Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 14 Number 3, December 2013
___________________________________________________________________
Othello: The Multi-Level Conflict of the Darwinian Psychomachia
by
Indian University Kokomo
I am not a Moor. I am not from Venice. I do not serve in the military. I am not in an interracial relationship. I am not an overly jealous/paranoid person. I am not Elizabethan, Jacobean, or British, for that matter, yet I am able to not only understand and be entertained by Othello. I am capable of making a personal connection with the play, to find meaning that resonates within my own life. Certainly a study of any of the above attributes would increase my comprehension of Shakespeare’s tragedy, but the drama does not demand this sort of work to have a meaningful experience. Most would proffer my culture’s exposure to Shakespeare’s own, our “common” language, and a shared western tradition as explanations for this phenomena, and while these assertions hold true, they miss an even larger point. They miss the humanity.
The titular character, Desdemona, and Iago have an all too human representational power: insecurity, purity, and iniquity, among many variations, yet most critical readings of their symbolism focus on social roles alone, such as a jealous husband, a wife, or an inconstant subordinate, to name only a few. A cultural understanding of such roles, while informative, is also imprecise. Cultural roles are informed by the biological, and, in an even larger sense, evolution; therefore, these roles are better understood through this biocultural context. An evolutionary perspective offers a new explanatory framework that situates culture, humanism, the old saw of “universals,” and the plays themselves within the whole systemic structure of human nature.
The term “human nature” evokes the specters of far too many isms—biological determinism, sexism, racism, classism, and reductionism, to name a few, but most of these go-to responses are due to a rigid idea of just what human nature can be, as if it impinges on free will and turns us into automatons. Robert Headlam Wells (2005) answers this concern with an astute analogy in his insightful Shakespeare’s Humanism when he puts forward, “The fact that the decisions we make as individuals are constrained by the nature of our humanity no more means that history can be reduced to a single formula than the fact that football is played according to internationally agreed rules means that every game is the same; it’s the vagaries of individual character and temperament that make history endlessly varied” (192). In other words, the ideas of a human nature and individual variation are not mutually exclusive. “Human,” after all, is not a blueprint, but a set of interactionist “if-then” rules. Human nature reveals the connective tissue between Shakespeare’s plays and the here and now.
What is especially important for Othello is the dramatization of the effects of multilevel selection on cognition, which can be offsetting, causing a struggle or ambiguity in the human mind. These cognitions are the stuff of consciousness, morality, drama, and Shakespeare’s play.
The original medieval allegory of the psychomachia as a representative battle for the human soul among vice and virtue characters is played out in Othello in an evolutionary manner through characterization. The principal Darwinian struggle Othello, Desdemona, and Iago signify is individual versus group selection, which opens itself up to an entire suite of subsidiary tensions, such as male rivalry in status, reproduction, affiliations. Morality, adaptive versus maladaptive phenotypes, Theory of Mind, and male and female dissension in sexual strategies and jealousy all jostle for influence if not control. Generally speaking, Desdemona tends to epitomize the prosocial behaviors of group selection, while Iago embodies the blatant self-interest of individual fitness and Othello is the ambiguity created by the clash of these two forces. But it’s not that simple.
All of these conflicts can overlap and occur simultaneously, and the characterized evolutionary signifiers themselves aren’t always stable, as they react to their context and each other. The resultant Darwinian Psychomachia that is Othello, Desdemona, and Iago is anything but neat and schematic. The defining characteristics are confusion and ambiguity, as is Othello, as is humanity. Despite this outcome, an evolutionary reading of Othello can, at the very least, get to root of all this seeming disarray.
E.O. Wilson’s (2012) The Social Conquest of Earth has much to say about how humans interact, the connection between genetic and cultural evolution, and how the interplay between group and individual selection leads to morality, a far from inflexible category. Wilson writes, “An inevitable result of the mutually offsetting forces of multilevel selection is permanent ambiguity in the individual human mind, leading to countless scenarios among people in the way they bond, love, affiliate, betray, share, sacrifice, steal, deceive, redeem, punish, appeal, and adjudicate. The struggle endemic to each person’s brain, mirrored in the vast superstructure of cultural evolution, is the fountainhead of the humanities” (274). Any number of Wilson’s verbs could apply directly to Othello: bond (Othello and Iago in revenge), love (Desdemona’s love for Othello), affiliate (Othello’s Christianity), betray (Iago’s lies), share (Emilia feels Desdemona’s pain), sacrifice (Desdemona pleads for Cassio), steal (Othello’s handkerchief), deceive (Iago’s ocular proof), redeem (Desdemona’s forgiveness), punish (Lodovico’s sentencing of Iago), appeal (Brabantio’s case against Othello) and adjudicate (the Duke’s judgment against Brabantio). But what is especially important for Shakespeare’s play is how the effects of multilevel selection are present in human minds and can cause a struggle, or ambiguity. These mental phenomena are the stuff of human nature, consciousness, morality, drama, and Othello.
