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.’
"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!
ChatGPT contributed about 5% to this post's final version.
No comments:
Post a Comment