{"id":979,"date":"2025-05-26T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/?p=979"},"modified":"2025-05-26T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T12:12:11","slug":"why-cant-you-just-deal-with-it-joshua-rothman-new-yorker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/26\/why-cant-you-just-deal-with-it-joshua-rothman-new-yorker\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhy Can\u2019t You Just Deal with It?\u201d &#8211; Joshua Rothman (New Yorker)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cA version of this dynamic may explain why we can\u2019t deal with our biggest problems. Hamlet, famously, vows revenge on his uncle, Claudius, for the murder of his father\u2014but then he dithers, delays, and generally goes crazy, only killing Claudius at the very end of Shakespeare\u2019s longest play. Literary scholars have written essay after essay remarking on Hamlet\u2019s delay, and he has been widely understood as a flawed person, too melancholy and intellectual to do what he\u2019s decided to do. Yet, arguably, this is a bizarre view. Yes, in a narrow sense, Hamlet has concluded that he needs to kill his uncle\u2014but in a broader, \u201call things considered\u201d sense he\u2019s reluctant to become a killer himself. This is an entirely sane way of behaving; it\u2019s how we ourselves would hope to behave. It\u2019s only within the confines of a revenge thriller that Hamlet\u2019s actions seem odd\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/open-questions\/why-cant-you-just-deal-with-it\">https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/open-questions\/why-cant-you-just-deal-with-it<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cA version of this dynamic may explain why we can\u2019t deal with our biggest problems. Hamlet, famously, vows revenge on his uncle, Claudius, for the murder of his father\u2014but then he dithers, delays, and generally goes crazy, only killing Claudius at the very end of Shakespeare\u2019s longest play. Literary scholars have written essay after essay&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5,3,4],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links_read","tag-extract","tag-linksread","tag-mastodon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/posse.keithlewiskeithlewis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}