Cultural Materialists, and then Post-Humanists, have had a critical vice-grip on literary criticism generally and Othello more specifically. The bulk of critical attention has focused on race, gender, and sexuality. Elise Marks’(2001) idea of “Racial Drag,” Diana Adesola Mafe’s (2004) connection of Shakespeare’s moor to Yoruba myth, and Karin H. deGravelles’(2011) objective of interrogating identification are just a few examples of the critical tendency to focus on race, followed closely by discussions of sexuality. Robert Matz (1999) sees “discourses of sodomy,” while Celia Daileader (2005) is sure that a discussion of racism and misogyny in the play leads to the conclusion that the drama is about white women being punished for interracial sex and, for some reason, Othello’s neglected sister, apparently missing the point that the drama is a tragedy and dismissing Iago’s complicity as the last refuge of Shakespearean apologists. Daileader does, however, state her purpose when she writes, “My approach to Shakespeare is first and foremost political, and my approach to the literary canon is first and foremost revisionist” (10). This bald agenda drives not only Daileader’s reductive readings but much of recent Othello criticism.
Christopher Pye (2009) wants to examine aesthetics and its “political correlates” in the play, while Hugh Grady (2009) takes him to task for not adding Marx, Adorno, and Benjamin to his Lacanian reading. Even when Virginia Mason Vaughan (1996) presents Othello: A Contextual History, she needs to see the play in terms of Global, Racial, and Marital discourses. This ground has been trod over so much that critics have begun to focus on more esoteric elements such as “Music and the Crisis of Meaning” (2009) and figures of the Virgin Mary in the play (2001). Critics are, however, beginning to see the drama as more than just a set of power binaries, such as Dennis Austin Britton’s (2011) article on how Othello is not just an outsider but how he belongs. When Daileader laments a critical and cultural fixation that excludes “broader definitions” in the play (10), she does not seem to realize she holds the key in her hand to define Othello not as a race, a sexuality, or a politics, but all those things in one. In other words, a depiction of a human.
This representational human, the triad of Desdemona, Othello, and Iago, creates an Darwinian Psychomachia informed by varied multi-level conflicts that cannot help but lead to the ambiguity and confusion that is the plight of humans. While not the sole perpetrator, perhaps the greatest of these tensions is between individual and group selection. When Desdemona pledges to Cassio “Assure thee,/ If I do vow a friendship, I’ll perform it/ To the last article” (3.3.22-24), she is demonstrating an altruistic sentiment. Additionally, her motivation seems driven by concern for group cohesion as much as care for Cassio. Discussing Cassio’s transgression, she argues, “And yet his trespass, in our common reason--/ Save that they say the wars must make example/ Out of her best—is not almost a fault/ T’incur a private check” (3.3.72-75). In other words, function within the group (warfare) is more important than in the private and offense should be adjudicated accordingly. Desdemona ‘s constant appeal to friendship moves beyond the singular to the plural and epitomizes the evolutionary force of group selection, with her concern that all is well with the Christian collective on Cyprus.
The inverse is, of course, Iago. Reams of criticism have been written about Iago’s varied motivations, but one thing is certain—he is driven more by individual than group selection. Iago frequently uses appeals to groups, such as when he opines to Othello that Desdemona should be matched to someone “of her own clime, complexion, and degree” (3.3.259), but his impetus in using these types of tropes is to cause damage not just to Othello, or Desdemona, or Cassio, or Roderigo, but to the whole group. Iago dramatizes individual fitness trying to pass itself off as group selection, and Othello, like most humans, is subject to both of these pressures.
Marcus Nordlund (2007) argues in Shakespeare and the Nature of Love: Literature, Culture, and Evolution, “there is a fundamental conflict at work in human nature; we are individual organisms as well as social animals, and we are constantly seeking to reconcile these two demands” (39). In our Darwinian Psychomachia, Desdemona and Iago perform this conflict, as individual selection influences behavior that betrays self-interest, greed, and vice, and group selection engenders conduct driven by empathy, concern for others, and self-sacrifice.
