ALL RED FEATHER MATERIALS ARE ALWAYS FREE TO STUDENTS AND TO THOSE WHO TEACH THEM....T R Young

The Tempest: A PostModern Love Story

SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES

by

T. R. Young
The Red Feather Institute

This being so close to Valentine's Day, I thought I would give you a mini-lecture on love and romance instead of conflict and structural stupidity as had I promised last week...I promise that, next week, the lecture will be as dry, empirical and unromantic as is possible but this week, let's talk of love and romance for science and knowledge.

Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in 1611; probably the last play he wrote. Bacon had written his wonderful essays on modern science beginning in 1607: some Shakespearean scholars believe The Tempest to be about this new body of knowledge [de Novum Organum] in which Bacon summed up the the work of Kepler, Galileo and others and which, a few years later would result in Newton and his Principia Mathematica...the marriage of math and theory to give the possibility of what Bacon called the Great Instauration.; mastery of nature and society by science.

So let's take a look at the characters and themes of the Tempest and see how they offer insight in the romance between young people such as yourself and sociology as a body of knowledge. Later on, I will play Ariel to your Miranda and, with a little word magic, help reconcile the new Tempest in which American Sociology is now caught up...reconcile modern sociology with postmodern sensibility...stay with me for all good love.

Characters: Propero: in the story, he is a scholar betrayed by his brother, the Duke, powerful in the State in which he lives...sound familiar?? Are any modern sociologists betraying the new postmodern scholars in your department??? I should hope not!  Do politicians in your state betray the public interest by catering to religious bigots, racists or alienated ethnic groups...I should hope not!!

Miranda [miraculous] is his daughter set adrift by the brother, Antonio. She represents the young and innocent scholar caught up in the conflict between old ways of knowing and the new ways illuminated by Bacon/Prospero.  Are you a young graduate student full of hope and ready to give your love to science in general and sociology in particular???  I should hope so...  Will you be betrayed by your father???   Not on your tintype!!  Not this father...

Antonio, Duke and brother proud in power, represents all established gate- keepers of the knowledge process who set adrift all those who challenge existing ways of knowing; ways of being.

Alonzo is King and for our purposes, the final authority on who will teach and who will learn. He is the father of

Ferdinand, successor to the throne who, with the aid of Ariel, falls in love with Miranda [I told you this was a love story; it is on several levels...bear with me].    Will he save Miranda???  Well, it is the 18th century...patriarchy is firmly entrenched...but he is a nice lad.

Ariel is the spirit of science; with Ariel, Prospero does magic of a sort: one grounded in science and technology. With science, one can raise or quiet the seas; one can drive people into madness or help them toward repentance and redemption for their sins. For purposes of this lecture, I will be your Ariel and help, as I said, reconcile modern and postmodern sociology...neat trick, eh??

There are a lot of other characters but the most important one for now is CALIBAN. Shakespeare probably stole the character from Montaigne who had written about Cannibals, who when compared to the savagery of civilized peoples, looked pretty good. Shakespeare was arguing against the idea of the Noble Savage and, at another level, may have been using Caliban as icon for all those in pre-modern knowledges processes who reject science as the work of the devil. Robert Browning would later write a poem entitled, Caliban Upon Setebos...where Setebos is a punitive and whimsical God and Caliban his disciple. Odd, I read both the Tempest and Browning in college and didn't put them together with Bacon.   Maybe I didn't have the right teachers...but you do!!

The Themes: There are four...it may be a coincidence that Bacon held that modern science would drive the four idols of pre-modern thinking from the temple of knowledge...but that is another story. Back to the Tempest:

1. The first theme is the triumph of science over superstition and ignorance. Shakespeare let Prospero take his books with him when he was cast adrift by Antonio...I hope you take all your books with you when you leave the university.
   
2. The second theme is repentance for evil done...when Alonzo thinks his son, Ferdinand is dead...lost in the Tempest which Prospero raised to bring all his enemies to his island...Alonzo repents truly and is reconciled with Propero. For our purposes, if society/authority/the state repents its shoddy treatment of science and sociology, we will help it to solve its problems...Bacon's idea of the Great Instauration.
   
