C h a r a c t e r6 1Because men and women are more than mere functions of their
environments, they can come to believe that they are autonomous,
a word which literally means ‘a law unto oneself ’. They can see
themselves as standing free of each other and their societies. On
this view, they are the source of their own actions, solely and
entirely responsible for what they do, ultimately dependent on
nothing but themselves. They behave, in short, as Shakespeare
describes Coriolanus: ‘As if a man were author of himself / And
knew no other kin’. It is the assumption that everyone is solely and
entirely responsible for what they do that lands so many people on
death row in the United States.
This is not a view of human beings that most ancient or
medieval thinkers would have endorsed. Neither, one suspects,
would Shakespeare. Take, for example, his Othello. Othello is, of
course, a character in a play, but he also behaves like one, and
tends to regard himself as one. He is full of grandiloquent rhetoric
and dramatic self- display. He has the charismatic presence of a
man of the theatre. Early in the play’s action, he breaks up a fight
with the resonant declaration ‘Keep up your bright swords, for the
dew will rust them.’ It is a splendidly attention- grabbing line, as
though spoken by an actor playing an actor. Perhaps Othello has
been assiduously rehearsing it while waiting in the wings. The
words may allude to Jesus’ command to his disciples in the Garden
of Gethsemane to sheath their swords, which gives them an
even more authoritative ring. This man is not only a first- class
performer; he even has a touch of the second person of the Blessed
Trinity about him. Yet he is, so to speak, an actor of the old school,
who regards the stage as a chance to show off his larger- than- life
personality, and whose sense of other people is somewhat
dim. Teamwork is not Othello’s strongest point. He lives straight