The result is Othello signifying the human brain under the duress of these conflicting dispositions. Othello tells Desdemona, the image of all that is altruistic, “I will deny thee nothing” (3.3.93), but just a few lines later, he ironically addresses Iago with “Alas, thou echo’st me,/ As if there were some monster in thy thought/Too hideous to be shown” (3.3.121-123). The tragic Moor can only cling to “Where should Othello go?” (5.2.308) as he and Shakespeare consider the end of their tragedy
On its surface, Othello indicates that groups are far more dangerous than looking after one’s individual needs. After all, if Othello had not accepted a leadership role among the Venetians, he would not have been led to the murder of his wife and his own untimely death. Despite the negative consequences portrayed in the play, human history has shown again and again that cooperative units tend to outperform self-serving individuals. The most fundamental reason why we still tend toward membership, risks notwithstanding, remains that it is difficult not to do so. Wilson (2012) explains, “We are ruled by an urge—better, a compelling necessity—that began in our early primate ancestry. Every person is a compulsive group-seeker, hence an intensely tribal animal. He satisfies his need variously in an extended family, organized religion, ideology, ethnic groups, or sports club, singly or in combination” (245). Why did Othello join the Venetians? Why is Desdemona able to throw off her entire kinship structure for a new extended family? Why do both Iago and Cassio worry about their positions and reputations within the military? Wilson’s “urge” is the answer.
In fact, our brains could lend themselves to this kind of joining. Mirror neurons cause us to detect and simulate other people’s cognitive and emotional states, and some theorists believe these structures are the link between natural selection and the evolution of culture (Swirski 2011, 161), for what is culture but individual members of a cooperative group simulating each other to varying degrees? As such, this collective is subject to multilevel selection as much as any individual organisms, and this subjectivity can cause fragility to be the defining attribute of such a collective.
This instability is of particular interest when considering the cultural environment of Othello. Mark Pagel (2012) notes in Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind, “The cooperative societies from which cultures are constructed are themselves fragile unless tightly controlled by social mechanisms that continue to make cooperation more profitable than unbridled self-interest” (14). Shakespeare’s play dramatizes the fragility of a cooperative society, but it also establishes the need, for better or worse, for the control of social mechanisms such as codes of honor, laws, and varied systems of morality. The entirety of Othello stages the idea that cooperation can be profitable or its inverse costly, but what is meant by “profitable?”
Wilson (2012) explicates, “The genetic fitness of each member, the number reproducing descendents it leaves, is determined by the cost exacted and benefit gained from its membership in the group. These include the favor and disfavor it earns from other group members on the basis of its behavior. The currency of favor is paid by direct reciprocity and indirect reciprocity, the latter in the form of reputation and trust” (53-54). Iago has been overpaid through direct and indirect reciprocity prior and throughout the bulk of the play. If this villain is to be believed, part of his motivation is that he feels he has been underpaid; Cassio’s promotion should be his. Does Iago feel that the benefits of membership have been too costly? All our villain can answer is “Demand me nothing: what you know, you know” (5.2.341). After all of this tragedy, the group remains, even if Desdemona, Othello, and Iago, our Darwinian Psychomachia, do not.
This need for group cooperation is why Lodovico proclaims at the end of the play that Cassio is in charge and that he must take care of Iago, the “hellish villain” with “The time, the place, the torture; O, enforce it” (5.2.414). Surely Lodovico wants revenge for the bed full of death, but he also needs to reestablish the group on Cyprus, to reinstate the cooperation that Iago tried to break down, to outcompete the Turks. It is not enough to merely incarcerate Iago, he must use “any cunning cruelty/ That can torment him much, and hold him long” (5.2. 376-377). As group leader, Lodovico has to send a message to any future interlopers who may threaten group cohesion. Individual and group selection create a tension that can lead to all kinds of mishaps if not kept in check, but this predominant struggle also gives rise to other subordinate conflicts informed by evolutionary forces and dramatized in Othello. Male competition for status and reproduction is at the core of Shakespeare’s play and adds another element to the war of tensions and ambiguity of this Darwinian Psychomachia.
Othello, Iago, and Cassio are competing, though Iago, given varying degrees of consciousness, seems to be the only one who knows it. Part of Iago’s method is to make Othello feel that competition, whether it is fully there or not. Competition complicates the evolutionary psychomachia that much more. Othello begins the play with a high status. The first senator calls him “valiant Moor,” and the duke reconfigures the designation into one of a more specific identity, addressing him as “Valiant Othello” (1.3.52-53). Two powerful men in Venetian society begin a series of comments that reflect just how high Othello’s status is early in the play. True, these leaders want Othello to fight the Turk and are not above flattery, but at least Othello is in a position to be flattered in such a way. So far, Othello has successfully negotiated the potentially dangerous conflicts surrounding group identity, and, indeed, obtaining a high-ranking female from the dominant group is a sign of that success.
