by publius
In this column, Dahlia Lithwick explores one of the most fascinating sidebars to the U.S. Attorney scandal — religion and the DOJ. Using Monica Goodling as an example, she documents how deeply Regent University Law School graduates have penetrated the upper echelons of the Bush administration. Like Lithwick, I don’t have a problem with the administration hiring Regent grads (assuming they’re qualified). In fact, I’ve worked with outstanding attorneys who graduated from Regent.
What interests me then is not so much why DOJ hired Regent grads, but why Regent grads like Monica Goodling acted like they did. In particular, it’s the psychological and sociological dimensions that intrigue me. How did someone like Goodling justify her actions in her own mind? How did she square them with her religious faith? [For what it’s worth, these questions extend well beyond Goodling. How (and why), for instance, do so many social conservatives tolerate and even applaud our detention “policy” and war and unprogressive tax structures and so on?]
With respect to the more narrow Goodling question, Lithwick proposes an answer — people like Goodling started mistaking Bush for God. She writes, “[T]he real concern here is that Goodling and her ilk somehow began to conflate God’s work with the president’s.” While that’s true in a sense, I don’t think it goes far enough. Assuming Lithwick is right, the more fundamental question is how Goodling (and other evangelicals) got to that point in the first place.
To take a step back, although liberals are not hostile to religion, I do think that they — in their own minds anyway — often conceptualize evangelical Christians in very simple ways. People get these visions of brainwashed automatons marching to the beat of Dobson and his P-Funk All-Stars. The truth is, though, that social conservatives — like all other groups — have a unique and complex psychology. And in their own mind, they (like everyone else) think of themselves as good people doing good things. That’s why it’s interesting to explore the specific rationalizations they use to justify actions that are hypocritical in light of their religious faith.
The first rationalization relates to our old friend, liberal hatred. I believe that evangelicals like Goodling are not so much pro-Republican as they are deeply, and even pathologically, anti-liberal. In this sense, Goodling represents the political coming-of-age of a generation of young social conservatives that has been taught from childhood to hate “the Left.” And it’s not just that the Left is bad, it’s that the Left is constantly attacking them from all directions — e.g., the courts, the media, Hollywood, academia, etc. It’s all one big attack. I mean, Regent University is premised on the notion that Christians are under attack. (The Federalist Society was too – check out their mission statement).
The unfortunate result of seeing yourself under attack at all times is that you start conceptualizing the world in that way. You see monsters in all shadows. Take a look, for instance, at the “Political Sites” portion of Goodling’s old student web page (via Lithwick). Note that she divided up the sites into “news from the left” and “news from the right.” The “news from the left” sites included CNN and USA Today. Maybe I’m reading too much here, but I think this is extremely telling of her worldview. To her, CNN was “the Left,” and thus the attacking force. And that’s how many social conservatives see mainstream news — as biased enemies attacking them. This perception goes a long way in explaining why so many of them have been impervious to the administration’s failures over the past few years.
Another rationalization is that, though they may not admit it, many social conservatives (particularly intellectual ones from non-urban areas) harbor a deep inferiority complex with respect to secular liberals. They perceive an unspoken bias (sometimes well-founded) within urban liberal social circles with respect to social conservative views. Accordingly, social conservatives running in these circles often hide their beliefs or, alternatively, aggressively overcompensate. But regardless of how they react, the result of these perceived sleights is that they have a strong drive to prove themselves and outshine the well-educated liberals who they think (and fear) perceive them as stupid.
On some level, these fears can produce good results. As some of you know, I grew up a moderately religious conservative from a rural southern town. Well before I went to college on the East Coast, I remember all too well harboring these sorts of feelings and resentments with respect to students from bigger towns (and better schools) in Kentucky. This drive to prove myself drove a lot of what I did and read (who knows, maybe it still does).
But what I eventually learned is that these feelings, while beneficial in some ways, ultimately poison you. They are, quite literally, the dark side of the force. You can ride them to success, but they will ultimately destroy you, or at least make you a restless, never-happy, paranoid person. And that’s exactly what they’re doing to American social conservatives. In short, they are poisoning them. They are filling them with hatred and resentment and paranoia. One hopes that many social conservatives will experience what I eventually did, which was similar to a fever breaking. There is, after all, an enormous amount of potential common ground between big-hearted progressives and big-hearted evangelicals. But until the fever breaks, their liberal hatred will fester on, preventing them from making common cause.
