Balancing Surprise and Transparency

Gandalf said: ‘Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.’

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week we read "The Steward and the King."  Our heroes return to Minas Tirith, victorious against Sauron.  Aragorn is crowned king and Faramir surrenders stewardship.  It has a future.

Look again at the quote this post opened with.  After his coronation Aragorn asks the Fellowship to remain in Minas Tirith a little longer.  No one is sure why, and Aragorn will not explain.  Gandalf, when prodded by the hobbits, gives the above answer - which isn't much of an answer at all.

Surprises sure are fun to plan.  It's fun imagining the other person's reaction.  What will they say when they unwrap your gift?  Oh, how they'll cheer when everyone jumps from behind the furniture and shouts surprise.  There's joy in the anticipation of the receipt.  What could have been a regular event becomes elevated when revealed all at once.  Surprises are thrilling.

But not all thrills are good.  Some people find surprises anxiety-inducing.  Being driven to a secret location for a date or coming home to find dozens of friends and family inside ready to party may put some people off in a major way.  What was intended as a good experience becomes a bad one instead.

And then there's just curiosity.  When one is keeping a secret, weird behavior is inevitable.  The person will want to know why you're being weird.  "Why can't we go back to my place until 6:15?"  Anticipation can turn to suspicion.  And how can we expect someone who's suspicious to then enjoy a surprise?

Like most things in life, the answer lies in knowing your audience.  If you want to surprise someone you know has anxiety, ask them their comfort level far in advance.  If you ask them a few days before you plan to surprise them, they may feel pressured into saying yes.  You also won't have much time to adjust your plan.  You also will have given away the surprise!!  So ask them well in advance.  "Hey, it's your birthday in a few months.  I'd like to surprise you.  What kind of surprises would you be OK with?"  A few months notice lets them know you will take what they say into account, but it also gives them time to forget you had the conversation so that they can still actually be surprised.

But there are those who, once you open that Pandora's box, will never be able to stop thinking about it.  Is *this* the day of the surprise?  They'll think about it every day, and when it finally happens they aren't excited, but instead relieved it's finally here.

For those you should be more explicit.  "We're throwing you party on Saturday, but I won't tell you the theme," or "Hey tomorrow we're going on a date but I'm not telling you where except that it's near the ocean."  This gives recipient some parameters of expectation while still leaving some room for surprise.  Done correctly, this can even be used to increase good anticipation.

A key aspect of an ethical life is treating people as individuals.  While we may want to "prepare the feast" in secret, surely the goal of any surprise is the joy of the recipient.  What good is your surprise if it kicks their anxiety into overdrive and makes them suspicious or nervous?  The surprise should be about the other person's enjoyment, not the thrill you get from keeping them in the dark.

At the end of the chapter we learn what Aragorn has been waiting for - Arwen, Elrond's daughter -was coming so the two could be married.  And Aragorn, I suspect along with many celebrities and politicians, wanted his friends present at the wedding among the crowds and 'official' guest list.  There is probably something worth saying that the Elves are both leaving Middle Earth and becoming part of Gondor's bloodline, but that discussion is for another time.

The Lord of the Rings: An Ethical Guide is a Patreon-supported project.  Thank you to all those who have contributed.

Like this project?  Want to learn more?  Want exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content?  Go to my Patreon site and see how you can become a part of the action!

Nothing Will Remain the Same

This week we read "The Field of Cormallen".  The parallel narratives of our text are brought back together as we see what happens to Aragorn, et al, the moment the Ring plunges into Mount Doom.  The Nazgûl fade away, their existence being tied to the Ring.  The orcs flee, for the fear of Sauron no longer drives them to fight.  Many of the men who fought for Sauron see "the ruin of their war and the great majesty and glory of the Captains of the West," and throw their weapons down in surrender.  But some of the men continue to fight: Those who were "deepest and longest in evil servitude" and also "proud and bold."