One of Iago’s stated intents is to undo Othello’s achievement. Iago tells Rodorigo, “Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:/ In following him, I follow but myself” (1.1.59-60). Iago is inverting status in private, with Rodorigo, his first step toward trying to do so in the larger context of the group. Iago’s machinations are such that eventually Lodovico cries, “Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate/ Call all in all sufficient,” to which Iago replies “He is much changed” (4.2.266-267, 271). Iago changes Othello. Gone are the status, the power, the ability to successfully reproduce, and, eventually, life. Both Othello and Cassio are cited by Iago as reproductive competitors, as he says to no one but himself, “I do suspect the lusty Moor/ Hath leaped into my seat,” and, “For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too” (2.2.279-280, 291). Iago is savvy enough to know that the way to defeat his reproductive competitors is to lower their status. Such a competitive lowering is possible through besmirching the attendant reputation.
Indirect reciprocity paid in the form of reputation and trust is, of course, an important part in considering male status and its potential for reproductive success. There’s a reason why when Cassio is disgraced for his drunken brawl, his first response is “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!/ I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial” (2.3.248-249). Drama queen tendencies aside, Cassio knows he’s squandered the “currency of favor,” and fully understands the implications for his position within the group. This must be one of the reasons Shakespeare feels the need to redeem Cassio in front of other group members through Rodrigo’s dead letter, discovered at the end of the tragedy. Cassio relates Iago’s manipulation of he and Rodorigo, “he made him/Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came/That I was cast” (5.2.369-370). But being paid in reputation and trust cuts both ways.
Iago, in one of his many moments where he speaks a sort of ironic truth, offers, “Reputation is an idle and/ most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving; you have/ lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser” (2.3.252-254). Therein lies the problem with reputation—it can help us make predictions about how others will (re)act and plan in a way that is advantageous, but that hardly means the method is perfect. Generally, it can be a boon, but it can also be grossly inaccurate. William Kerrigan (1999) posits in Shakespeare’s Promises (1999) just how cooperative units try to mitigate this problem. “Society seeks to instill the morality of promise-keeping. And why not? As a way to secure social order, to promote reliable human transactions, and to foment trust without which government itself cannot proceed, there is nothing cheaper than morality” (16-17). A bond is a form of a promise and keeping it is a moral concern, but Iago’s sense of competition trumps bonds, promises, and morals.
Othello, if nothing else through negative example, promotes the morality of promise-keeping, as the failure to do so is one of the central tragedies of the play. Having said that, the drama is brimming with promises. Iago promises: “I am your own forever” to Othello (3.4.528). Othello makes his morbid oath to Desdemona “and I will kill thee/ And love thee after” (5.2.18-19) and Desdemona achieves her death wish assurance to Cassio with “For thy solicitor shall rather die/ Than give thy cause away” (3.3.29-30). All three of our Darwinian Psychomachia components hinge on the morality of promise-keeping. Both Iago and Othello have broken faith in their promise to be part of their moral community, justifying it by pointing to what they perceive as Desdemona’s supposed actions of doing the same. The logic seems to be one broken promise deserves another, which again speaks to the fragility of cooperative units, even after employing the morality of promises. If multilevel selection causes us ambiguity or a war between impulses, this state is only exacerbated by the fact that both types of selection on their own vacillate between adaptive and maladaptive, much less when they both hold sway simultaneously. Such is the human conscience and how it interfaces with morality
“Morality” is another hot button term that tends to cause all kinds of reactionary blustering, but, like “human nature,” the term is loaded because of a narrow definition of just what morality is and how it works. Their origins reveal the most about their nature, and one of the most fascinating studies of this foundation is Christopher Boehm’s (2012) latest Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame. Boehm contends that what he calls punitive social selection (sanctioning of various stripes) led to an evolutionary conscience, which was the forerunner of curbing free-riders, or cheaters like Iago, which in turn pushed the development of altruism. Boehm concludes “These three developments, taken together, may be seen as the scientific story of moral origins” (Boehm 2012, 83, 165).