But turning back to Goodling, you can easily imagine how these specific resentments and rationalizations combined and manifested in her. When Goodling was in school, she wrote that her dream was to “leave the world a better place than I found it.” Instead, upon obtaining power, she became a spokesperson for Abu Ghraib, misled Congress, and routinely forced career lawyers out for younger unqualified hacks.
I’m obviously speculating, but I can see the rationalizations swimming in her head. For one, because she saw the Left as an attacking omnipresent enemy, she was more willing to bend rules for the “greater good” of self-preservation. Second, the career lawyers she fired — products no doubt of elite liberal law schools — gave rise to both liberal resentment and inferiority complexes. She also knew they were more qualified than her, and she resented them for knowing that. Finally, because she had no experience, she felt more determined to prove herself to her higher ups. Unfortunately, she decided to do this by becoming a political hatchet (wo)man.
In a weird way, I feel sorry for Goodling. She’s almost like a Doppelganger for me — a vision of what my life could have been like if I had chosen a different road in the yellow wood at some point in the past. Hopefully, she’ll have her moment of clarity and her fever will break too. But I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
[UPDATE: Steve Benen has more.]
Hopefully, she’ll have her moment of clarity and her fever will break too.
hah. odds are good that she’ll end up at a think-tank somewhere, forever a C-list wingnut celebrity martyr who lost her job to the deranged, blood-thirsty, terror-lovin DhimmiIslamoDefeatocrats. she’ll probably be writing columns for WingnutDaily and TownHall before the end of the summer. there’s easy money in lying to the choir.
I read the piece in the paper yesterday wondering when I would get to some statement about something that Ms. Goodling did that was inconsistent with her job — some place where she’d arguably conflated God and Bush. I didn’t see it.
“I’m obviously speculating, but I can see the rationalizations swimming in her head.”
The most accurate statement in the posting. There is a lot of theorizing, some based upon what you went through, but it is almost totally conjecture.
Seeing Bush doing God’s work is not the same as seeing Bush as God. Social conservatives may have a “a unique and complex psychology” but they are not all the same, so this psychology does not apply to them all.
“although liberals are not hostile to religion” is a telling line. That might be true for yourself, and, as a very religious person, myself, but is hardly true for a significant portion of liberals. That has been obvious on some threads here based upon comments made, and is definitely true at places like Kos.
Additionally, I think you may be making a major assumption that they are supporting behaviors somehow antithetical (and I know you didn’t use this term) to their faith. I tend to believe that they see all this as an extension of their faith. To me it might be a perversion of Christianity, but that is my opinion based upon what I believe Christianity is and what it stands for.
Although I am primarily on your side of the fence, this posting tends to do what we on the left (many of us) decry as the right’s tendency to stereotype us, when such is not an accrate thing to do.
But then, maybe I am just reading too much into it.
john miller, some liberals (and some conservatives) are genuinely hostile to religion, far more are hostile to what they perceive (rightly or wrongly) conduct a religion permits, encourages, or even serves as a justification for, in its followers.
Some religionists then pick up that hostility and claim it as hostility to their religion, rather than to the conduct of prominent followers of their religion. It would be a mistake to identify everyone who detests Bill Donahue as “anti-Catholic”, for example, though I don’t doubt that Donahue himself would argue that.
How can Christian conservatives be so hypocritical? Because so many of them have an “authoritarian personality” and worship whoever is in authority.
I think that’s the succinct answer, one that was exhaustively explored by Nixon’s jailed lawyer John Dean in his book, “Conservatives without Conscience.” The checklists in that book about authority worship provide a very comprehensive answer to this riddle.
urban — i generally agree with that, but i would ask why? what drives people to see the world that way.
but i should also make clear that htis post isn’t about christians per se, but evangelical social conservative christians (i.e., a subset, though a politically important subset)
A friend of mine, who grew up in a right-wing Pentacostal household, had his own moment of clarity a few months back. He had long been puzzled by the paranoia of the “Christian Right,” and suddenly realized that their paranoia was a projection of their own desires: if they had power they would use it to enforce their way of life – not dictatorially, but but in away that marginalizes “the other” -but since they don’t have that power they must be the “victims” of those who desire to marginalize Christians.
