Today’s political discourse excoriates politicians who have ever changed their positions. True, someone who changes his tune according to his audience or the polls demonstrates a lack of principle. But it is a good thing to change positions and even principles when those have been demonstrated to be wrong. Mitt Romney was once pro-abortion, but he since changed his mind and became pro-life. Barack Obama exhibited the knee-jerk anti-war sentiments of his leftwing friends, but when he saw how the surge was working and learned a little about the progress being made in Iraq, he modified his position, however slightly. John McCain used to oppose off-shore drilling, but now, in response to the new oil prices and the evident need for more supplies, he is now for it. These changes might be dismissed as cynical flip-flops to gain votes–though since when is it a bad thing to follow the desires of voters?–but they may show a commendable seriousness of mind. One could argue that our current administration has been plagued with this stubborn inflexibility and indifference to facts.

A major problem today, going beyond politics, is that in our current climate of relativism and the rejection of reason, people are impervious to persuasion, no matter what the evidence or the reasoning is. Individuals form an idea based on arbitrary prejudice or self-interest, and it is impossible to get them to change their minds. This is not standing on principle, it’s rejecting objective truth.

Steven Pearlstein makes a good use of Shakespeare to figure out what is going on with the economy. From Macbeth and the Market:

Is this a dagger we see before us, hanging over the global financial system, or a dagger of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brains of frightened investors and depositors, greedy short-sellers, short-sighted auditors, and attention-seeking analysts and journalists?

Okay, so I’m no Shakespeare — I never could get iambic pentameter. What I do know, however, is that Macbeth’s famous question is relevant to the unfolding financial crisis. Are the markets reflecting the reality of economic fundamentals, or are we getting lots of false signals reflecting irrational herd behavior?

Whether the daggers we see before us are just daggers of the mind or portents of something real–or, in Macbeth’s case, both–is a question that applies beyond economics to a lot of the fears we have. This is a good example of how a literary image can help us think by giving us categories to think with.

UPDATE: In thinking about Shakespeare’s play, I realized that Mr. Pearlstein misses the point of the imagery. The dagger was not hanging over Macbeth, with him having to decide whether it was real or not before it fell on him. The dagger leads him into the chamber where he kills the king. Macbeth’s dagger is a symbol of TEMPTATION. The application to the economy would be that our fears and projections could lead us to terrible remedies, such as nationalizing industries, regulating the economy, abandoning the free market, etc.

Or why is Milton’s Satan more interesting as a character than his God? Or why is Dante’s Inferno more entertaining than his Paradiso? Why, in general, are villains more compelling in literature, while the good guys tend to seem stereotyped and bland? (Though, as C. S. Lewis points out, the opposite is the case in real life, with bad people tending to be monotonous and uninteresting in their self-possessed solipsism, while good people tend to be varied and enjoyable to be around.) The answer to these questions tells us much about the human condition.

If any of you see the new Batman movie this weekend, please report. Tell the rest of us if it is worthy of all of the hype. Thank you.