Think of Boehm’s constructs not as a diagram, but as an underpinning in relation to Othello and our Darwinian Psychomachia. The play demonstrates the need for social sanctioning (the Duke’s “bloody book of law” 1.3.75), the human conscience (Othello asserts “And he that is approved in this offence/ Though he be twinned with me, both at a birth/ Shall lose me” 2.3.194-196), and altruism (Emilia says of Desdemona “I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,/ Lay down my soul at stake” 4.2.13-14). Shakespeare’s play, then, is rife with representations of the constituent, evolutionary parts of the origin of morality. Morality, however, does not always offer straightforward clarity when matters of male competition and bonding are concerned.
Boehm (2012) posits, “individuals who take society’s rules too literally, and therefore are too inhibited to behave with some moral flexibility, will usually find themselves at a competitive disadvantage with respect to relative fitness. Rather, a fitness-optimizing conscience is one that permits some bending of lesser rules for personal advantage, even as it recognizes which rules should never be bent because doing so will bring dire personal consequences” (176). To respect Othello’s personhood, we have to make him at least partially responsible for his own actions, to give him agency, despite Iago’s masterful manipulations. Even if Desdemona is having an affair with Cassio, Othello’s judgment of “Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men” (5.2.6) or “I’ll chop her to messes” (4.1.197) do not follow. Surely Iago uses Othello’s race and age as weapons to undermine him, but he also plays on his sense of morality, on his conscience.
Boehm continues “a flexible conscience allowed people to adjust their adherence to moral rules to the situations they faced” (Boehm 2012, 277). The point is not a sort of moral relativism, but the cultural, and ultimately, given relative fitness, genetic advantage of considering an ascribed to moral system within the framework of the current environment and situation. What works on the battlefield, among “The Anthropophagi,” (1.3.158), in Aleppo (5.2.395) or Venice, will not necessarily be effective in Cyprus, which drives the play and helps Shakespeare make his point.
Part of what morality frequently cultivates is restraint of aggression, and, at least within groups, those inclined to curb their aggressions, who exercise at least a modicum of self-control, tend to live longer and are much more likely to reproduce, to be evolutionarily successful. Almost the entire cast of characters suffers from this lack and pays the price. Othello cannot control his murderous aggression, Iago cannot rein in his passive-aggressive need to drive Othello, and Desdemona pursues Cassio’s defense so insistently as to stoke Othello’s rage even further.
Is it any wonder the Darwinian Psychomachia of Othello, Desdemona, and Iago does not survive the play? Iago’s fitness falls to zero by the end of the play. A dead wife and a future full of torture and then death is no way to be evolutionarily successful. Othello too. Male competition for status and reproduction has destroyed not only the two male leads, but both Emilia and Desdemona in their wake. Cassio outlasts them all and, in the end, “Cassio rules in Cyprus” (5.2.375). This new ruler has won male competition almost by default and has increased his fitness exponentially.
The play hardly seems to push this triad of characters as “adaptive.” Given the outcome of the play, as humans, are we fated to such sad ends as death and torture? Do these all too human evolutionary dispositions mean that the best we can hope for is to be “smote thus.” Hardly. In his seminal work Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Christopher Boehm (1999) writes, “In the final analysis, it is actual behavior that counts, not the genetic dispositions that underlie it”(207). A disposition does not, after all, equal an outcome and is not “fated” to be expressed. After all, a complex piece of human behavior can seldom be attributed to a singular motivator, an insight a dramatist of Shakespeare’s caliber seems fully aware of when producing a play like Othello.
In fact, note that this conceptualization of Desdemona and Iago may seem like the same dyadic opposites as Christian and Turk, the oppressor and the oppressed, or male and female, but, in this schema, it is important to remember that the relationship between these two signifiers is much closer than it may first seem. Peter Swirski (2011) spells it out in his recent article “’Me’ First or ‘We’ First? Literature and Paleomorality” when he explains, “We are altruistic as a consequence of the same selective pressures that have made us egocentric” (164). These similar selective pressures may cause tensions in our daily existence, but they are rooted in the same source; they are akin. Additionally, we’ve already seen they are not alone. Male competition, bonds, and fitness cause some of the chaos represented in Othello, but there’s another evolutionary adaptation to be reckoned with that affects a broad range of human concerns.
All of these matters have a moral dimension, and morality does require judgments, of ourselves and others. Shakespeare’s play raises the question of humans being truly equipped for the job. An evolutionary answer lies in the concepts of Theory of Mind and intentionality.
