Stranger Rings

Spoiler alert for all 3 seasons of Stranger Things.


This week we read "The Tower of Cirith Ungol."  Separated from his master, Sam searches the Orc hideout in the hopes of finding Frodo before it's too late.  It's an interesting chapter, not least because Sam is the main character throughout.  However, this week I want to do something different.

While we’ve been reading Lord of the Rings to try to shine light on our own lives, one could also use it to shine light on other works.  One’s enjoyment of Star Wars is enhanced if you’re familiar with samurai films.  The Lion King proves a good introduction to the seeminglydense Hamlet.  Art informs art.

When I finished the third season of Stranger Things, I was struck by the parallels to Lord of the Rings.  For those who have chosen not to watch Stranger Things, here's a very brief synopsis:

• In the first season: Will Byers is a young boy who is attacked by an evil monster that was unleashed by government inter-dimensional testing.  The monster uses Will as a conduit to our own world.  Eleven is a talented young girl who is taken from her family and trained by the government to hone her Jedi-like powers.  Flashbacks show her fighting the monster that attacked Will.  Through the season they become friends and at the end of the season Eleven faces the monster, which has completed the interdenominational jump, and sends it back.
• The second season is less remarkable.  Though free from the monster, Will retains a connection with it, and can sense when it is active in its own world.  Eleven tries to find and reconnect with her family.
• In the latest season, the monster returns.  This time it takes over Billy, the school bully.  Will and Eleven fight him.  Eleven, in a mental/Jedi struggle with Billy, learns he developed into a bully because he had an abusive father.  In the final battle at the mall, Billy finds Eleven and restrains her so the monster can get her.   Unbeknownst to him, Eleven has mysteriously lost her powers, and is not the threat she once was.  Anyway, Eleven reveals to Billy what she knows about him and, and this inspires him to sacrifice himself against the monster.  Meanwhile, the adults are in an underground Russian bunker trying to close the inter-dimensional gate.  When they succeed, the monster ceases to exist in our world.

OK - to analysis!  Will and Eleven, like Frodo, are both reluctant heroes.  They are given special powers only due to their contact with evil forces (The monster, the government, and the Ring).  They rise to the challenge, but none wish it had come.

El also has something in common with the Elves.  At the end of the third season she has lost her powers.  A new era has come.  And just like the Elves must fade (or accept mortality), so must El accept normalcy (Though of course I fully expect her to regain her powers in the next season).

Billy is like Boromir.  He’s corrupted by the evil power, but clearly despises evil.  But he was always a jerk, even without the evil.  But just as meeting Denethor gives us some insight into why Boromir was so proud, so does meeting Billy’s dad give us understanding into how he became a bully.  But Boromir, for his flaws, was honorable.  In the end, Billy also stood up to the evil that was trying to control him.  Boromir and Billy were both jerks whose fear of weakness made them susceptible to corruption.  But it’s hard to make the argument either of them were outright evil.

Another similarity I saw was the nature of the climax.  The battle at Starcourt Mall was exciting and noisy and heroic.  But that battle was just a delaying tactic.  What mattered was deep underground, at the Gate.  Similarly, the battle at the Black Gate is big and showy, but the only struggle that matters is Sam and Frodo’s.  Both stories show us that what’s on the surface can be superficial.  It’s the smaller struggles deep underground/in enemy territory that matter.

OK, but so what?  One can draw a lot of similarities between a lot of art.  The Hero’s Journey is an archetype that covers thousands of stories.  But the story of Odysseus, Moses, Luke Skywalker, and Ariel are all radically different, too.  What does it matter?

Art informs how we view the world.  What we see should reflect real life - otherwise what's the point?  We connect to art when we see ourselves.  And how we see ourselves can be both superficial and deep. We all know someone - and we may be someone - who was shaped by a poor relationship with an authority figure.  But whether Billy, Boromir, or Luke or Ariel resonates most with you is important, too.  Billy responded by trying to be above it all and "cool".  Boromir responded by doing everything he could to win his father's respect.  Luke is regularly betrayed by the authority in his life.  Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen lie to him about his father.  Darth Vader tries to get him to join the Dark Side.  And when Luke himself is the authority he ends up betraying Ben Solo - he cannot break the cycle.  Ariel has a yet different conflict with authority: What she wants is forbidden by her father, but she pursues it regardless.  The archetype is similar but the details remain important.

