Here’s some good news for you: Hamlet wasn’t contemplating nihilism. From my high school
English classes through to my university English literature classes, I’ve been told that Hamlet’s
famous soliloquy was about whether to commit suicide or not. However, the Prince of Denmark
was more concerned with the choice of being a scuzzy, disloyal subject who will bide his time until
he becomes king or of giving Claudius the old Right There Fred. By reading this soliloquy the way
the Bard intended, we can perhaps find the strength to fight the outrageous slings and arrows of
outrageous government ourselves.

Here are perhaps the most famous words ever written by Shakes:

HAMLET

To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! — Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

 

What I had been taught repeatedly by corduroy elbow patch wearing public school teachers was
that the To be is referring to existing, or, in other words, to live and the not to be is referring to
committing suicide. There’s just one problem with that interpretation: Hamlet had already
decided to kill Claudius before this scene. What he’s torn on here is the consequences of killing
the usurping sumbitch. If he is To be that means continuing the way things are and eventually
ending up as king one day himself. The other choice of not to be means he kills the king and, well,
hopefully, it’s a deep sleep when he dies because otherwise, he’ll be rotting in Hellsinki. Kill the
king and right Th’oppressor’s wrong and hope for the deep sleep. But damn, what if I’m wrong?
It’s a logical question that really doesn’t have anything to do with offing himself.

Let’s look at a couple of events from the past few years and see how the people involved may
have had similar thoughts to the young Hamlet.

 

Eduard Snowden

The lines from Hamlet that jumps out at me in relation to Snowden are:

The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

The kid is living the high life in Hawaii, making six figures a year and he decides to chuck it all
in the shitter to expose massive 5th amendment violations by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Snowden must’ve had more than one sleepless night as he wrestled with the choice of exposing
The insolence of office by those tasked with keeping us safe. Did he contemplate suicide as a
solution to his problems? I highly doubt it and the reading of Hamlet contemplating action vs
inaction makes for an interesting comparison.

 

Sharyl Attkisson

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

An award-winning journalist for CBS News, Attkisson decided to leave CBS. She later explains how
her former employer had squelched stories on the Benghazi attacks and Obamacare. Like
Snowden, Attkisson did not fall victim to her inner coward and followed her conscience instead.
Did she pay a price? You can decide for yourself, but she paints a rather brutal picture of
corporate media in her book, Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth Against the Forces of
Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

Escaping from an arranged marriage and the threat of being the victim of an honor killing,
Hirsi Ali has certainly gone up against a sea of troubles over the years. Her choices were
blindly following the path expected of many Muslim women and accepting the domination
imposed on them by the men in their families or to break away and expose the reality of far too
many women in the Islamic world. Suicide? I’m sure her critics would love for that idea to be
floating around in her head. Instead, she took up arms in the form of exposing certain aspects
of older and even modern interpretations of Islam that are oppressive.

 

Of course, you are welcome to interpret young Hamlet’s soliloquy in whatever manner you like,
but I think you are missing out the debate going on in the prince’s head: Accept the fate that
has apparently been laid before you or attempt to right a wrong even though the law and even
God may not sanction your actions. How long do you wait when justice seems to have
abandoned your society and what happens if you have a society of vigilantes? I find these
questions rich for mining of philosophical discussions. Should you kill yourself or try to right a
wrong? Not much depth to that, unless you’re half a nihilist.