Frans De Waal (2006) explains intention and emotion in Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, “At the core of perspective-taking is emotional-linkage between individuals—widespread in social mammals—upon which evolution (or development) builds ever more complex manifestations, including appraisal of another’s knowledge and intention” (72). If we have adaptively developed the ability to appraise others’ knowledge, and especially intentions, and these have been seen as adaptive, how could so many people in Shakespeare’s play have been wrong about good old ‘honest Iago’? What De Waal sees as the core of “perspective-taking,” the emotional-linkage, could be the problem. Iago is best at engendering emotions in other characters, usually offering platitudes, such as he does to Cassio when he states, “I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kindness” (2.3.295).
Patricia S. Churchland (2011) argues in Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality that theory of mind, with its dependence on the work of neurons, is far from fail-safe when she notes, “A neuron, though computationally complex, is just a neuron. It is not an intelligent homunculus. If the neural network represents something complex, such as the intention to insult, it must have the right input and be in the right place in the neural circuitry to do that” (142). Part of the nefarious nature of Iago is that he offers the “right input” to represent for/to Othello the sexual intention of Desdemona, Cassio, and, virtually all men and women of Venice. Othello’s neural network never stood a chance.
Certainly Iago gins up all kinds of negative emotions in Othello that hinder the Moor from assessing the speaker’s knowledge and intentions. Iago’s own wife Emilia seems unable to read his intentions, even when they appear blatant to the audience. Perhaps the blindness is an element of multilevel selection—an emotional tie to group selection, a feeling of belonging, and Iago preys on this sentiment, causing those like Emilia to allow that sensation to overwhelm a rational assessment of even her own husband. But it’s not just Iago. Think of all the difficulty Othello has assessing Desdemona’s intentions or vice-versa, or Cassio and Othello, or Brabantio and Desdemona. In every case, a strong emotional attachment or emotions themselves run interference in these missed opportunities for genuine assessment of intention. Given Shakespeare’s play, Theory of Mind doesn’t appear adaptive; it seems maladaptive.
What has to be considered is the true nature of phenotypes. Expressions of an adaptation are interactionist; they depend on stimuli from their environment, and the feeling is mutual. Given this kind of variance, phenotypes can be adaptive, maladaptive, have side effects, or even be both at the same time. For example, we’ve already seen the shortcomings of Theory of Mind in Othello, but David F. Bjorklund and Anthony D. Pellegrini (2002) argue in The Origins of Human Nature, “Culture as we understand it could have only evolved within a social species that was able to infer the intentions of its fellow members” (218). The ability to perspective-take, to use Theory of Mind, has enabled culture, which has led to so many human benefits. At the same time, it has initiated far too many maladaptive behaviors to be enumerated here.
The Darwinian Psychomachia of Othello dramatizes the potential maladaption of Theory of Mind—its fallibility. Bjorklund and company (2002) continue, “A theory of mind refers to the tendency to construe people and their behaviors in terms of mind-related constructs, such as belief, desires, and intentions” (204). The key word is “construe,” which is just another way of saying “interpret.” The concept can also be framed in terms of costs. The price of the ability to feel empathy, to use Theory of Mind, is the potential for misusing it, a cost/benefit associated with most every phenotype. For example, our big brains have served us well in problem-solving, given us shared intentionality and intelligence, and created culture (Swirski 154), but they also have given us neuroses, the likes of Iago, even weapons of mass destruction.
As this line of reasoning threatens to spiral out of control, E.O. Wilson (2012) adds perspective. He expounds, “All of these pressures confer an advantage on those able to read the intention of others, grow in the ability to gain trust and alliance, and manage rivals. Social intelligence was therefore always at a high premium. A sharp sense of empathy can make a huge difference, and with it an ability to manipulate, to gain cooperation, and to deceive. To put the matter as simply as possible, it pays to be socially smart” (44). It would seem that Iago fits this bill nicely, as he does demonstrate all of Wilson’s listed traits, but one must take the long view to really understand how Shakespeare’s play reinforces this idea. Iago is only successful for such a short time. Ultimately, he is not as socially smart as he thinks he is, as even the play’s biggest idiot, Rodorigo, carries a letter upon him that would have been Iago’s undoing (5.2.355-356). Wilson is right—it does pay to be socially smart—but it also pays to know just what “socially smart” really means.
Our Darwinian Psychomachia destroyed itself out of this lack of social awareness and that ignorance is driven by jealousy. The examination of jealousy helps establish the conflict of male/female sexual strategies that informs the Darwinian Psychomachia of the Othello, Desdemona, Iago triad. Additionally, the tensions between individual and group selection, male competition for status and reproduction, and the morality of bonds and affiliations are all presented to offer a more complete picture of what this representation would look like. Understand that laying these dyads out in such a schematic way depends upon an artificiality for convenience sake. All of these oppositions do not happen in isolation—they are frequently overlapping, if not simultaneous, and bespeak the even greater confusion of multi-level conflict as actually experienced. Othello dramatizes this chaos and serves an even broader evolutionary function.