Learning the lessons of Lord of the Rings is a laudable goal unto itself (At least I hope it is!).  But once we familiarize ourselves with the underlying archetypes, we can use the similarities we see between it and other works to quickly see beneath their surface, too.  Art informs art.

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!

Situations VS Events

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new!”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
(Ecclesiastes, 1:9-10)
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This week we read "The Black Gate Opens." Aragorn leads an army from Minas Tirith to the gate of Mordor to challenge Sauron to battle, his aim not to win through arms but through cunning.  He wants to draw Sauron's gaze out of Mordor so Frodo might have a better chance..

On the way the army skirmishes with a few enemies who are watching the road to the gate.  One such encounter occurs precisely where Faramir had ambushed the enemy on the day he first met Frodo and Sam.

A strong force of Orcs and Easterlings attempted to take their

leading companies in an ambush; and that was in the very place where

Faramir had waylaid the men of Harad, and the road went in a

deep cutting through an out-thrust of the eastward hills.

The terrain, of course, doesn't take a side.  Mountains and valleys don't care about war.  They exist to be used in every which way.  Cover can conceal both good and bad guys.

I want to talk today about the difference between situations and events.  Events are occurrences - they happen.  Events can be described in great detail:  Who did what, what they were wearing, how hard the wind was blowing, etc.  Events are specific moments in time and space.  Moving the moon landing from 1969 to 1959 fundamentally changes history.  Moving Hurricane Katrina to the Florida Keys drastically changes the recent history of New Orleans.  Events occur and can be described with great specificity..

Situations are events shorn of their details.  The perfect storm was a real storm that occurred in 1991, and was the unlikely but powerful combination of three weather systems.  Since that event, "a perfect storm" has become a moniker for any situation that can be described as the unlikely but powerful confluence of three factors.  You have perhaps experienced a perfect storm situation.  You will probably face more in the future.  That's the nature of situations: They can be applied over and over again.

When we evaluate the events in our lives, it can be useful to look at them as situations.  The details are too specific to learn much from.  Instead, we should look at the broad factors.  It's unlikely "we went to Hawaii and did fun things" will be useful in planning future vacations.  It may even lead to disappointment, if you return to Hawaii to do the exact same things you did before.  They were new and exciting the first time.  In planning future vacations it may be better to say of your Hawaiian adventure "we went somewhere new we were excited about, and researched fun things to do ahead of time".  That gives you useful actionable advice.  You liked doing something new that you could anticipate, and you looked up things to do ahead of time so you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time while on your vacation figuring out what to do.  You were able to just do it.

The more technical term for this is "schema", which is the plural of schemes.  Here, scheme isn't a shady plan, but a broad outline.  In education, schema are how we are able to learn math.  Learning 1+1=2 is of extremely limited value.  It is nothing more than a very specific math event.  We don't teach children each math problem - that would take forever.  We teach them the principles and processes of math, the "situation" of math.  Then they are able to solve all sorts of math problems, because they are applying the situation to the event.  Schema become the template upon which all education is based.

It is important for schema to be flexible.  Rarely do we know everything.  If we want our template to be useful, we need to be willing to update it.  Since schema can cover every possible reality, they need to bend quite a bit.  Reality does not bend.

Consider this:  Someone has a schema that relationships end when someone is unhappy.  Let's say this someone gets suddenly dumped.  They are, we understand, taken aback and surprised.  They may need some time to process it.  There are two main conclusions they can come to.

1.  My partner must have been unhappy and I just didn't know it.
2.  Relationships end when someone is unhappy or for no reason.

#1 is a reasonable reaction, and very likely to be true.
#2 is less reasonable and definitely not true.

