practical context, make as little a difference in the everyday as "who are you? vs ‘who's there?"

And yet the place some words hold can become battleground as well. . 

But let's look at the authority on stage for a moment and consider the pretend going on there too.

But let's talk about the word "king" as a placeholder for "authority," one that allows all of us to "recognize" or "re-know" one another.

At the same time, if you follow my "make too much of it" teacher mode, the play is calling attention to both the way words point to things and how they can be placeholders.

I've suggested the latter concept by suggesting that "should" and "can" might both sit in the same sentence about scripture, hold a certain place, and yet do so with a great difference for you.

Can I refer to Hamlet as scripture? 

Sure.

Should I refer to Hamle as scripture?

Well, that raises all sorts of questions based on how you view your stage and the authority that governs it and you.

You might imagine that with

Long live the king

 

as