In The Evolution of Desire: Strategies in Human Mating, David Buss (2003) notes, “In the evolutionary psychology of human mating, the sexual strategy adopted by one sex can trip up and conflict with the strategy adopted by the other sex in a phenomenon called strategic interference” (13). The character of Othello has almost become an icon of jealousy, and while Iago has stoked this jealousy, strategic interference is what gives it legs.
The argument was made above that Desdemona assists Cassio out of concern for the group, which is, no doubt true. Humans do, however, act out of more than one motivator, and Desdemona is no exception. When Othello demands that Desdemona produce the handkerchief that belonged to his mother, his wife steadfastly tries to change the subject to Cassio. She argues, “This is a trick to put me from my suit:/Pray you let Cassio be received again,” (3.4.91-92) which leads her later to assert, “Nay, we must think men are not gods/ Nor of them look for such observancy/ As fits the bridal” (3.4.155-156). Desdemona’s sexual strategy tests her new husband’s commitment to her by trying to get him to agree with her about Cassio, a test he fails thanks to Iago’s manipulation. She exercises what little power she has, yet she clearly expects Othello to cede to her wishes and seems genuinely surprised when he fails to do so. This attempt to measure commitment explains why Desdemona so doggedly advocates for Cassio, seemingly all out of proportion to their friendship.
This testing of commitment is often a female sexual strategy, and, as can be seen in Othello, it can directly conflict with a typical male sexual strategy—mate guarding. Due to the internalization of female reproduction, males can find it incumbent upon themselves to assure sexual fidelity to substantiate paternity, and jealousy is the evolved psychological state that aids in this mate guarding. When Iago says of his misleading of Othello, “But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,” (2.1.207) he plans to activate this jealousy, but the disposition was already there, long before his exacerbating lies. As previously noted, Iago is not above jealousy himself and understands this evolved psychological mechanism so well that he is able to wield it as a weapon. Iago’s culpability is a given, but Othello’s jealousy is almost always read in terms of race, culture, and sexual politics, leaving out any biological underpinnings. Shakespeare’s play suggests that jealousy is a dangerous mental state that can become so drastic as to lead to spousal murder. Is jealousy maladaptive? Yes and no.
David Buss (2000) argues in The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex that while excessive jealousy can be destructive, moderate jealousy can signal commitment. He adds, however, an important caveat. “The problem with signal detection is how to identify and correctly interpret a partner’s betrayal in an uncertain social world containing a chaos of conflicting clues” (9,22). Signal detection could be seen as a corollary of the above discussion of perspective-taking, or the lack thereof. Both can be adaptive or maladaptive, depending on the circumstances of Buss’s “uncertain social world;” furthermore, jealousy, like all evolved human capacities, is not a fait accompli, but interacts with its environment. Shakespeare’s Darwinian Psychomachia depends upon its biocultural context for its full meaning.
The seeds of jealousy are planted in the seemingly “safer” environment of Venice. As a father, Brabantio would have guarded Desdemona from sexual interlopers as much as possible, but Othello is able “steal” her from her father. When the action is moved from the supposedly protected environment of Venice to a more unknown Cyprus, there is a sense that the parents are left behind and these supposed adults have embarked on a journey away from previous confines. One net effect of this removal is the seemingly increased mate value of Desdemona. Iago notes she is, “sport for Jove,” and Cassio, trying to be more delicate about it, agrees that “She is indeed perfection” (2.3.16,23).
Iago, the move to Cyprus, Desdemona’s new status, and the testing of Othello’s commitment are all a part of the environment that sets in motion Othello’s jealousy and ultimately leads to murder. Even before Othello’s suicide, he has already lost all of the other conflicts listed herein. Setting aside the moral and ethical dimensions of his abuse and murder of Desdemona, even from a colder calculation Othello also loses. In their book-length study Homicide Martin Daly and Margo Wilson (1988) write, “The man who actually kills his wife has usually overstepped the bounds of utility, whether utility is assessed in fitness or in more proximal currencies. Killing provokes retribution by the criminal justice system or the victim’s relatives; at the least, murdered wives are hard to replace…homicide probably does not serve the interest of the perpetrator” (205). In his last speech before his death, Othello equates his loss of Desdemona with his previous status, built on his service to the state. Ultimately, Othello is still as concerned about his own interests as much as his guilt. Othello’s fitness is reduced to nothing. Joe Carroll (2011) offers an appropriate summation in Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice when he notes, “Comedies are successful mating games, tragedies are unsuccessful status games” (127).
