As everyone is now aware, Parler, the free-speech social media platform, is down, de-platformed by Amazon, which operates the server farms on which Parler had mistakenly relied. Apparently, because conservatives favor Parler, this social media platform dedicated to free speech is not to be tolerated in a country dedicated to free speech. We are securely in George Orwell’s 1984.
But yet again, Shakespeare got there first, when, In Romeo & Juliet, he cast the Parler management team as none other than Romeo, and he cast Amazon as the Prince, who, as you recall, banishes Romeo from Verona. Verona is supposed to be the land of the free, but Romeo is no longer free to remain in Verona. Meanwhile, Friar Laurence plays – himself, a simple messenger who always sees the bright side of things even when, as now, they have no bright side.
The scene occurs as the friar informs Romeo of the Prince’s “doom” or punishment, arising from Romeo’s killing of Tybalt after Tybalt killed Mercutio. We catch up with the wronged free speech social media platform as Friar Laurence imparts some news:
Friar Laurence: “I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.”
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.”
Romeo: “Ha, banishment! be merciful, say ‘death;’
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say ‘banishment.'”
Friar Laurence: “Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.”
Yes, the world is broad and wide, but only if you restrict yourself to cookbooks, fashion, cat videos, and other information exchange that does not threaten the tech oligarchs. But there is no real world if we cannot speak our minds freely to each other. Parler and Romeo realize this:
Romeo: “There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself…
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.”
That’s exactly what Amazon just did to Parler when it cut off its access to its millions of users with the golden axe of a simple switch at its AWS server farm. And smilest upon the stroke that murders me: Well, that would be the flimsy explanation that Parler was banished for permitting speech that threatens violence. It had safeguards in place equal to or greater than Twitter’s and Facebook’s, and it is Parler alone that refrains from imposing a speech code as these other platforms now do, a speech code that currently bans searches involving the innocuous phrase “Stop the Steal.”
Friar Laurence temporizes, and in doing so he morphs into a NeverTrumper. Let’s watch:
Friar Laurence: “O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.”
You should be happy as the minority party, taking scraps from the table, raking in campaign cash based on false promises, even as the usurping democrats, aided by the tech oligarchs, systematically organize the camps and the cattle cars that will take us to them. Well, they’ll start out just be depriving us of our jobs if we speak out. Meanwhile Parler and its users, and all freedom-loving men and women, remember the loving embrace of America as a free republic, and dream of returning to that embrace. And we know who to cast in that role:
Romeo. “‘Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her;
But Romeo may not: more validity,
More honorable state, more courtship lives
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not; he is banished:
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
They are free men, but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?”
This season’s blog posts reflect the depressing events now occurring in our public life. But it’s my hope that, especially in times like these, the classics, Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, even as we navigate the remnants of our fallen republic, and gather the strength to reclaim it.
P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.
‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.