Though we usually believe orcs are an evil race (largely because of the Elves), consider that as soon as Sauron fell, they ceased to serve him.  Though we can see their flight as cowardice, isn't it really pragmatic?  They were Sauron.  If Sauron is defeated, why continue to fight?

It is the humans who obey him beyond his own existence.  Their pride had become so tied up with his cause they couldn't see any way forward without him.  They preferred to die fighting for a lost cause than find a new cause to which to pledge themselves.  For this lack of vision, they are destroyed.

Later in the chapter we find Sam and Frodo safely in Ithilien.  Gandalf has summoned the Eagles to take him to Mount Doom to rescue them from the eruption.  Sam wakes up in a bed and wonders if he's just been having a dream.  But then he sees Gandalf standing at the foot of his bed, and:

Sam stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between
bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf!
I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself.
Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?’

Sam is in awe at his situation.  Not only has he and Frodo survived their Quest, but Gandalf has survived, too.  Things are better than he expected.  But imperfections persist.  Frodo still has lost a finger.  Theoden and Boromir are still dead.  Though there is victory, there is also cost.

I have a new job.  It pays very well, and it has excellent benefits, and it is with a good organization, and it has good hours, and the people are very good.  I've been able to enjoy this summer in a way I've rarely been able to enjoy a summer since I was a child.  It's been a real treat.

But this job has me working with adults.  And I miss working with kids.  And as the school year begins I expect to miss it more acutely.  Though I am thriving in a way that is beyond my greatest hopes, personally and professionally, it is not without cost.  Hell, my job doesn't use ANY of the education I have.  It's a little wild when I consider I could have gotten this job a few years ago before all that grad school.  Like I wasted all that time and money.

Progress is not 'everything sad coming untrue'.  What's done is done, and it cannot be undone.  Progress is learning what we can from 'everything sad' that happened to us, and applying it to the future.  An unrequited relationship, a bad friend, a bad job, whatever.  Whether or not I could have gotten this job before isn't helpful to think about.  I ought to consider what I learned from those late nights and early mornings and lack of paid time off.  I may not have been as appreciative of this job as I am if I didn't know the hell of my other options.  Working in education remains a dream of mine, but the fact is twice I've lost jobs because the school needed to cut costs and I was the most recent hire.  There isn't much I can do about that, except hope that next time I work at a school it happens to somebody else.  And that's terrible.

The past is a key aspect of progress.  Without one, there's no way to measure the other.  But the past is also worth letting go of, at least collectively.  The future is coming.  Nostalgia is inherently unethical because it suggests the past, which is unattainable, was better.  Any school of thought that necessitates the future must be worse and looks to the past for comfort should be banished from our mind.  It will badly impede progress and make us sound like fools.  But most damningly, it provides solace without providing solutions.

Recall what happened when Sauron was defeated.  There were four reactions.

1.  The Nazgûl, whose very existence had become tied to the Ring, ceased to exist.

2.  The orcs, who fought out of fear of punishment, fled.  Finally given a choice, they turned away from battle.

3.  Many of the humans, who suddenly saw the error of their ways, surrendered.

4.  "Those that were deepest and longest in evil servitude" fought to the death.

And from these we can see four ways to respond to change

1.  Obsolescence.  The Nazgul are gone.

2.  Retreat.  The Orcs will be back, eventually.

3.  Acquiescence.  Those who surrendered accepted their loss and are willing to change with the times.

4.  Stubbornness.  Those who fought back even when all was lost.  We are not told, but surely some soldiers on Gondor fell defeating them.

We can deal with 1-3.  When things are obsolete it is because they are replaced.  They are rarely missed.  Retreating from progress can be problematic, but we must accept that not everyone will accept progress.  As long as they retreat from the mainstream, their enduring presence is little more than a radar blip.  Consider the Amish, or Texan Separatists.  However, they can become a problem if, in their retreat, they gain strength and return to the mainstream (consider modern NAZIs and Confederate Apologists).  But most of the time those who retreat remain in retreat.  Acquiescence is of course the best response.  Minds and labor are resources and the more people who are involved in society the more of those resources we have.