Psycobabble to be sure, but I think he’s got a point.
Jes, I realize many, and I include myself in this category, find what we consider hypocrisy to be a major issue and are hsotile to that. For example, I consider James Dobson one of the most dangerous people in America, and part of the reason why is that he uses religion to cloak what I perceive as his primary motivations.
There are also many on the left who see any religious people as being, to put it simply, delusional idiots. And I am not limiting myself to Christianity. My usual response to them has been that am liberal/progressive, a Democrat despite people like them, not because of people like them.
I do believe that urban coyote has stated one of the issues. There is a sense of looking for and following an authority figure (who unfortunately sometimes becomes an authoritarian) It is part of the issue, but not, IMO, a full answer.
And, in fact, I don’t think there is a “one size fits all” type of answer out there.
Publius,
I don’t know the answer to that, though I myself come from a large family, many of whom worship authority.
However, I feel the quality of “resentment” is central in motivating people toward authority.
I don’t know about these appointees conflating Bush for God but I know they are purposefully shifting the focus of our government to serve a group that I’m pretty sure doesn’t need the help – wealthy white Christians. They are not discriminated against in any meaningful way. The only way one can get that impression is to look at the civil rights movement and the secondary expansion of government power in that arena as a mistake. I’m afraid that the people running our DoJ have no respect for the recent history of American justice.
Publius is right about this – paranoia is driving much of this behavior.
I still don’t get it. For years, I’ve been trying to get into the heads of conservatives and figure out why they do the things they do. I’ve read a hundred theories and ideas, like this post. All the theories sound vaguely plausible, but none feel really satisfying.
Funny thing is, I’m a pretty good judge of non-political psychological issues. I can tell when somebody is struggling with fear of change, or self-doubt, or any of the other things that hold people back in life.
But I don’t get political psychology. Why is it so opaque?
“But I don’t get political psychology. Why is it so opaque?”
Primarily because there are too many driving forces involved. For some there is a sense of paranoia (right and left), for some there is a sense of being driven to do the right thing (both on the right and the left), for others it is a drive for wealth and power (probably more on the right than on the left but on both to some degree), and so forth.
john miller: There are also many on the left who see any religious people as being, to put it simply, delusional idiots. And I am not limiting myself to Christianity.
If we don’t limit ourselves to Christianity, there are many on the right who see religious people as delusional idiots.
My point is that my impression is that the left-wingers who argue that anyone claiming religious belief is a delusional idiot are a smaller and certainly less significant number than the left-wingers who are referencing specific religious groups of delusional idiots (the Catholic League: the people who want to argue that the Grand Canyon was made by Noah’s Flood or that evolution is “just a theory” and it’s only anti-religious bias that means creationism can’t be taught in science classes: etc).
Certainly you get a lot more high-profile high-traffic religious-people-are-delusional-idiots websites on the right than on the left – Little Green Footballs, for example.
I agree that this essay is entirely speculative and as such should be taken with a grain of salt, but I also agree that such speculations are important. It’s important to understand why some people are driven to become suicide bombers, and it’s also important to understand why some people are driven to such political extremes.
I’d like to add a minor observation regarding the matter of perceived inferiority. We can think of it as a liberal vs conservative issue or urban vs rural issue — but I would like to add a third dimension: East Coast versus everybody else. As a West Coaster, I have noticed in business dealings with East Coast big shots that they are animated with a strong sense of hierarchical superiority. It’s not that they think that East Coast is better than anybody else. The perception seems to be that “I have climbed up this ladder and I’m higher on the ladder than you, therefore I’m right and you’re wrong.” In Silicon Valley it is common to dismiss somebody as a ‘Harvard MBA’ (“sometimes right, never in doubt”). Many of these people seem to think that their particular pecking order is the only one that matters. It’s very off-putting and I can imagine that conservatives, who don’t have much presence in the East Coast Pecking Order, resent it bitterly. I sympathize with them.
