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SlowwHand
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of The Cooler
Sep 1999
time: 23:25
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Everyone should have a chance to see this article, and think about what he's saying.
I agree 100%, naturally, or I wouldn't be taking this time.
In fact, I've said much of this here previously.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/v...tter.ab961.html
David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's lessons
01/13/2003
By DAVID PERLMUTTER
J.R.R. Tolkien chafed at his characters and their adventures being read as mere stand-ins for current events. No, Sauron wasn't an allegorical Adolf Hitler, and Gandalf was no long-bearded, staff-bearing Winston Churchill. But the creator of The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth, a scholar of medieval literature in his day job, did argue that some old tales have "applicability" to modern times.
People in World War II and the Cold War found such applications in the story of the ring of power (truly a weapon of mass destruction), the quest to destroy it and the war of the shaky coalition of good peoples of the world against an aggressive evil empire.
Now, a new generation is streaming to the second film based on the book trilogy. Its box-office take eventually may hit the Titanic peak. Is such popularity an appreciation of something deeper than spectacular battles, classic characters and jagged scenery?
In Tolkien, there are moral, military and political lessons that apply to every age, especially one mired in a chaotic war between civilization and the forces of terrorism, incarnated if not led by Osama bin Laden. In a complex world, these truths are simple, harsh but timeless:
1) Ordinary individuals matter.
The Lord of the Rings series is red with mighty battles. But in the long run, all are inconsequential. Only the destruction of Sauron's ring of power can terminate his reign. That quest is undertaken (in The Fellowship of the Ring) by heroes from all the free peoples but ultimately carried on (in The Two Towers) and completed (in The Return of the King) by the most innocuous and seemingly unimportant folk of the earth – the funny, little hobbits. Tolkien here broke with an age-old tradition of the adventure epic in not casting a granite-biceped Hercules or Beowulf as his central protagonist. Wars against evil, accordingly, must be won by us. If we wait for others to save us, we are lost.
2) Free peoples either stand together or die alone.
One major plot of The Two Towers is whether the allies against evil will be shorn apart by fear, delusions, machinations of the enemy or selfish agendas. Why, for example, should the riders of Rohan care about what is going on outside their pastures? It is Gandalf, the great and good wizard, who argues for decisive action, because "doom hangs still on a thread." Likewise, all the peoples of the world who reject terrorism must cooperate to stamp it out: Separate peaces only will mean we are buried in separate graves.
3) There is no final victory.
Gandalf cautions there is no closure for an eternal struggle, for even if Sauron falls, "other evils ...may come; Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary." So, too, with a war against terrorism – the enemy isn't one man or one group but a perversion of theology that finds new forms in every age. As our republic's own wise wizard, Thomas Jefferson, put it, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
4) Evil can't be bought off or bargained with.
The coalition of free peoples often considers making deals with Sauron or other villains. In each case, Gandalf rejects the deceptions, noting that evil prospers if it finds partners and that its bleatings of compromise are "to deceive the ignorant." Likewise, today's terrorism, in its guile, confuses us by demanding accommodation, when its final purpose is our full destruction. Once we give in, we have given up.
Those precepts on how to fight intolerance and extremism from the fantasy kingdoms of Middle Earth are eternal. Like all great myths, they challenge and instruct, and we classify them as irrelevant at our own peril.
David D. Perlmutter is an associate professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University.
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Dr Strangelove
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Other lessons to be learned include:
(1) Don't mess with Mother Nature. Remember Tom Bombadil and also the Ents.
(2) Tobacco is good for you. Only evil people would try to take it away from you.
(3) Agrarian good - Industry bad. Small business good - Big business bad.
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PeteH
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I am a bit rusty on some of my Tolkien history, but I have been thinking about this lately in relation to other things I've read over the past few years and see parallels in this way:
(Note I have no idea how much of this actual history Tolkien was aware of, and don't presume to put words into his mouth, but whether coincidence, or possibly grown out of similar feeling, either way I like it)
If I recall, the basic idea behind middle earth was a vision of Earth as it was 10000 years ago or so. This also happens to be the time frame of the so-called 'agricultural revolution' in which the modern culture has its root.