#4 is the most dangerous one, a stubborn and active refusal not only to progress, but to allow others to, also.  Those who had become so involved in Sauron's plan that taking it away was like taking away their identity.  They stood for a last battle so inevitably hopeless it isn't even in the narrative.  And yet it's inconceivable they inflicted no losses to Gondor.  Those are lives lost needlessly.  That soldier could have come home and become a baker or a mason or a teacher - not to mention also a parent and member of their community.  Instead, they are dead - killed defeating the defeated. 

The changes that occur to our world in the name of progress - and in spite of it - are permanent.  Both the revolutionary ones and the counter-revolutionary ones.  Victory does not undo the bad things, it just allows us to address them. 

Sooner or later, the Trump administration, the very embodiment of stubborn resistance to progress, will end. The right-wing governments sweeping the globe will not last forever.  They will replaced by something else: Whether better or worse is yet to be seen.  But the scars they leave behind will remain with us.  We must be prepared to look forward.  We must strive to make the world a better place, even if we lose a finger in the effort.

The Lord of the Rings: An Ethical Guide is a Patreon-supported project.  Thank you to all those who have contributed.

Like this project?  Want to learn more?  Want exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content?  Go to my Patreon site and see how you can become a part of the action!

Growing From Evil

This week we read "Mount Doom."  We are at the culmination of The Quest.  Finally, Frodo and Sam arrive at Mount Doom.  But they find that Gollum, too, has come.  A series of struggles begin, and we are surprised to find Gollum comes out on top.  But in his victory he missteps and falls into the Cracks of Doom.  The Ring is destroyed.  The Quest has succeeded.

Frodo and Sam escape Mount Doom, but the volcano is erupting and a sudden 'black rain' has begun to fall.  It seems unlikely they will escape alive.  Frodo turns to Sam and says:

But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may

have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed

the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the

bitter end. So let us forgive him!

Gollum had two very pivotal moments this chapter.  After attacking Frodo the first time and losing, Sam attacks him with Sting.  We are told,

'Now!’ said Sam. ‘At last I can deal with you!’ He leaped forward with drawn blade

ready for battle. But Gollum did not spring. He fell flat upon the ground and whimpered.

‘Don’t kill us,’ he wept. ‘Don’t hurt us with nassty cruel steel! Let us live, yes,

live just a little longer. Lost lost! We’re lost. And when Precious goes we’ll die,

yes, die into the dust.’ He clawed up the ashes of the path with his

long fleshless fingers. ‘Dusst!’ he hissed.

Sam is moved to pity and he does not strike.  Gollum slinks away, defeated.  We are told one of the reasons Sam spares him is that Sam recalls his brief time bearing the Ring.  He has some idea of it's burden.  Meanwhile, Gollum bore the Ring for hundreds of years.  Sam can empathize with Gollum in a new way, and this empathy is what moves him to pity.  Soon after though, Frodo betrays the Quest:

‘I have come,’ he said. ‘But I do not choose now to do what Icame to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!’

And suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from

Sam’s sight. Sam gasped, but he had no chance to cry out,

for at that moment many things happened.

One of those many things was the return of Gollum.  He returns and fights Frodo one more time.  This time he is victorious, retrieving the Ring in the most violent way imaginable - by biting through Frodo's bone and taking the whole finger with him.  But during victory dance he falls into Mount Doom.  Oops.

Gollum did nothing but evil this whole chapter - but his actions were crucial to the Quest's success.  We know Sam never would have attacked Frodo, and he certainly never would have won such a struggle.  Further, Sam and Frodo only got as far as they did with Gollum's assistance.  Recall he shows them the secret way into Mordor - their plan was to, ahem, "simply walk into Mordor."  Through the front gate, no less!  Gollum also guided them through the Dead Marshes.  Though evil, Gollum was useful, particularly in navigating evil spots.