I haven’t actually seen (or can’t recall seeing) any great degree of hostility or contempt towards religious people here at Obi Wi. (I’m a Christian lefty myself, like John Miller.) It’s mostly as Jes said, hostility directed at specific Christians who deserve to be criticized. Though I might have missed whatever it is that John saw.
At other sites, though, there is a fair amount of contempt aimed at religious believers by some lefties. Religious belief is equated with mental illness. I might be wrong, but I get the impression that someone like Dawkins or his acolytes would like to live in a society where religious belief was so rare those few who still professed to believe in God could be sent to mental institutions where we belong.
But that’s about the limit of “persecution” of Christians in America. A few snide remarks and a sense that some atheists think we’re clinically insane. On the whole atheists have it worse, though it probably depends on your social circles.
As for rightwing Christians, I think they are mostly sincere, but not any the less dangerous for that. Hypocrisy is a natural byproduct of ideology–Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism” is the classic essay on that theme.
Dawkins, of course, is British. I suppose his American analogue is Sam Harris, but I haven’t read his stuff.
Resentment can be a powerful motivator, but it is hardly ever constructive in the long run. I know people who resent those who have gone to excellent schools, claiming that their education at My State College (or an even less prestigious institution) was just as good as the one at Competitive University. Sorry, that just isn’t so. Sure there are people who turned out to be brilliant grads of inferior schools, but that is almost always because of external events in their lives that made the challenge of a superior school impossible for them to take on at the time.
Resentment doesn’t really feed your feeling of well-being. It poisons your life with hatred of those who have had better opportunity, whether they got it fairly or not. The politics of resentment can easily poison both Democrats and Republicans. That fact that life isn’t fair tends to help those who want to indulge in resentment do so. They are not completely out of touch with reality. They can always point to real examples of injustice and unfairness.
Ultimately, though, resentment fails because it takes decision-making out of your own hands. You are not responsible, first for a few things, then for many things. They become the problem and feeding resentment distracts from actual accomplishment. It also distracts from your own ability to evaluate whether those who are exploiting your resentment have your interests in mind.
Do the people who exploit Regent University graduates really care about their religiously motivated morality? Will they ever do anything to actually accomplish the goals? On the left, will things be done to change the problems of the poor or will they also be led on by politicians who want their voters angry at the opposition? Will Democrats create a decent social safety net or just complain about the greed of the Republicans?
I agree that this essay is entirely speculative and as such should be taken with a grain of salt, but I also agree that such speculations are important.
or, in the words of Peggy Noonan:
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
?
obviously there’s a lot of liberal-hatred out there (some, like Limbaugh and RedState, seem to exist for no other reason). and yes, religion can give people cover to do crazy things. but i’d feel very uncomfortable trying to guess at the motivations of a person i’d known only from the third-hand descriptions in a half-dozen news reports. for all we know about her, Goodling might as well be fictional, a minor character in a John Grisham novel. and as to divining the motivations of millions… count me out.
which is to say, i’d like to go on record as being a little uncomfortable with this much speculation and mass-psychoanalysis-from-a-distance.
Publius-
I am not so sure that what you’re describing is terribly unique in the world of politics. Power is a heady thing, and many of the folks who work for an administration, be it Republican or Democratic, ultimately end up having an “us against the world” mentality.
Moreover, the fact that many religious conservatives end up conflating politics with faith doesn’t surprise me in the least bit. It is a difficult thing to keep those matters entirely separate. The key, I think, is to constantly be on guard to make sure that one’s faith is always in the forefront. I have noticed, however, that when one does this consistently, one ends up making party loyalists on both sides angry. And for me, that is a sign of success. If both Republicans and Democrats are upset with me, that is a fairly good indicator that I am living life in accordance with my faith (as best I can).
And for the record, I am not anti-liberal. There are many goals that liberals and Democrats have with which I agree wholeheartedly. The difference is often one of approach. For example, I disagree with Publius that supporting “unprogressive tax structures” is anti-Christian. Unlike torture, tax policy is an issue where reasonable people can disagree about what is ultimately best for society. The problem, of course, is that both sides are more interested in scoring cheap political points (e.g., Democrats are Marxist, and Republicans want the poor to starve), than they are in actually solving the problem.
