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Idealism vs. denial of reality.
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"I have lived almost fifty years, and I have seen life as it is...pain, misery, hunger, cruelty beyond belief! I have heard the singing from taverns, and the moans from the bundles of filth in the streets. I have been a sodier, and I've seen my comrades fall in battle--or die more slowly, under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, and yet they died despairing! No glory, no gallant last words, only their eyes...filled with confusion...whimpering the question "Why?"
I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had lived.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Too much sanity may be madness...to seek treasure, where there is only trash. Perhaps to be practical is madness. And maddest of all, to see life [i]as it is, and not as it ought to be!"
-Don Miguel de Cervantes, Man of La Mancha
That quote (and indeed, that whole musical) is one of the central, defining aspects of my life. When I saw it for the first time as a kid, it completely altered the direction of my soul. However, as I touched on in Politicas, I am becoming troubled by its possible relevance to what is to me one of the most chilling aspects of the Bush administration.
I think that the idea proposed by Man of La Mancha (MOLM hereafter) is that it is important never to give up on the idea that the world, and the people in it, can be the perfect, noble, and heroic archetypes portrayed in the stories we have all loved. We must never release the idea that THAT is the goal toward which we strive, and we must always work to see it realized. While Quixote in MOLM was, indeed, insane, and lived out his pursuit of this ideal to a greater degree than I think would be advisable, I am not sure that the point of the story is that we should emulate Quixote exactly as he is shown. His philosophy, expressed in a calmer moment, feels more like a workable set of principles:
quote:
"...Take a deep breath of life, and consider how it should be lived.
Call nothing thine own, except thy soul.
Love not what thou art, but only what thou may become.
Do not pursue pleasure, for thou may have the misfortune to overtake it.
Look always forward; in last years nests, there are no birds this year.
Be just to all men.
Be courteous to all women. (NOTE: I'd be in favor of just AND courteous to both genders...)
Live always in the vision of that one for whom great deeds are done...she that is called Dulcinea."
One can do that, it seems, while still keeping some grip on reality. And, of course, the Impossible Dream:
quote:
"To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go,
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
This is my quest, to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far.
To fight for the right without question or pause,
To be willing to march into Hell for a Heavenly cause.
And I know, if I'll only be true to this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars!"
Actually, some parts of that one sound uncomfortably close to religious fanaticism, too, but now I think I see where the problem is. Part of the problem Quixote's madness is that he thought he had identified the enemy, the evil that it was his glorious duty to combat--but he was wrong. And there is nothing glorious about a heroic struggle against a misidentified enemy.
One of the things which bothers me most about the Bush administration is the denial of reality in favor of the world as they think it should be. This comes on the small scale ("The press conference was not scripted") to the large scale ("Saddam Hussein poses an imminent threat to national security"). It's nearly Orwellian at times, this redefining of reality to be what it would be more convenient to have it be. But really, isn't that what my hero does, too?
That question frightens me. I don't think Bush is evil incarnate, but I do think that he (or those around him) are very willing to twist perceptions of reality to fit an agenda. Quixote does much the same; reality, as it exists, is ignored or altered to fit his idea of the way things should be. Is there a difference between them? As I said above, I believe that the real message of MOLM is that we should not lose sight of the ideal, but our President hasn't done so either. In fact, both life and literature are full of people who have done awful things, because you can't compromise in pursuit of the dream! I have a horrible image that is popping into my mind now--a gallant knight reaching out to grasp a star in the sky, never looking down to see the crushed bodies of those he has walked across in his quest.
Perhaps Quixote is both an inspiring and a cautionary figure. Through him, we are urged "To fight without question or pause", and we see the beauty of his insistence that people are inherently noble and good, but we are also shown what happens to Aldonza because of his refusal to pay some attention to reality--she sings quite a song to Quixote about how his insistence that she was Dulcinea gave her hope, and made her believe that she was more than she thought, which made it hurt all the more when she was gang-raped and thrown by the roadside. Insistence on the dream, and willful blindness to reality, can lead to disaster.
On the other hand, later on, Aldonza visits the man who was Quixote (he has recovered his sanity) on his deathbed, and begs him to remind her of how we saw her before. She has found that losing the ability to believe that she is more than her squalid life of drudgery and horror as a scullion and whore had left her deeper in despair. He gave her hope, and a vision of what could be. As she says, "You spoke to me, and everything was different". Quixote's mad insistence that she was not Aldonza, but Dulcinea, has given her courage to alter herself and her life.
Here, perhaps, is the real message of MOLM. Quixote's madness was inspiring, but still madness, and still led to disaster for many who heard him. It did, however, show that belief in good--not that everyone is perfect, but that they can be, that they are inside, and just need to release it--can itself inspire that goodness to emerge. It also shows that simply accepting that evil, corruption, brutality, and selfishness are the inherent and unalterable qualities of humanity makes it very hard to achieve anything better. I see the message of MOLM being that accepting the evil that exists in the world as simply "the way the world is" is the road to despair, and that only by remembering what ought to be can bring what ought to be about.
So, again, how is this different from the administrations denial of reality, and insistence that everything is great or will be great very soon? It's still disturbingly close to me. I can believe, if I try, that Bush honestly believes that he is trying to bring about great good in the world. Part of the problem, though, is that I don't believe that it is true of all of those in power here. I see some reason to suspect that some of the denial of reality we are seeing is in order to cover up a heart of corruption and love of power which stands against everything embodied by the chivalry of Quixote.
Another difference might lie in the scope of their power. A government led by Don Quixote would be an unmitigated disaster, probably. MOLM suggests a way that each of us, as individuals, can improve the world--by assuming the best without solid reason to believe otherwise, by not giving up hope. Those attitudes affect each of us personally, and those we touch. Running a government which refuses to deal with reality, ignoring it in favor of the preferred worldview, is not likely to work out well. Quixote is an inspiring example, taken to an extreme by Cervantes (in the play) to show us that hope and idealism are powerful tools. He is not intended as a literal model for a system of government.
Finally, there is a big difference between denying reality to avoid punishment (i.e. lying) and believing that people are more good and noble than they might seem to be. "The event was not scripted" seems most like a statement of the former type.
So in the end, I conclude that Quixote is an example, in extreme form, of a personal philosophy which can change the way we treat each other, the assumptions we make about each other, and the way the world turns out. He is not intended to be a literal example of the right way to live (although a bit of glorious madness now and then is a fine thing), and certainly not as a way of governance. Cervantes didn't say that one must ignore reality, or deny it, but rather that one should not accept evil as the best we can do. One should always try to live up to the ideals of mercy, peace, benevolence, and justice, and expect--even demand--that others do the same. There is actually a lot of that in the administration. But I don't hear a lot of people in the administration making ludicrously positive assumptions about John Kerry's motivations out of a belief that he is a good and noble man, and while I would be willing to believe that President Bush is, personally, a decent and kind person, I don't want to be governed by an administration that is only willing to assume the best about themselves, and only willing to be idealistic about their own motivations.
Enough blather. This is extremely long-winded, rambling, and probably immensely shallow reasoning. I welcome critiques, and I promise to assume the best about your motivations, regardless of what you say or how you say it. 
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