Also, #1 describes an event.  It applies the schema to the event.  The schema says relationships end when someone is unhappy, my relationship just ended, I wasn't unhappy, my partner must have been.
#2, meanwhile, applies the event to the schema.  No reason is obvious, therefore it is obvious there was no reason.  A person who concludes #1 may, in the future, take time to check with their partner to make sure they are happy, knowing that some people will be unhappy without showing it.  A person who concludes #2 may become a much less reliable partner, since they now believe can relationships end randomly.

The schema is useful in understanding the event.  The event is unhelpful in understanding the schema.

But that doesn't mean events are worthless to us.  Events give context to the present.  An increased risk for heart attack is probably directly tied to actions you've taken, and not a broad understanding of the situations of your life.  Returning to the math comparison, one can complete a long division problem by doing specific division, multiplication, and subtracting problems.  A broad understanding of those things isn't enough, you need to do it.

Events are great in the moment.  We need to keep track of the, so we know what is happening around us.  The world moves fast, and it's helpful to see which dominoes are actually falling so we can react accordingly.

Situations, meanwhile, are great for understanding potential.  When "the Orcs and Easterlings" set up their ambush it is unlikely they chose that spot because of Faramir's ambush.  They just came upon it and realized how good it was for such an attack.  If you have good schema you can see potential events without needing to actually see them in happen.

Understanding situations is useful for planning for the future.  As my good friend Koheleth said in the introduction, "nothing is new under the sun."  Most events can be broken down into familiar situations, giving us better insight into them than we'd otherwise have.

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!

Humanity's Moral Compass

Though the battle to defend Minas Tirith has been won, the battle for Middle Earth is not over.  Frodo is in Mordor, alone except for Sam.  Victory and defeat are both in view and there is little those in Minas Tirith can do to change the outcome.

This chapter is called "The Last Debate," which refers to the discussions the leaders of Minas Tirith have.  They determine the best way to help Frodo is to distract Sauron.  They will send troops to the Black Gate and challenge Sauron directly.  Sauron, they figure, will send all the troops he has from Mordor to confront them, thus giving Frodo and Sam a better chance at success.  And if they die, at least they die fighting.

Elsewhere in Minas Tirith, Legolas and Gimli have a discussion about humans.  It begins with Gimli admiring the stone of Minas Tirith.

‘And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the

first building,’ said Gimli. ‘It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a

frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.’

‘Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,’ said Legolas. ‘And that will

lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places

unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.’

To provide a bit more context, Gimli is remarking that while Minas Tirith was given a strong foundation, eventually humans failed.  First, with Isildur (the King) taking The One Ring, and then with Denethor (the Steward) committing suicide.  Both were acts of arrogance.  Humans showed great promise when they arrived in Middle Earth, but they have so far not met their potential.  Something goes wrong whether "a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer."

But Legolas provides a different view.  Yes, humans may fail in an annual fashion, but those failures provide a fresh foundation for the future.  Humans may botch important historical moments, and individuals may not reach their potential, but slowly but surely humans learn from their mistakes, and their failings inform the future.  Aragorn's greatest attributes is his caution and humility.  One does not acquire these characteristics by success.

This is a nuanced view on progress.  Consider our own world.  At the end of every century, for the most part, the world is better than it was at the beginning.  Within each century, we can find moments of terrible and needless suffering, but that suffering (while still needless) can inspire a search for a better world for the future.

Failure is temporary.  Failure teaches empathy, compassion, and reflection.  Self-examination requires failure - what else would motivate it?  And if we agree with Socrates that "the unexamined life is not worth living" then what we're saying is that failure makes life worthy.

It's extremely disappointing to see potential go to waste.  Loyalty pledged to an unworthy cause.  Passion shown for immoral acts.  Joy found in cruelty.  Loyalty and passion and joy are all good, but they become problematic in certain cases.  If you see enough of this, you may turn to cyncism - the only ones motivated to do anything are the bad guys.  Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

But there's some small comfort knowing that, as a whole, humanity progresses for the better.  There may be failures, and there may be tragedies, and there may be needless suffering, but we need not despair of the whole.  Like the invisible hand of the free market, there's an invisible hand of humanity's moral compass.  It may not always work on the individual level, but on the whole, we get results.  The understanding of human rights in 2000 is considerably better than the understanding of human rights in 1900.

