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Such a deterministic formulation seems a doubtful strategy, one that Shakespeare would be reluctant to use. The error here is we live in an age of determinism; we believe all phenomena internal to human consciousness are 'caused by' events or conditions external to (our) consciousness.

As an aside here, all the worst 'isms' of the last couple centuries have issued from this mindset: gender determinism, race determinism (eugenics), economic determinism (Marxism), the list is quite extensive. Such ideologies routinely discount humanity's inner life, usually seeking to explain it away as 'symptoms' of the myriad forms of external social injustice.

Power might be defined as the use of coercive force to influence or control people's behavior, usually to advance the interests of oneself or others, negatively or positively. Power is neutral, it is not by definition corrupt or benevolent. We should beware of naively believing power is the problem, when in fact power is necessary in human societies. Amorphous groups of people do not spontaneously self-organize to achieve desired, shared outcomes. This only happens when a leader, selflessly or not, steps forward to exercise such power.

The core issue here, however, is 'how' corruption occurs. Any force or thing outside myself does not have the capacity to reach inside my consciousness to change my thinking and my behavior. I behave as I think, always, and my thoughts are unequivocally my own. There is simply no avoiding this fact.

The common theme in Shakespeare is not that power reaches into a mind and corrupts it, but that a mind changes its external behavior when it willingly agrees with the external agency - coercive force - and makes the goals of that agent its own.

The best example of a play often cited in support of this theme is Macbeth. Macbeth, the man, is allegedly corrupted by the power his wife arranges for him to acquire.

This echoes the Biblical injunction, usually misquoted as 'money is the source of all evil.' The accurate quotation is the 'the love of money is the source of all evil.' Notice that to love something is internal to a consciousness. 'I' can only be corrupted if my 'consciousness' is, and it must do that willingly, itself.

My internal 'desire for' money can corrupt me. My internal 'love of' power can corrupt me. My internal 'lust' to use a woman's body can corrupt me.

I truly am the master of my soul. So, Macbeth was corrupted by his internal desire for power. Othello was corrupted by his internal feeling of inadequacy before a younger wife, and willingness to believe in her betrayal.

This mistaken belief that external events and conditions 'control' us reveals much of the contemporary Western mind. This is why 'self-control', as the Asian cultures believe, is deemed the lynch-pin of any civilization. Once a society loses that, it is truly lost. Shakespeare would have been the first to repudiate such a notion.

Learn more about this author, Stephen Carter.
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