And much in the same manner that Publius views the Republican party, I see a great deal of hypocrisy in the Democratic Party’s characterization of itself as the party of the little guy (e.g., the poor, minorities), given its polices on abortion, euthanasia, embyronic stem cell research, etc. (all of which harm the most vulnerable members of our society).
Finally, as for harboring an “inferiority complex with respect to secular liberals,” I can only speak for myself, but that is certainly not the case for me. What I recognize is that secular liberals view the world is a radically different light than I do, and this often makes it difficult to have a constructive dialogue on various and sundry policy issues. This is changing somewhat though> I have been very impressed with the amount of cooperation between grassroots liberals and conservatives on raising awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur, and my hope is that this same group of folks will work together to help bring an end to the death penalty in the U.S. Will that translate into agreement on contentious issues like abortion? Perhaps not. But my hope is that by joining together on certain issues, there will be a greater appreciation for where the other is coming from. I think Publius, to his credit, has this appreciation for the mentality of many social conservatives, and I commend him for his willingness to treat them (and their motives) fairly in discussing various issues.
(No time to double check spelling, etc. So, please accept my apologies in advance for any typos)
If they equate the modern socio-political order with Egypt under Pharaoh, then there’s nothing hypocritical about employing any and every means at their disposal to blow that order to smithereens. Far from being a betrayal or a compromise of their Christianity, their ethics spring naturally and logically from their apocalyptic and destructive worldview.
Jes, actually we are ibn agreement. My point was never that the majority of the left was hostile to religion, just that there is a significant number, and as Donald points out, on some sites, whenever religion comes up, the disdain is evident.
I was reacting to publius’ that “liberals are not hostile to religion.” It is a blanket statement which just happens to be wrong.
Donald, I admit you don’t see the hostility often at ObWi, but it does show up from time to time.
Speaking as someone who has some experience of elitist snobbery, though from the other side: it is of course true that there are annoying snobs coming out of elite institutions. But it is also true that there’s a lot of insecurity that doesn’t wait for actual occasions to manifest itself.
For various personal reasons, I am a sort of walking trigger for it; this was even more true earlier on in my life. I have, basically, exactly the sort of background that reliably makes some kinds of people think (before they know me at all): hah, I bet you think you’re pretty special. Well, I’m going to knock you off your high horse. I have always (or rather, since I was 12, when I acquired this part of my background) taken it as a fact of life, not to be minded any more than one would mind the law of gravity, that there are going to be people who are convinced that I am on a high horse that I need to be knocked down from, and that that was just that.
Much easier to deal with than a pervasive sense of insecurity, of course, but having to prove, again and again, that you’re not a monster of arrogance, or that you’re not constantly snickering inwardly about other people’s inadequate background/education/whatever, is not all that much fun either.
john miller: I was reacting to publius’ that “liberals are not hostile to religion.” It is a blanket statement which just happens to be wrong.
Well, no, it’s right – partly: most liberals are not hostile to religion. And, as you say, some liberals are kneejerk-hostile to religion, so it’s wrong – partly. Most blanket statements are. I seem to remember something about this in the posting rules, but I think it only covered hostile/negative statements, not positive statements.
feddie – get a blog.
Cleek: Well said. Also John Miller.
OTOH, I’m not crazy about 150 alumni of Pat Robinson’s college working in the administration either.
In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people’s civil rights.
“When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was ‘maddening,’ I knew I correctly answered the question,” wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division’s housing section — the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.
I have no problem with people who are actively religious, but I do want to maintain a firm line between church and state. I don’t want the religious right implementing their belief system as law any more than the most secular liberal does. If it’s true that the Civil Rights Division’s focus switched to discrimination against Christians then I would say there is a department that is no longer needed – close it down.
Inasmuch as it’s relevant, my experience has been that, speaking very broadly, a) liberals and lefties are more hostile towards religion in general — the whole Militant Atheism thing — but b) conservatives and righties tend to be even more hostile to religions that aren’t theirs. With the obvious caveat that who the hell knows what libertarians think?
What you’re really asking is, why do people demonize opponents. It’s a natural human trait, unfortunately. All studies show that groups, divided even for short periods and on a basis they know is completely arbitrary, will soon develop great hostility and attribute all sorts of horrible behavior to the other, while cheering on their own side’s dirty tricks. Think summer camp sports teams.
