Secular or Christian-too much of American higher education should be named Iago University where promising leaders are poisoned by playing on the faults of the society and the state. Shame to our sins, but great shame to the institution that uses our moral lassitude to kill the future of students.
Othello may be Shakespeare’s most important play for our times. Tragedy destroys a promising beginning due to the wages of racism (institutional and personal), misogyny, and abuse of power. Society is sick, but it is Iago who plays on this sickness to destroy a could-have-been hero: Othello.
Shame to an evil society, but doom to the one that finds an Iago to turn fault to death.
Iago knows the insecurities of a black man in a racist society and plays on those insecurities. Iago plays on the misogyny of the time to kill Desdemona. He uses the moral laxness that happens during a war to attempt to worm his way to power by highlighting the vices of imperfect, but good men.
Iago’s role is played by much of our American university system set up to play up the sins of our nation in a way apt to produce weak and unhappy leaders. They make folk angry with society, sometimes with truth, but often by exaggerating the fault where it does not exist. Othello’s marriage to Desdemona was opposed due to racism. He was judged by a wicked standard and this left him susceptible to the lie that even Desdemona was racist. She could not love the Moor. Without a doubt, over time there would have been much for both Othello and Desdemona to learn, but Iago fanned hatred and jealousy in ways that produced vice.
Iago destroyed Othello by playing on his weaknesses. This does not pardon Othello, but it does mean that nobody should hire Iago on purpose. Iago uses his “friend” Roderigo to fund his plots by promising him Desdemona, but cheats him at every turn. Iago acts only for his own good and for no real noble motive:
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end;
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.
American university culture has to a great extent become illiberal. Nobody righteous thinks we should hide our societal faults, but exposing them in ways that leave students less able to succeed is a grievous sin of the grievance industry. Real racism exists, real misogyny harms, but to begin an endless focus on “micro-aggression” or on the problem instead of the solution is unhelpful. Allowing students to major in grievance is even worse as it cuts them off from a society that badly needs their positive leadership.
Worst of all, this grievance industry appears to be serving itself like Iago, doing little or nothing to engage in the poverty of Appalachia or the pain of our inner cities. Instead, they find donor dupes, modern corporate Roderigos, to whom promise great things and deliver nothing but poverty and death.
The clever professional Iago warns of jealousy while fanning it:
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!Othello:
O misery!
God help the school that leaves her students in misery unable to find happiness or even hope in our imperfect world.
Of course, some Christian colleges have embraced the same useless academic Iago culture. They sell their birthright in hopes of getting a bowl of soup from their secular peers and then do not even get the pottage. Others are worse and adopt a new Christian version of Iago U. They play on fear of “secularism” to raise money and build empires. They whisper fear into the ears of Christians about Islam or paganism or secularism and use that to raise money. They take conservative Roderigos for a ride and do nothing to educate or improve the cultural situation. All the while they ignore the sexism that is weakening Desdemona and the racism that handicaps Othello. They make money like Iago on the pains of the Church . . . worse by far than their secular counterparts as they use the Word of God for profit, peddling fear instead of love.
They produce students unfit for the times . . . fearful and narrow, prey for the vultures of the Christian media complex.
It is a broken world, and sadly will always be broken, and we must educate students to live in that world as happy as they can be. We also wish to see change, but not the murderous change of revolution.
I stand with global Christian culture that says anger can be good, but love must be fundamental. We need a prophetic voice exposing sin, but an equal voice offering healing, hope, and redemption. Othello needs to learn to value women as equally created in the image of God. He needs healing from pain, but also strength to avoid those like Iago who would manipulate that pain to their own gain.
God save fine schools like The King’s College and The Saint Constantine School who do not ignore evil, but also do not leave students unable to live in a broken world.
We are teaching Desdemona to be strong, Othello to overcome the evils of the age and his own faults, and sending Iago packing.
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William Shakespeare went to God four hundred years ago. To recollect his death, I am writing a personal reflection on a few of his plays. The Winter’s Tale started things off, followed by As You Like It. Romeo and Juliet still matter, Lady Macbeth rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V is a hero. Richard II shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily. Coriolanus reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility. Our life can be joyful if we realize that it is, at best, A Comedy of Errors. Hamlet needs to know himself better and talks to himself less. He is stuck with himself so he had better make his peace with God quickly and should stay far away from Ophelia. Shakespeare gets something wrong in Merchant of Venice . . . though not as badly as some in the English Labour Party or in my Twitter feed. Love if blind, but intellectualism is blind and impotent in Love’s Labours Lost. Brutus kills Caesar, but is overshadowed by him in Julius Caesar. We should learn not to make Much Ado about Nothing. We might all be Antony, but if we would avoid his fate then we must avoid flattery and the superficial love of Troilus and Cressida. We are fools, but our goal should be to accept it and not to degenerate into Biblical fools during our Midsummer Night’s Dream. Richard III is a symptom of a bad leadership community, but be careful that use Measure for Measure to guide your reaction to the mess. The modern university is Iago in Othello playing on our sins to destroy the nation.
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