On war - and worse...

This week we read "The White Rider."  The Three Hunters enter Fangorn following the tracks of the Hobbits.  But then they meet the White Rider - whom they initially think is Saruman but is, of course, Gandalf.  Gandalf tells them the Hobbits are safe, and that there is something else they must do:

You must go to Edoras and seek out Théoden in his hall.

For you are needed. The light of Andu´ril must now be uncovered in

the battle for which it has so long waited.

There is war in Rohan, and worse evil: it goes ill with Théoden.’

"Worse than war?"
"What can be worse than war?"
"War can lead lasting marks on generations, can destroy nations, and ruins landscapes."
"But there are some wars, we know, that are just."
"Still, war is awful.  Even a just war is traumatic."
"So what can Gandalf mean?"
"I think what he means is that Theoden will not stir.  He will avoid the just war."
"Is it so bad to avoid a just war, if war is so awful?"
"War is a tool.  We must only use it when necessary.  However, when it is necessary, perhaps we must use it.  Few great evils are overthrown by love and understanding."
"Theoden's pacifism will not prevent suffering at the hands of Saruman.  He abdicates his responsibility over his people."
"Suffering can exist without war.  Peace is no panacea."
"So Theoden must be stirred.  Eomer's righteous campaign is worse than not enough - it is counter-productive, as it splits the people and undermines Theoden's authority."
"Even before the first blow is landed, the Rohirrim split into factions."
"This is the worse evil - not to go to war, but to lose community over a disagreement.  Eomer is right, the Rohirrim cannot stand idly by.  But without Theoden's support, it will not be enough.  Gandalf wants the Hunters to reunite the divided Rohirrim.
"Therefore, if we want to do what is right, we should avoid the path of Eomer - taking those who will come with us on a separate, righteous, campaign.  We must do the harder work of politicking.  We must not let the urgency of the situation cause us to break our community."
"But Gandalf says it goes ill with Theoden, not Eomer."
"Eomer has right on his side, and to persuade him would be to push him to embrace wrong.  Instead it is Theoden who must be pulled out of his complacency.  Eomer's err is in his response, not his position."
"So whenever we see a splinter group, we must go to the center and say 'Join the extreme!'?"
"Hmm. I guess not every time.  Sometimes the splinter group is wrong in position, too.  As we have said, the means and the ends must each be justified.
"So if they are right, and yet driven by frustration to break apart, we should not join them.  We also should not try to temper them.  Nor mediate between them both.  If we want to support them, we must go to the center and push them towards the direction.  Perhaps it will not work.  But what will certainly not work is letting the center die the death of a thousand cuts, as different priorities decide to go off on their own rather than remain together.  They may not get what they want and then, with no other guiding principles, they become listless, or more extreme in their requests.  Or they do get what they want, and then they decide they don't need the center at all.  But we only fight for principles to support people.  On their own, principles are worthless.  Remaining in community lets us remain people-driven, not ideology driven."

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On Orcs

This week is another double-portion.  We read "The Uruk-Hai" and "Treebeard."  In the first chapter we see how Merry and Pippin survive their capture of the Orcs, and how they escape into Fangorn forest.  In the next chapter we meet Treebeard, who helps Merry and Pippin after finding them in Fangorn.  Throughout this chapter we learn a lot about Orcs, which will be the focus on today's discussion.  The first two excerpts are from "The Uruk-Hai."

An Orc stooped over [Pippin], and flung him some bread and a strip of raw dried flesh.
He ate the stale grey bread hungrily, but not the meat.
He was famished but not yet so famished as to eat flesh flung to him by
an Orc, the flesh of he dared not guess what creature.

And then, later

‘Maggots!’ jeered the Isengarders [as they run past the Orcs of Mordor]. ‘You’re cooked.
The Whiteskins will catch you and eat you. They’re coming!’

And then, in our second chapter, Treebeard says:

But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the

Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves. 