I purposely said this is a "small comfort."  The wheel of progress doesn't release us from our responsibilities to participate.  In fact, it's pointedly unethical to say "This all works out in the end - I can do what I want."  An ethical guide should challenge and inspire, not excuse.  That's a recipe for despair.

And, as I've noted before, despair is a real killer.  Despair has short term and long term consequences which are almost too obvious to be worth mentioning.  So instead, let's talk about recycling.

The most effective way to get people to recycle, it turns out, is to get other people to recycle.  Peer pressure works.  In fact, the pressure doesn't even have to be real.  The best way to encourage recycling, it turns out, is to tell people other people are recycling.  We all have a primal desire to be part of the group.  If we think "the group" is recycling, we will recycle.


We should do good, and in doing good we will motivate others to do good.  And the more do-gooders there are, the more people may be motivated to do good.  And on and on and on.  We should support others who do good, and we should help ensure loyalty, passion and joy support good and not evil.  Indeed, that is precisely what the invisible hand of the moral compass is: The result of innumerable individuals doing what is right.  Without that, nothing pushes the needle northward.

If most people don't see any point in doing what's right, and most people don't see anyone else doing what's right, that's a pretty strong foundation for wrong-doing to occur.  Not because most people have become evil, but because they don't DO good.  Being not-evil isn't enough.  Even being good isn't enough.  What's needed is action.  Public action on behalf of good.  Anything less only empowers evil, and weakens the magnet pulling humanity's needle north.  We may 'fail of our promise' but we must try.  To hijack a common saying: It is better to resist and lose than to yield willingly to evil.  Our failures can inspire the future.  Our surrender will not.

As long as we know what's right, we have a chance to withstand evil.  But once we allow our sense of what's right to become muddled, everything is lost.

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!

What is the PRIMARY goal?

This week we read "The Pyre of Denethor" and "The Houses of Healing."  When the Rohirrim arrive to break the siege of Gondor, we would expect the leaders of Minas Tirith to be overjoyed with relief.  Instead, Pippin and Gandalf must confront Denethor, who has given up hope and decided the best action is to die sooner than wait for the forces of Mordor to do kill him.  His intention is to burn himself and Faramir alive.  In the second chapter, the battle has ended and the surviving characters recover from their wounds.

We will stick with the first chapter, "The Pyre of Denethor."  Denethor has been a difficult character to understand for most of our text.  He needs Gandalf's help, but resents him every step of the way.  He takes Pippin into his personal service, but doesn't give him much to do.  This chapter untangles the mystery:  Denethor has had his own Palantír, and has used it to communicate with Sauron.  But unlike Saruman, who betrays the West, Denethor's communication leads to despair.

When Gandalf comes with hope, Denethor does not believe him.  When Gandalf does not tell him of Aragorn's coming, Sauron reveals that fact, causing Denethor to consider Gandalf a usurper.  And so Denethor is led astray both by Sauron and also his own desire of self-reliance.  He is so self-centered that, when he finally lights his own pyre, he takes the Palantír into the flames with him.

Denethor's arrogance leads to some serious strife.  He orders his men to bring torches so he can set himself and Faramir ablaze.  Beregond, Pippin's friend in the guard, refuses the command and draws his sword against the others.  When Gandalf arrives, Beregond has killed three men.  After Gandalf sets the record straight, he says:  ‘Work of the Enemy!  Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts.’  If the men of Minas Tirith kill each other, Sauron's goal is that much easier.

The 2020 Democratic primary is underway.  There are a variety of candidates out there, all with pros and cons.

(A note before we continue.  I'm writing from a Democratic voter point of view, since I am a Democratic voter.  Maybe you consider yourself an independent, or even a Republican.  However, if you intend to vote for Trump (who has put people in concentration camps in our country) you need this ethical guide more than most.  Don't bother with this post.  Instead, read this and this and get back to me with questions.)

The beauty of a primary is it's a way for the party to engage in a public debate about their ideas.  Bold, or incremental?  Familiar, or new?  What issues should be prioritized?  All of these are healthy things to discuss.  But the problem with a primary is, if the disagreements are too deep, you may end up with a candidate everyone dislikes equally.