We'd discussed before how Gollum is like a past trauma - something that follows and drives us forward.  I think Gollum can represent the lessons learned.  If you're in a harrowing situation once, you're more likely to successfully navigate it the next time.  At least, the darkness isn't so blinding, even if it remains dark.  Such knowledge can also give new empathy, such as with Sam's decision to spare Gollum.

Frodo implores Sam to forgive Gollum.  Forgiveness is not in vogue nowadays, and perhaps it shouldn't be on a political scale.  But in our personal realm, it ought to be on our mind.  Evil, and it's more common cousin 'bad', is self-destructive.  In most cases, when someone causes harm, they are hurting and will hurt themselves again.  Badness brings harm into the world, and not always where it's intended.  This is the lesson of Gollum destroying the Ring.  If you carry ill-will within you, it may lead you to destroy the things you care about the most.  Bad is inherently destructive.

Likewise, it is difficult for good to lead to harm.  By it's nature, good helps.  But sometimes good isn't enough.  The Ring was not going to go down easy.  Frodo's desire to do good wasn't enough.  Gollum's darkness, and his familiarity with evil, was needed for success.

We all carry baggage that is akin to Gollum.  Something we loathe, but our familiarity with it also gives us understanding.  It can help us navigate new difficulties, and hopefully we can see how to use it to our advantage instead of always being victimized by it.  We must be willing to reach into the abyss to preserve what we love.

Nevertheless, though the Ring and Gollum are evil, Frodo and Sam remain good despite their close encounters with them.  But it wouldn't be right to say Frodo and Sam are unchanged by the experience.  The Ring does change Frodo - he loses a finger.  He also, as we will see, doesn't quite fit in the world any more.  But Sam also changes.

Sam has wanted to kill Gollum since the moment he met him.  When he finally gets the opportunity he knew too much about Gollum's tragedy to strike.  Beyond knowing he understood and felt Gollum's burden.  Sam shows significant growth here.  His encounter with evil drives him to mercy.

So that's the real lesson here.  It isn't to remain unchanged by evil.  It is to subvert evil, to learn about it and use that knowledge to its own undoing.  Gollum is spared and yet he throws his life away.  If you encounter evil and resist it unchanged that is a worthy feat.  But it would be even better to wrestle with it, grow from it, and find how it can be turned to good.

The Lord of the Rings: An Ethical Guide is a Patreon-supported project.  Thank you to all those who have contributed.

Like this project?  Want to learn more?  Want exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content?  Go to my Patreon site and see how you can become a part of the action!

Ethics in Choicelessness

This week we read "The Land of Shadow," which is truly one of my least favorite chapters of the text.  It's a bit dull and not much of importance happens.  I wouldn't quite go so far as to call it filler, and there is one very important moment that connects the dual timelines (We learn exactly where Frodo and Sam are when the Witch-King is destroyed), but the plot hardly moves at all.

Sam and Frodo are on the last part of their march to Mount Doom.  They have some close encounters with quite a few orcs, who give themselves away easily because they are always so loud.  One moment stands out:

‘There now!’ he laughed, flicking at their legs. ‘Where there’s a whip there’s a will, my slugs.

Hold up! I’d give you a nice freshener now, only you’ll get as much lash as your skins will

carry when you come in late to your camp. Do you good. Don’t you know we’re at war?’

The orc commander is pushing his soldiers on and on - he is cruel with his whip and his words.  He tells them any pause will be punished later and guilts them with the reminder of war.  They say "Where there's a will there's a way," but what if that will comes from the lash of a whip?

People are motivated by two things:  Long-term goals and immediate urgency.  The long-term goals is what makes us human.  Animals don't have college or careers or mortgages or representative government or artistic ambition or weight-loss goals.  All of those things take a particular level of planning.