"Why has the Creative Wizard made villains who were so clearly awful?  It's hard to have much sympathy for Orcs."
"Why must we sympathize with Orcs at all?"
"It makes a story more interesting, I think, to have two reasonable sides.  But in these chapters Merry and Pippin are just victims to cruelty, though they endure surprisingly well."
"The Orcs are not-Elves.  They were not created to do anything."
"But even the Elves, as we are aware, are an imperfect race."
"But one is of course worse."
"Absolutely."
"I wonder if Orcs are meant as a reminder of the existence of evil.  There's a lot in our text to examine of the Free Peoples, as we have seen over the years.  Good people may disagree about what to do, but there is a certain point beyond all can say: This is evil."
"What is that line here?"
"In this text, they nourish themselves in unwholesome ways, and they see themselves in all others.  And because they somehow know they are evil, they must resist those who are like them."
"Somehow?"
"I don't know how else to explain it.  But the Orcs eat whatever - thus they think the Rohirrim will eat them, too.  There is no persuasion and no points of view to examine - it is purely a power struggle, and the defeated one will be vanquished.  They know, or at least believe, no persuasion is possible."
"So we should beware those who say such things?"
"Those who claim righteousness are to be cautioned against.  And those who believe their enemies will stoop to any level will, themselves, justify any such stooping.  But the means and ends must both be justified on their own.  There are no evil races in our world comparable to Orcs (and beware anyone who says otherwise), but there are evil ideologies.  But, as they depend on belief, we should always first seek to undermine the ideology before we decide our only choice is destruction of the people.  They must be given a choice."
"I have found a way to sympathize with Orcs, I think."
"Go on."
"Orcs are like our 'useful idiots.'  They were created as mockery of Elves, but had no choice in that process.  So while they are altogether evil, they are not exactly at fault.  They must be destroyed, but deserve some pity.  Similarly, a useful idiot spouts terrible ideas, and maybe commits terrible deeds, and while they have more agency than the orcs do, they deserve some pity."
"Why should we pity those who bring suffering into the world?  Even if all of Hitler's underlings were  just following orders, those orders led to many deaths."
"We should pity them because they are acting as we may have acted in that situation.  If there was such a race on Earth as evil as Hitler considered the Jews, their destruction could be called for.  That's a reach, I understand.  Let me take a better example:  January 6th occured because many Americans believed the election process had been undermined, that the rightfully elected candidate was denied.  That latter half of that sentence is wrong, but if one believes the election process has been undermined, how should one respond?"
"Lawsuits.  Redistricting.  Protest.  There is all manner of better response."
"But if you think the courts are bias, if you think redistricting is all political, if you think protests will do nothing (there had been protests for weeks before January 6th)?  If there really were some kind of deep-state, as they believed, storming by force may have been the right option.  There are some cases, when faced with evil, when extreme options are justified."
"I litereally just said I JUST SAID that the means and the ends must both be justified on their own."
"Would you let democracy die because you refuse to spill any blood at all?   Would you condemn the lives of millions in your nation to tyranny for the sake of one life? We believe in ethics, and that is choosing the harder way. Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. Rules were meant to be broken, when the time calls for it.  The difficulty is knowing when that time is."
"Who makes that decision?"
"No one, I think.  When the time comes, it will be apparant.  If you plan and plot it, you're just scheming."
"Is it unethical to plan?"
"It is unethical to make a plan which justifies something usually off-limits, yes."
"So sometimes - maybe - extraordinary means are justified.  But we usually should value persuasion over destruction."
"Of course."
"Useful idiots, at least many of them, want to do what is right.  But they are so wrong.  We don't necessarily need to persuade them to our side of a given argument, but we do need to persuade them to our side of the line separating good and evil.  Potential wasted is heartbreaking, and we should strive to help those who so obviously want to make a positive impact on the world.   "
"Who doesn't want to make a positive impact on the world?"
"Exactly.  Exactly.  However, not everyone is reachable.  Maybe some people do want to watch the world burn.  We shouldn't waste our time on those truly who are lost, not to spite them but because we should seek out those who will listen.  We must save as many as possible.  Maybe we will learn some people - not races, but individual people - are like Orcs: Beyond saving.  But those discoveries will be rare, and they will merely illuminate for us where to focus our attention."

