Did Shakespeare predict wokeism?
Today, society spreads lies like:
- Men are women
- Pride is a virtue
- Murder is healthcare
Before that, we had Macbeth, a warning of the dire consequences in a world where lies become truth…
To understand how lies become truth, you have to understand the play’s 3 witches
They appear at the beginning of the story with one goal in mind — create chaos
Their plan, corrupt the hero Macbeth
How will they do it? By getting him to buy into their evil slogan
The slogan of the witches is “Fair is foul and foul is fair”
For them, evil is good, lying is truth, wrong is right
The goal is not merely to make Macbeth commit evil, but to deceive him into thinking good and evil don’t exist
First, the witches appear to Macbeth and his friend Banquo, and share a prophecy:
1. Macbeth shall become Thane of Cawdor, then King of Scotland
2. Banquo shall father a line of kings
They then vanish, leaving the men in awe
Moments later, a messenger arrives with news for Macbeth:
He is awarded the title Thane of Cawdor, fulfilling half of the prophecy
Macbeth is taken aback by this news
He’s excited, but then begins to lust after the throne
The problem? He has no claim to the throne
He shares the prophecy with his wife and she urges him to do the unthinkable
Murder the king
She believes killing him will fulfill Macbeth’s destiny
Do you see the issue here?
Macbeth is not just tempted to murder, but murder in the name of “goodness”
He believes murder is good because it fuels his destiny
Like the witches say, fair is foul and foul is fair
He murders the king in his sleep, beginning literature’s most infamous doom spiral…
Macbeth ascends to the throne but his evils have only just begun:
He remembers Banquo is prophesied to father a line of kings
He murders his best friend, and puts a bounty on Banquo's son
Heads begin rolling faster and faster. Scotland plunges into hell on Earth
By now, Macbeth believes “fair is foul and foul is fair”
In his eyes, murder is good because it protects his throne
Hence the murdering continues - men, women, and even children are slaughtered
But if you think that’s bad, it’s nothing compared to Lady Macbeth’s fate
Lady Macbeth, his accomplice, is wracked with guilt
She’s haunted by night terrors in which she’s stained with her victims’ blood
Doctors try to treat her but to no avail… she succumbs to insanity
The real shock, however, is Macbeth’s reaction to his wife’s death
“She would’ve died hereafter,” Macbeth states coldly
His wife lost her mind, but Macbeth lost his humanity. He laments life is meaningless
In short, denying morality destroys the meaning to life itself
Macbeth is slain in the end, but his soul died long before that
The takeaway — denying morality allows lies to become truths
As they say, “The Devil’s greatest trick was convincing you he doesn’t exist”
If you deny evil, you cannot recognize evil, let alone fight it
Instead, you're vulnerable to be deceived into thinking wrong is right
He denied good and evil, and embraced relativism
Relativism made him evil, which destroyed his soul and his kingdom...
Thus relativism is the bedrock of human atrocity. It's what lets lies flourish in society
Hence Macbeth explains how societies become tyrannical:
They deny objective truth, good, and evil
"Fair is foul and foul is fair," only happens when society denies fair and foul even exist
Tyrannies are not built by evil men, but complacent men apathetic to truth
The cure, then, to a moral-less society is a truth-loving individual
The answer to a world of lies is a loving heart and courageous mind:
Courage is spreading the truth even when it costs you
Living by truth might cancel your livelihood, but living by lies ruins your soul
If hell is a denial of good and evil, it's your job to remind the world hell is real
You don't just seek the truth, you live by it
Hence, you lose your life serving the truth, but in servitude, discover the beginning of your true life
Live not by lies and you've done your job
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