Immediate urgency is much more innate and natural:  Staying home from work when you're sick (or going to work anyway because you can't afford to take days off); caring for a hurt loved one; handing your money over to a mugger.  These are all things that interrupt our regular routine and usually our long-term goals.  But, as humans, some of our responses to immediate urgency look like this: eating a cheeseburger because it's tastier than a salad (not to mention cheaper and faster); playing video games when you have errands to run; putting off exercise yet another day; doing what is familiar and comfortable instead of what is new and challenging.  All of these things feel good in the moment, but many have unwanted consequences down the line.

That doesn't mean responding to immediate urgency is bad.  You should pretty much always just hand your money over when you're being robbed.  But obviously having your money taken in this way is a blow to your long-term goals.  But so is resisting the mugger and potentially being physically hurt.  So is working 60 hours a week until you collapse from burn-out.  So is eating so much salad that you see food only as a source of energy and not of pleasure.  There is a tension between keeping to our long-term goals and responding to immediate urgency.  Life without comfort sucks.  You need to find a balance.

The Internet is full of "success strategies."  They tend to be bullshit.  The author takes what works for them and assumes it will work for everyone.  That's not how people function - different people need different strategies.  If finding the right strategy was easy we wouldn't need to learn it - we'd already know.

I'm not going to give any success strategies, because success is beyond the realm of ethics.  Instead I want to talk about the underlying motivations I previously pointed out.

What drives you?  Are you hoping to move towards a better life than you have now, or are you hoping to escape a currently bad situation?  They are two sides of the same coin, but which one speaks to you more important.

If you're aiming for a better life, it is likely easier for you to focus on your long-term goals.  Your motivation is pulling you forward in a specific direction.  Studying late nights for exams or getting up early for work every day or sticking to a schedule is easier because you know what's on the other side of that struggle.

If you're trying to escape a bad situation it's much harder to focus on long-term goals.  Your motivation isn't pulling you in one direction, but simply pushing you away from what's bad.  But there are lots of ways to escape bad situations.  One can take more naps (sleep is an escape for many), one can consume media, one can eat comfort foods, etc.  Few of these short-term solutions lead to long-term success, but we can't hold such short-term thinking against people who are suffering.  "Where there's a whip there's a way."  The orcs in front may not be receiving the whip, but I am sure the threat of the whip is what's making them stay up front.

So aiming for a better life is clearly superior - in terms of likelihood of success.  However, that's a matter of circumstance, not choice.  For ethical considerations to be relevant, choice must be present.  So the ethics is not in our own motivation, but how we view that of others.

People who are trying to escape a bad situation face an enormous amount of pressure.  If you are aiming for a better life you can take a day or two off sometimes to relax and recharge.  If you're trying to escape a hard life you do not have that privilege.  Every day is a struggle.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to live in relative comfort - who seek only to better their at least decent lives - we should be grateful to have such a solid foundation beneath us.  We should extend that gratitude to others who don't have it, and be kind and helpful to them when we encounter them, so they can conserve their energy for the conflicts in their lives that are currently unavoidable.  If we can help them deal with those conflicts, all the better!  But, at least, we should do no harm.

So when you see someone who you believe is struggling make choices that address immediate urgency but don't support their long-term goals, go easy on them.  Few people are motivated by guilt.  Shit can be tough, and while they also want a better life (obviously) sometimes it's more important for them to get some relief and comfort now, consequences be damned.  We aren't machines and we cannot endure difficulty without respite.

And for those who are trying to escape a bad situation remember you don't have to own your burdens all on your own.  There are almost certainly people around you to whom you can unload your troubles - if only verbally.  Your troubles, whatever they are, are hard enough.  Don't empower them by isolating yourself.  We are social beings.  Not everything is the whip that is driving you onward.  If you internalize your struggles, you risk carrying them around with you even after you have escaped them.  The best defense is to occasionally share your story with others.  Anyone who calls themselves your friend will listen.

The Lord of the Rings: An Ethical Guide is a Patreon-supported project.  Thank you to all those who have contributed.

Like this project?  Want to learn more?  Want exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content?  Go to my Patreon site and see how you can become a part of the action!