This had been a patreon-supported project, but that proved too annoying to maintain.  If you would like to financially support this project, drop $1.11 (or any amount, I suppose) into my Venmo!

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On responsibility

This week we read "The Riders of Rohan."  The Three Hunters have entered Rohan, in pursuit of Merry and Pippin.  However, they are unable to catch them.  They eventually run into a retinue of riders (of Rohan), led by Eomer, who claim they found the Orcs on their land and killed them all.  They say there were no others with them, though they have never heard of a Hobbit and they believe Halflings to be only children's tales.  In any event, there were no survivors among the Orcs.

Ah, I forgot to mention their meeting began contentiously.  The Hunters say they came to Rohan through Lothlorien and were given gifts by Galadriel.  Eomer becomes extremely suspicious.  Instead of thinking that they were given gifts by Galadriel, who obviously opposes Mordor, as a sign of potential friendship, he wonders if they were armed by her to be "net-weavers and sorcerers."  All three of them take offense to that chracterization.

Anyway, given Eomer's certainty whoever Aragorn and company are trying to rescue are dead, he encourages them to join him on the hunt for more tresspassing orcs:

'There is work for the Sword to do. Yes, and we could find a use for
Gimli’s axe and the bow of Legolas, if they will pardon my rash
words concerning the Lady of the Wood. I spoke only as
do all men in my land, and I would gladly learn better.’

"What a man is he, to admit he may be wrong."
"Too many in our times are so self-sure."
"Doubt is ethical.  If you are right, your beliefs will survive.  If you are wrong, they should not.  We should all doubt."
"Well that's easy."
"Is it?"
"Yes.  I mean, it is easier to never doubt, but to push ourselves to entertain doubts and questions is not a large task."
"And yet many never do."
"I'm not interested in tearing down others.  I think they do, and we say they don't, because we expect their doubt to lead them to us.  They don't come to our side, thus we say they have no doubts.  Doubts could lead to a refinement, rather than a change of beliefs.  Or perhaps a third option, yet unseen.  Doubt is good, but we cannot compel others.  Thus, we can only encourage others to doubt, and do it ourselves, not to force doubt on others."
"So then that's the whole lesson?  Doubts are good?"
"No - Eomer says something else better worth examining: that he believes this as everyone else in his land does."
"Is culture-wide ignorance an excuse?"
"No, but it is a reason.  It is hard to go against the grain."
"And yet ethics demands we do the harder thing."
"Yes - if we are the one then we should go against the grain.  But we should judge others differently."
"Leniently?"
"No!  Eomer has shown an openness to changing his mind.  How might we change the minds of everyone in Rohan?"
"By having similar encounters - where others can share their experience that the Elves of Lothlorien are to be embraced, or at least not feared."
"So we go from house to house convincing the people?"
"If we must."
"That takes a lot of time, and many may not be so open-mided?"
"Nobody said it would be easy."
"But it doesn't have to be that hard.  We're fighting a culture of suspicion!  Even if we are able to persuade many, they only need to hear "Your parents were wary of them," and doubt will creep in."
"Doubt which they will, if they are ethical, consider seriously."
"Doubt undermines doubt?"
"Too much can be dangerous.  Whether you know Truth is a question worth asking - whether there is Truth is risky to explore.
"So our person-to-person persuasion will only be temporary.  We must instill a larger change.  How do we do this?"
"I'm unsure we even should.  Mass persuasion of others is beyond our mission.  And probably unethical anyway, as we said before.  We cannot compel."
