Quick Notes on Sacrifice

Oy, what a long day. Dress rehearsal for Crucible. I'm under the midnight gun for a post again, so--quickly:

One of my friends has her entire family in the show but her ten-year-old son. The son watched the end of the play from the wings tonight, saw John Proctor, falsely convicted of witchcraft in Salem, decide finally not to lie. He accepts death rather than sign his name to a false confession that would allow him to live, rejoining his wife and three sons.

My friend's son was bawling after the show. His father, stripping off his costume in the dressing room, talked him through the trauma.

"It's not fair," said the boy.

"Nope," agreed the father.

"People shouldn't kill each other," sobbed the boy.

The father nodded, noting that the show was about how Proctor decides that some ideals are worth dying for.

Tricky idea, that. My character in the play, John Hale, argues exactly the opposite. "Life," he cries, "is God's most precious gift. No principle, however glorious, is worth the taking of it." Proctor's decision--clearly the morally correct one from playwright Arthur Miller's point of view--repudiates Hale's argument.

And I agree with Miller. Some ideals, some principles, of course are worth dying for.

But mortal sacrifices in the name of ideals are double-edged swords. Ideas worth dying for one day are often principles worth killing for on another. The witch-hunting judges in the play and in life sincerely believe for most of the play that they are doing important, lifesaving, necessary work. History judges them harshly; I cannot help but endorse that judgment.

But what, if anything, in the moment, lets us see our actions, our sacrifices, in light of future history?
Or should we strive to be true to our ideals as best we understand them, without worrying about the judgment of the future?

What plays will be written about us, our time? Which characters will we be? What will children, seeing our story, cry about?

More tomorrow,

JF