Generally, arguments between friends and partners is good.  Arguments are a showcase of values.  They are an opportunity to hear the values of others and to figure out where the common ground is (not to be confused with 'middle ground').  To take a time honored example, teenagers may want to stay out late with their friends.  Their parents may feel nervous about them staying out late into the night.  A bad solution becomes a power struggle: The teen says they want independence, but the adult says their anxiety about their safety takes precedence.  This teaches that independence is in conflict with safety, and also teaches the teen to be subservient (or motivates rebellion).  A good solution avoids this zero-sum lens.  The teen can stay out late, but they will text their parents every 45 minutes who they are with.  Both sides get what they want, even if it isn't exactly what they envisioned.

There are 22+ candidates to choose from.  Some are worse than others.  Hopefully the field will shrink before Iowa.  And then we'll vote, have more debates, vote more, and finally have one candidate that clearly has the most support.  In that case, all our fighting up to then will have been good.

Look at the text again: Gandalf does not complain of "Friend battling friend."  He battles with people all the time - with Denethor, with Gimli, with Pippin.  The issue is being "at war with friend".  War is different - war is large and wholesale.  Battles are smaller things, which one can win or lose without destruction.  But war is different.

While we argue over the candidates and their policies and their pasts, we must keep in mind our common objective: Defeating Donald Trump.  That's the war we need to focus on.  From Biden to Williamson, all the candidates oppose his atrocious policies on immigration, which is causing real suffering right now, directly and indirectly.  Similarly, they all have a vision of increasing healthcare access, decreasing the wealth gap, and confronting global climate change.  Each of their visions, of course, are different.  But at least they have such goals, whereas Trump does not (he claims to want to fight the wealth gap, but has only worsened it).

And yet there is despair.  I understand it.  I've heard - from family gatherings to the workplace - different people say "Trump's going to win, it is no use."  It's very early to be feeling thus.  I hope the primary invigorates these people, and that they find a candidate that they can get excited about.

Excited, but not attached.  Part of Denethor's despair is attached to his arrogance.  Gandalf asks him what he wants and he says:

‘I would have things as they were in all the days of my life,’ answered Denethor,

‘and in the days of my longfathers before me: to be the Lord of this City in peace,

and leave my chair to a son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard’s

pupil. But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life

diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated.’

Being excited about a candidate is a great thing.  It means we may donate to them, buy their bumper stickers and lawn signs, make phone calls, canvas door to door, or go to a rally.  All of these things will help.  However, at a certain point only ONE candidate will win the primary.  It is likely it will not be our first candidate of choice.  And now we differentiate between excited and attached.

If we are excited for your candidate, and they are not the nominee, that will be disappointing.  But the candidate will be officially announced in the summer of 2020 - the election is of course in November.  That's plenty of time to process our disappointment and get behind the actual candidate - maybe with less gusto than otherwise.  But behind them nonetheless.

But if we are attached to our candidate, we may see their loss of the nomination as a personal loss.  Not only was our candidate rejected by the party, but WE will feel rejected by the party.  We may want to reject them in turn and refuse to vote.  We lose the battle and give up the whole war.  "Work of the enemy" indeed.

We would be fools to be arrogant like Denethor.  A candidate we think is half as good as our first pick is still much better than Trump.  I wrote explicitly about our political situation once before.  In that post, I said: 

Often we hear: "What is required for evil to triumph is

for good people to do nothing."  Often we think that do-nothing attitude is

intentional - the good people don't care.  What if it's a byproduct of caring too much?

If we allow despair and paralysis to take hold within us, surely our enemies will triumph.

Bitterness and pride are ruinous.  There are people dying in concentration camps in our country.  Vote Democrat in 2020.  Have a preference of candidates and fight for your priorities, but in the end, on November 3rd, 2020, vote Democrat.  It is unconscionable to let people suffer in squalor because you didn't get 100% of what you wanted.

NB: While I linked a lot of articles casting dispersions of many canidates, I meant for those articles to be an example of negative opinions.  They are not reflective of my opinions (With the exception of trashing Marianne Williamson.  If you plan to vote for her, let's talk).

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!