Henry the Fifth and Cap'n Crunch: A St. Crispian's Day Meditation

October 25th is St. Crispin's Day, a holiday which the English remember chiefly because it's the anniversary of King Henry V's victory over the French at Agincourt in 1415. On this day of historical military significance, I'm noticing the correspondence between some challenging questions recently put to the U.S. military commander-in-chief (pictured left) and the ones faced by King Henry on the eve of his most famous battle. At least, they were faced by him in Shakespeare's play about the event, aptly titled Henry V.

You don't have to be a news junkie like me to know that Trump recently embarrassed himself in what he surely meant to be a consoling phone call to the widow of one of the four Green Beret soldiers recently slain in Niger. To put the best face (for Trump) on what happened: having been challenged by reporters on why he had not yet publicly acknowledged these soldiers' sacrifices or contacted their families to express sympathy, Trump claimed that he had written letters which hadn't yet been

Shakespeare and Behaviorism

I frequently teach Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a play which remains amazingly popular despite its apparently outdated preachment that a woman is happiest when subservient to her husband. The play's continuing popularity is probably due to three main factors:

1. Shakespeare wrote it and it's really funny.
2. The Biblical injunction "Wives, submit to your husbands" is not an archaism for a significant minority. (This is news to most academics.)
3. The play presents an intriguing study of how behavior can be altered through a program of targeted rewards and consequences.

The third reason is most interesting to me because it's the most useful. That is, if we put to the side the issue of the ethics of "taming" a woman, the play can afford us some insight into ways to effect change in another person's behavior without drugging that person. Behavioral psychology, whether focused on spouses, children,