The multi-faceted work being performed by a complex play like Othello reveals a protean nature. As Angus Fletcher (2011) makes the case in Evolving Hamlet: Seventeenth Century English Tragedy and the Ethics of Natural Selection, drama from this era “offered a means for gathering spectators around the experience of a particular problem” (38). In Othello this problem could be seen as the difficulty of being a Moor in Venetian society, the intersection of sexual politics and gender, or the seemingly Manichean struggle between Christianity and the Turks, but Fletcher (2011) moves the focus beyond both the initial and immediate contexts when he asserts, “these plays urge us to adapt art to the ethical problems of today. For to adapt this way is to learn from past practices without being confined by their limits” (146). This play does urge adaptation, and we do just that. Plays can be seen as scenarios in which the audience can benefit from the characters’ experiences with little costs, and the vehicles that make this phenomena happen are the dramatic representations of human nature, such as the Darwinian Psychomachia.
References
Bjorklund, David F. and Anthony D. Pellegrini. 2002. The Origins of Human Nature. DC: American Psychological Association,
Boehm, Christopher. 2001. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cambridge: Harvard UP.
---. 2012. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame. New York: Basic Books.
Britton, Dennis Austin. 2011. “Re-‘Turning’ Othello: Transformative and Restorative Romance.” ELQ 78 (1) : 27-50.
Buss, David M. 2000. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex. New York: Simon and Schuster.
---. 2003. The Evolution of Desire: Strategies in Human Mating. 1994. New York: Basic Books.
Carroll, Joseph. 2011. Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Churchland, Patricia S. 2011. Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality. Princeton: Princeton UP.
Daileader, Celia. 2005. Racism, Misogyny, and the Othello Myth: Inter-racial Couples from Shakespeare to Spike Lee. New York: Cambridge UP.
Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson. 1988. Homicide. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
deGravelles, Karin H. 2011. “You Be Othello: Interrogating Identification in the Classroom.” Pedagogy 11 (1): 153-175.
De Waal, Frans. 2006. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. New Jersey: Princeton UP.
Fletcher, Angus. 2011. Evolving Hamlet: Seventeenth Century English Tragedy and the Ethics Of Natural Selection. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grady, Hugh. 2009. “Theory After Theory: Christopher Pye’s Reading of Othello.” Shakespeare Quarterly 60 (4): 453-459.
Hassel, R. Chris, Jr. 2001. “Intercession, Detraction, and Just Judgment in Othello.” Comparative Drama 35( 1): 43-67.
Kerrigan, William. 1999. Shakespeare’s Promises. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
Mafe, Diana Adesola. 2004. “From Ogun to Othello: (Re)Acquainting Yoruba Myth and Shakespeare’s Moor.” Research in African Literatures 35 (3): 46-61.
Marks, Rachel. 2001. “’Othello/me’: Racial Drag and the Pleasures of Boundary Crossing with Othello.” Comparative Drama 35 (1): 101-123.
Matz, Robert. 1999. “Slander, Renaissance Discourses of Sodomy, and Othello.” ELH 66 (2): 261-276.
Minear, Erin. 2009. “Music and Crisis of Meaning in Othello.” Studies in English Literature 49 (2): 355-370.
Nordlund, Marcus. 2007. Shakespeare and the Nature of Love: Literature, Culture, and Evolution. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
Pagel, Mark. 2012. Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind. New York: W.W. Norton.
Pye, Christopher. 2009. “’To Throw Out Our Eyes for Brave Othello: Shakespeare and Aesthetic Ideology.” Shakespeare Quarterly 60 (4): 425-447..
Shakespeare, William 2007. “Othello.” In The RSC Shakespeare: William Shakespeare Complete Works, 2081-2157. Eds. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. New York: The Modern Library.
Swirski, Peter. 2011. “’Me’ First or ‘We’ First? Literature and Paleomorality.” Philosophy and Literature 35 (1): 150-167.
Vaughan, Virginia Mason. 1997. Othello: A Contextual History. New York: Cambridge UP.
Wells, Robert Headlam. 2005. Shakespeare’s Humanism. New York: Cambridge UP.
Wilson, E.O. 2012. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: W.W. Norton.