3. A third theme is purification...one has to go through a trial/ordeal and with luck, comes out a better person...in the play, Ariel drives the 'men of evil' into madness...Alonzo is purified but others are not and are condemned to their special Hell; bereft of the benefits of modern science.
   
4. Finally, there is the postmodern theme of virtual reality/illusion versus substantive/empiric reality. today we understand that things defined as real; believed as real; treated as real become real in the consequence...the self-fulfilling prophecy we learned about in Intro.

   There is also, in postmodern philosophy of science [our new Tempest] the idea of fractal realities and fractal truth values but S. knew nought of this...so the midline between reality and falsity seemed to be a topical theme to consider.

The Action: I have already mentioned some of the action. Prospero and Miranda, as a babe, are set adrift. They land on an island. Prospero uses modern science to bring order out of disorder. Caliban is on the island but is tamed by Propero...a sullen, surly sort of servitude.

The Tempest. Antonio, Alonzo, Ferdie and others are passing by on a ship...Prospero uses Ariel to call up a storm...the ship is cast upon the island...Prospero has his enemies in his power. But the storm is an illusion...all are safe [even Ferdie] with nary a tear in clothing.

Miranda, now 15 years old, meets the still lost Ferdie...they fall in love with a bit of help from Ariel...who in mythology is also cupid.

Caliban, sullen sot that he is, has a fancy for Miranda...but that is not on in this romance...brutish thought is set aside; Miranda has a better offer....and so do you.

Prospero approves of the marriage of Miranda, daughter of scholarly pursuit and Ferdinanc, son of earthly power. Sounds like a happy ending, n'cest pas??

There is an odd scene, called a masque or play within a play, organized by Prospero in which Ceres, earth goddess is invited to a party to meet Juno, sky Goddess in a 'contract of true love.' This may be another way of talking about the unification of theory and data so much apart of the work of Galileo, Bacon and later, Newton...sounds sensible to me. Wonder what Shakespeare had in mind...

Finally, Prospero steps out of character, addresses the audience in sort of a Bretchian way, and asks them how they/we like the play...I wonder if the audience had any notion of what S. was asking...I wonder if S. was asking them if they liked the promise of modern science embodied by Propero [prosperity] and the Is...a sort of Utopia. Thomas More had written his Utopia in 1516.

The New Tem Upon Us. If Shakespeare, Bacon and Newton were today alive, they would have to write entirely new plays, new books and do new research...since they are not, you must do it...if you enjoy the play as much as do I.

The central characters in the new Tempest are Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty and a hundred others who are cast adrift in a 'butt of a boat' by the custodians now proud in power.Who will play Miranda and who will play Fernando is still an open question...I would like it if you were to play the lead in the next drama to be seen in the next century...I would come.

And now, for the end of this lecture. I have promised to reconcile modern and postmodern sensibility...I will do more t that; I will add pre-modern sensibility and assert with all good will that each is essential to a well-rounded knowledge process. Hear my case.

Premodern thought gave us the capacity to trust, to believe, to hope, to desire and to have faith...without these, social relations and social realities would not be possible. One can focus on the ways in which faith, hope, charity and grace are legitimated but apart from the use of gods, devils, angels and heavens, such pre-modern thought processes are essential to the human project...I believe in you enough to work on these lectures...you believe and trust in the future enough to gladly learn and gladly teach...have I made the case well enough?

Modern science and modern thought has gone from success to success in helping us do better agriculture, better transportation, better communication and better medicine. In sociology, it has given us insight into politics, economics, religion and education not possible without good data and good analytic techniques which now you learn.

Postmodern sensibility has given us the responsibility for our lives, our societies and our theories not possible in either a God-hewn world or one driven by remote, universal and eternally true laws of nature and/or society. Now we know the nature of the knowledge process; its political and its poetic character, we become more responsible for the concepts we chose to use to label the world; for the theories we choose to make come true/fractally true; for the structures and func- tions we set as essential to the social process. For my part, I prefer to be responsible for the advice and consent I give...

in all good love,

TR