{"id":1701,"date":"2017-06-19T21:55:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T01:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2017-06-19T21:55:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T01:55:40","slug":"obama-caesar-vs-trump-caesar-two-different-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/06\/obama-caesar-vs-trump-caesar-two-different-tales.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama-Caesar vs. Trump-Caesar: Two (Very Different) Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since New York Public Theater\u2019s Central Park rendition of Julius Caesar <\/em>became the focal point of national controversy, a metaphor of the new era of political violence that Donald Trump\u2019s election to the presidency has provoked the left to inaugurate, the play\u2019s defenders have argued that it is all much ado about nothing.<\/p>\n

After all, they claim, Barack Obama was depicted as the Caesar character some five years ago, but there wasn\u2019t a bit of outrage over his <\/em>assassination. \u00a0Similarly, neither should there be any outrage over the fact that the 2017 version features the assassination of a Trump-Caesar.<\/p>\n

This argument is what\u2019s known as an argument from analogy.\u00a0 On its face, it seems both strong and cogent.\u00a0 The truth, though, as I showed, is that this specific argument is lacking in cogency.\u00a0 When Aristotle, the Father of Western logic, supplied his list of over 100 or so logical fallacies, the fallacy of false<\/em> or weak <\/em>analogy was among them.<\/p>\n

The supporters of Trump-Caesar are guilty of committing this fallacy. They are, in other words, guilty of making a broken argument.<\/p>\n

There are several, morally relevant differences between the two productions of Shakespeare\u2019s classics.\u00a0 Briefly, I recapitulate them here:<\/p>\n

(1)As Rob Melrose, the director of the 2012 production, confirms, his \u201cObama-Caesar\u201d was intended to be cosmetically, physically dissimilar <\/em>to the real Obama. Both were tall, slender, black, and male, it is true.\u00a0 But Melrose made sure that the differences were significant enough so that it was still possible for theater-goers to miss the Obama connection.<\/p>\n

Oskar Eustis\u2019 Caesar, in glaring contrast, was a dead ringer for Trump.<\/p>\n

(2) Melrose\u2019s assassination of Obama-Caesar had none of the blood, horror, and shock of Eustis\u2019s assassination of Trump-Caesar.<\/p>\n

(3)Melrose\u2019s producer established that no one was to talk about their production of Julius Caesar.\u00a0 <\/em>So, outside of those relatively few who saw it, most people, whether Democrat or Republican, didn\u2019t know about it.<\/p>\n

Matters are, obviously, entirely different in the case of Eustis\u2019 production.<\/p>\n

(4) Five years ago, Democrat politicians were not being hunted down for mass murder by zealous right-wingers; Republican media personalities and artists were not overtly fantasizing about and encouraging violence against Obama; and Mitt Romney supporters were not being organized and financed by GOP billionaires and millionaires to intimidate and beat up Obama supporters.<\/p>\n

In short, the climate of political violence in which we now find ourselves didn\u2019t exist, or at least not nearly to the extent that it currently does.<\/p>\n

There are, though, still other considerations that justify, not censorship of art productions depicting the assassination of politicians, but the different responses that the two versions of Julius Caesar <\/em>engendered.<\/p>\n

Noah Millman writes for<\/a> The Week.\u00a0 <\/em>Millman is no Trump supporter\u2014he calls Trump \u201cthe conspiracy-monger-in-chief\u201d and says that \u201cthere is ample reason to be terrified of Trump in the Oval Office\u201d\u2014and The Week <\/em>is not a conservative publication.\u00a0\u00a0 As Millman implies, Obama-Caesar is in keeping with Shakespeare\u2019s portrayal of Caesar inasmuch as he possesses \u201ca firm sense of his own transcendent importance,\u201d an \u201cawesome majesty,\u201d and there is considerable \u201cdistance that separates him from even a noble Roman like Brutus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump-Caesar, though, is a different sort altogether. \u201cThis Caesar,\u201d which is \u201cplayed with broad humor,\u201d \u201cisn\u2019t even much of a tyrant\u2014he\u2019s a shallow, vain, petulant man-child, strutting about, and embarrassing the senators even as the prospect of his kingship terrifies them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon placing Caesar\u2019s words in Trump\u2019s mouth \u201cno one\u2014at least no one in a liberal New York audience\u2014can hear Caesar the same way.\u201d\u00a0 Millman elaborates:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat once was grand is now petty; what once was awesome is merely domineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

This depiction of Caesar, Millman continues, \u201cworks shockingly well\u201d by and large. The only inconsistency is \u201cBrutus\u2019s soliloquy in which he convinces himself to kill the tyrant.\u201d It is here that Brutus tries to justify his decision to murder Caesar on the grounds that the latter may change for the worst if he \u201cassumes dictatorial powers\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 This is inconsistent with the depiction of Trump-Caesar because, as is obvious to all who see him, the justification for murdering him is not<\/em> some suspicion<\/em> as to what his character could become<\/em> in the future<\/em>.\u00a0 The justification, \u201cthe problem,\u201d as Millman puts it, \u201cis the character he already manifests<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

To put it simply, Eustis portrays Caesar in exactly the same light as he and his fellow leftists see Trump. His Julius Caesar is a petty, cocky, narcissistic, disgrace who shouldn\u2019t be within miles of the levers of power.<\/p>\n

Even if, as the remainder of the story of Julius Caesar<\/em> makes clear, the assassination of this duly authorized ruler leads to the exchange of one social state of affairs for a far less tolerable one, this doesn\u2019t change the fact that this<\/em> Caesar, Trump-Caesar, deserves <\/em>what he has coming to him.<\/p>\n

Millman said that a key difference between Melrose\u2019s Obama-based production and Eustis\u2019s Trump-centric one is that Melrose \u201ctook the ideas\u201d of Caesar\u2019s enemies \u201cseriously.\u201d\u00a0 Eustis, however, \u201cis not so interested in the ideas behind the play as he is in the passions of the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

To repeat, I draw out the contrasts between Obama-Caesar and Trump-Caesar not in order to argue for censoring the latter, or for the purpose of suggesting that it is not permissible to depict, in a work of art, Trump\u2019s assassination while it is unobjectionable to depict the murder of other presidents. In fact, considered in the abstract, I wouldn\u2019t even want to contend that there is anything necessarily objectionable about depicting the assassination of any living politician.<\/p>\n

Rather, my point here is to support two theses.<\/p>\n

First, the argument from analogy that the play\u2019s supporters make is logically defective, for one is not even beneath the surface before their argument disintegrates under the weight of the critical moral differences between Obama-Caesar and Trump-Caesar.<\/p>\n

Second, given the truth of this first thesis, those who are now expressing outrage over Oskar Eustis\u2019 production are not, as their critics would have us think, acting either hysterically or selectively outraged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since New York Public Theater\u2019s Central Park rendition of Julius Caesar became the focal point of national controversy, a metaphor of the new era of political violence that Donald Trump\u2019s election to the presidency has provoked the left to inaugurate, the play\u2019s defenders have argued that it is all much ado about nothing. 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