"So what's the ethical thing?  To know the limits of persuasion?"
"No.  I mean, yes, knowing one's limits is good.  But I want to point out that Eomer is not alone in his ignorance.  His culture is ignorant.  Holding him responsible would be unethical."
"So we should excuse ignorance when one's culture breeds it?"
"No, but we should dismiss thoughts of retribution.  People believe what their people believe.  We should not hold children responsible for what their teachers tell them, and we should not hold teachers responsible for what the parents demand, and we should not hold parents responsible for what they think society needs their children to know.  And what they think society needs them to know may be wrong.  What they teach their children at age 10 will probably be outdated by the time they are 25.  That's not even a matter of being unethical, just wrong."
"So nobody is responsible?"
"Society is, to an extent.  But changing, and certainly punishing, societies is hard.  If society has a wrong view, it's unfair to punish one or two people.  That's just scapegoating, and encouraging others to hide their beliefs, not change them."
"But societies don't just exist - they are made of people.  We've got to reach the people.  But I agree it is wrong to 'punish one or two people,' as if pulled out of a hat.  But some people drive society more than others.  We should find the leaders and punish them.  Best to persuade them to change their minds, but punishing is the next best if the wrong belief is bad enough."
"But that only drives the bad beliefs underground."
"It is an imperfect solution.  But if the accepted belief of the Rohirrim becomes the Elves of Lorien are friendly, and an underground sect believe they are evil, that is obviously better than the converse.  And it is then the responsibility of the whole to slowly turn the minds of the underground, before they have been suppressed so thoroughly they explode.  Societies cannot be democracies in that way, not on the concept of good and evil.  If 40% of people believe something is evil, that 60% think its good isn't a stable solution.  The persuasion must be ongoing.  At some point those with the bad views can be held responsible for the effort they take in hanging onto them -"
"What is a bad view?"
"That something is evil when good, or vice versa."
"How can we know what is evil and what is good?  We've said often we must be careful of those labels."
"So we let society fall apart?"
"That's very apocalyptic of you!  So people have different ideas on what is good and what is evil - is that so bad?"
"I would assume so.  If some think abortion is murder, and others think preventing abortion reduces certain humans to unwilling birthing factories, how can these beliefs co-exist?"
"The issue, I actually think, is the certainty upon each side.  Again, doubt is the key.  Examination of one's belief is the key."
"But we already said the lesson here must be more than "Let a little doubt in.""
"Maybe we were wrong.  We've tied ourselves up in a knot here, and I'm not even sure where to begin untying it."
"I think the lesson here is that Eomer is wrong, but Eomer is not at fault for his wrong view.  Thus, when we find someone acting wrongly, however we mean, we must determine whether they were following their conscience or their education, and our response should change accordingly."
"And I think the lesson here is certainty is the enemy.  By accepting he may be wrong, Eomer shows us how to respond to new information.  Even if he never truly loves Lorien, that he approaches this situation with curiosity rather than bravado makes him a worthy role-model.  He accepts responsibility for his beliefs, even if he had no choice in them in the first place."
"Two lessons, and yet I remain unsatisfied."
"There's always next week..."