Prior to this event, there were thousands of tribes living their own ways of life all around the world. There was always low level conflict among neighbors, but overall, things were peaceful, and all out war was nearly unheard of. (The elves and dwarves and hobbits and men all got along, even if they had very different world views)
But with the advent of the totalitarian agriculture which generally marks the beginning of civilization(totalitarian agriculture not being a political modifier, but a system of agriculture which takes land and converts it to use soley as human food, to the exclusion of all else) All kinds of trouble arose for those tribal people. Some were attracted by the amount of stuff available under the system (like the 9 riders) and became advocates spreading the idea and conquering those who would not come peacefully. But in direct battle, the tribes could not stand up to the dark forces. They had the resources to fight far away from their homes because of the amount of food they produced, and could support full time armies through the use of slave labor.
In this sense I see the ring as representing an idea. The tribes could fight back against the armies all they want, but would eventually be overrun, unless they could destroy the idea that there was only one right way for people to live.
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Lord Merciless
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So Tolkien is a ultra-reactionist who wants to the humanity to stuck forever in hunter-gatherer societies?
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PeteH
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As I said, I dont make any claim to know if Tolkien had any idea about the birth of civilization, simply that I see parallels between his story and the story of the growth of modern culture. It struck me when I was in the process of moving recently, and happened to catch part of one of the morning news shows( Today of Good Morning America, somethign like that) who introduced the entertainment segment and subsequent movie review of TTT as a band of heros fighting to save civilization. I started thinking about it and they really weren't trying to save 'civilization' they were trying to stop the force that would eliminate their ways of life, which were all different. The hobbits weren't sitting there miserable until sarument could come along and impose order and technology on them, and neither were the various tribes around the world.
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Lefty Scaevola
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San Antonio TX USA
Oct 2000
time: 23:25
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The moral of LoTR:
"Life's a b**ch and then you become a disembodied wraith tortured for ages by a tremendously powerful malevolant being."
Last edited by Lefty Scaevola on 15-01-2003 at 07:44
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:25
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quote:
Originally posted by SlowwHand
Everyone should have a chance to see this article, and think about what he's saying.
I agree 100%, naturally, or I wouldn't be taking this time.
In fact, I've said much of this here previously.
1) Ordinary individuals matter. |
I agree, this goes without saying.
quote:
2) Free peoples either stand together or die alone. |
Yes, this is why the English, Canadians, French, Germans, New Zealanders, and all other free peoples must immediately declare war on the United States.
quote:
4) Evil can't be bought off or bargained with. |
Yes - same response as (2)
I second the comments made about Mordor.
Tolkien has nothing to do with American peculiarities and this article is misinterpretation of the first class. From what I've read he, like most other English people of his class, he didn't think very much of the US.
Look Americans have no business appropriating one of the most fundamentally English books ever written. How many English people try to claim that Mark Twain refers to Britain and the British way of life. You aren't like the British at all - in fact, they think you Americans are slightly mad.
Now go away, or we'll send more of our bad royals like Fergie to live in your country.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Merciless
So Tolkien is a ultra-reactionist who wants to the humanity to stuck forever in hunter-gatherer societies? |
No, he was a Christian romanticist who idealized the agrarian life of pre-industrial England, and that good ol' fashioned religion, but not necessarily in that order.
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Agathon
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Leafs 4TW!! - CPA
Dec 2002
time: 00:25
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Because it originates from an attempt to create a national myth for the English people, much as the Kalevala [sic] was supposed to for the Finns.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the American moral/political system and American social mores (there are kings for one), which English people tend to view with distaste because they go against their own. I've yet to go into an American pub that was anything like the Green Dragon - yet the GD is recognisable as an English country pub. Tolkien is a sort of reactionary english country conservative - to my knowledge the same sort of person just doesn't exist in the US - at least I've never met one.
I wasn't being overly serious in much of the former, but people from the States tend to think that the Western Europeans are just like them and have the same values (even respected scholars like Samuel Huntingdon). The Canadians are probably the closest in sentiment to the US, but that isn't saying much. The rest of us tend to accentuate the differences (no death penalty, a dark sense of humour, the welfare state, public broadcasting, tort reform, pluralism without nationalism, no hang ups about the government, guns, etc.).
David:
Ordinary individuals matter, but more matter more than less.
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13-01-2003 18:33
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