This had been a patreon-supported project, but that proved too annoying to maintain.  If you would like to financially support this project, drop $1.11 (or any amount, I suppose) into my Venmo!

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On a new age

I am a bit late, but no fear!  This week we begin The Two Towers, whose first chapter is "The Departure of Boromir."  It would be interesting one year to do an analysis of the chapter titles, since Boromir departs not once in this chapter but twice.  Once when he dies and once again when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas place him in a boat and send him on the river, since they have no time for a proper burial and a pyre would likely be ruined by the Orcs and Uruk-hai who remain in the area.  This week we'll focus on that decision, though it's more a jumping off point.

‘Then let us lay him in a boat with his weapons, and the weapons of his vanquished foes,’ said Aragorn.
‘We will send him to the Falls of Rauros and give him to Anduin.
The River of Gondor will take care at least that no evil creature dishonours his bones.’

"What part of Middle Earth history is the Lord of the Rings telling."
"The end of the Third Age."
"The end of the Elves."
"And the rise of Men."
"What will change in Middle Earth when Men dominate what Elves once did?"
"Elves understand what is perfect.  They see all imperfections and resent them.  But Men live in those imperfections, and are content to manage them."
"And so we see it here.  Where the Elves believe Orcs coming through a river lessens the river, Men understand this is not so.  Water washes, and while it  may not wash completely, it washes nonetheless, and we should appreciate that.  Boromir's bones could be found by orcs, and we know the river will be, but that doesn't diminish the righteousness and protection of the ceremony for Boromir."
"Because Men tolerate imperfection, does Middle Earth become worse?"
"From the point of view of the Elves."
"From whose point of view will Middle Earth become better?"
"Probably everybody else.  Men can make mistakes and should be forgiven if they repent.  Elves can't."
"They also don't.  Or at least we don't have examples of Elves making mistakes in our text."
"But the Creative Wizard came up with a few in other texts.  Fëanor and Celebrimbor, who started so much trouble.  Eöl and Maeglin, with their family difficulties.  But you are right they do not repent.  Fëanor made the Silmarils, and led the rebellion against the Valar.  He died without recovering the Silmarils, and of course doesn't reverse the rebellion.  Celebrimbor made the Rings of Power, and while he valiantly resists torture at the end of his life by Sauron who was looking for the Rings, he does not repent.  Eöl, who tried to keep his family isolated from the world, is killed by his son Maeglin before repenting.  As for Maeglin, on top of such patricide, he tells Morgoth how to find the city of Gondolin in return for a chance to marry Idril, his cousin, a marriage which was forbidden under Elven law."
"So we have stories of Elves failing.  But none of Elves repenting."
"All of those stories are old.  We can imagine the culture among the Elves that has developed by this time.  All failure leads to only destruction.  There is no tradition of returning to the fold, or repairing what had been broken.  It is perfection or naught."
"They are too stringent and demanding.  You must walk the path, but there are no guardrails at the edges or nets over the edge.  Dwarves and Hobbits and Men cannot live this way."
"An age of Men will allow more to prosper.  Those who falter are not damned."
"Though it is called the Age of Men, it is really for all, in that way.  Men may rule, but their rule will be more understanding of everybody else.  Not judgemental, as the Elves."
"They're Jews!"
"Excuse me?"
"The Elves.  They are like Jews.  Not modern Jews, but in the way they were seen by early Christians."
"What in the Shire are you talking about?  Tolkien refused all claims of allegory."
"Surely not *all*, since the other quote in that reference is that his work is 'Religious and Catholic'"
"Well, that doesn't make it allegory."
"Sure, but.  Well, listen.  The Elves are separate.  They are Chosen.  The Elves are meant to be the light to all the others, guiding them from their own folly.  They are ancient.  Their law is unforgiving.  Their fallen heroes remain fallen.  Accuracy aside, this is how we'd expect a Catholic as the Creative Wizard to understand the Jews in the time of Jesus.  Like in Middle Earth here, back then (in, may I add, the Middle East) was the beginning of a new era."
"So Sauron is Caesar?"
"No, the allegory definitely doesn't go that far.  But if Men are better rulers of Middle Earth because they embrace redemption and will work fairly with all races, there is certainly a basic Christian understanding of things there as oppose to the old particularism of Judaism, which the Elves represent.  The point is, Elves think when orcs go through a river they foul it up - Men understand the river will win out, even if they agree it would be better the Orcs not go there at all.  The intent behind sending Boromir down the river supercedes the chance it could eventually maybe possibly lead to something undesirable.'  A pot whose kasher has been violated no longer needs to be destroyed or buried."
"What about us?"
"We should embrace the Age of Men, of sin and return (and sin again).  To demand perfection is to invite failure and resentment.  The Elves may be admirable, but they are not role models."
"How can we admire but not follow?"
"As we can admire a painting or sculpture or wonderful piece of music.  We can appreciate, we can know there is a higher level, and perhaps sometimes hope for such perfection in our life.  But we cannot live our life that way.  It will only bring us grief, and we will approach the end of our lives as the Elves, thinking only of where we failed and how the world will deteriorate.  But the humility of forgiveness will allow us to pass peacefully.  The world is not withering away, and we with it, but rather full of cycles of life, rising and falling, and though ours may fall, those we leave behind still have great heights to see."
"The ethics of dying well?"
"If we all must die - if our age must end - why not try to do it well?"

  This had been a patreon-supported project, but that proved too annoying to maintain.  If you would like to financially support this project, drop $1.11 (or any amount, I suppose) into my Venmo!

ChatGPT contributed about 30% to this post's final version.  It was a surprisingly good resource for the Elven lore!