So, why ask why? It just is. People are like that. The only thing you can do about it is appeal to common ground. When the basis for separation is something integral to their self-image, like religion, class, or ethno-regional identity, this is difficult.
Uniting against a common enemy is the best method, historically. I suspect that if the US faced an understood existential threat, a lot of these internal conflicts would feel much less important. But instead, decades of religous demagogues have crafted the illusion of an existential threat to Christianity, so that Muslim diehards and athiest blowhards are grouped together in the minds of True Believers here. That makes no sense at all, of course. But it doesn’t have to.
To engage in a bit of demonization of my own, it seems to me that the problem is not so much that we’re on opposite sides, with all that comes with it, as that their side has abandoned our distinctly American ideals. It’s a national, even a global, tragedy that so many Americans have no notion of the great dreams of the American experiment with constitutional democracy. They sold that birthright for a mess of “Christian nation” pottage, helped along by schools like Regent and its pre-K-12 feeder schools, which systematically twist and taint our history.
That’s the part that both you and Lithwick are missing, publius. It’s not enough to say, Regents produces qualified, smart lawyers. I’m sure it does, and that many of them, like Goodling, long to put themselves in the service of the public. But their idea of serving America has very little to do with preserving constitutional government. So you don’t really have to go to great lengths to understand why Goodling would break the rules to serve the President. She probably never thought of the rules she was breaking as anything important, or even real. So why not break them?
BTW, before feddie or someone says that the left has people just as butt-ignorant of our national ideals, and just as willing to tear them down in the service of, say, environmentalism or ethnic advantage, of course we do. Difference is, ours aren’t saying that G-d commands ’em to do it. You wonder where leftwing hostility to Christianity comes from, well, there’s a big one. John Miller, imagine if Communism in the 30s in this country had been the mainstream Christian movement. How would you feel about Christianity?
That sense of siege is crucial, or at least it’s one of the things I remember most strongly from my evangelical days. Evangelical preaching and writing, at least of the ’80s-90s, was filled with the sense that there is a constant battle for the very soul of the nation, the West, and the world going on, and that true believers are losing it. It’s difficult to convey the sense of almost-doomed urgent intensity to someone who lacks a belief in a great overall story to the world’s events; it’s something that people of most faiths (or of none in particular) will feel only at rare moments of crisis. Living in it is immensely stressful – and I think that this is a major contribute to the poor evangelical record on matters like divorce and child abuse. We’re just not made to live in that much agitation all the time.
As Publius says, people who feel themselves always on the brink of total disaster have an easier time convincing themselves to cut this corner and that.
She probably never thought of the rules she was breaking as anything important, or even real. So why not break them?
And that, mes infants, is why some liberals are “hostile towards religion.”
Because religion lends itself, better than anything else, to the notion that there’s a Higher Law that invalidates all the other laws. The correllary is, of course, that since the Higher Law was handed down by the ultimate authority (i.e., God) there’s no point in debating whether it’s a good law, or even whether it makes sense – in fact, just asking the question means you’re a heretic of some sort.
I really don’t care what you believe in: God, Thetans, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
It’s when you insist on your ultimate and unquestioned authority taking predence over secular rule and law that I say “Hell, no!” – because secular laws have, or at least are supposed to have, some objective justification that can be proven (or disproven) by analysis. “Higher Laws” don’t.
Speaking of Regent University, apparently Romney is giving the commencement address and the Times wants him to explain what that whole Mormon thing is all about.
Captain Ed doesn’t think he should legitimize Robertson by speaking there at all:
In my opinion, Romney should use the occasion to explain why he’s speaking at Robertson’s college at all. Robertson serves as the embarrassing old uncle that can’t control his mouth at family reunions. His long history of political lunacy should have marginalized him years ago in the GOP, but candidates like Romney keep propping him up. Perhaps Romney can address Robertson’s charges that federal judges are more dangerous than the 9/11 terrorists, or that the US should assassinate Hugo Chavez, because appearing at his venues keeps his media access alive for insane pronouncements like those.
That is how most of us on the right view Robertson – an “embarrassing old uncle”.
“John Miller, imagine if Communism in the 30s in this country had been the mainstream Christian movement. How would you feel about Christianity?”
There is a difference in my mind between Christianity and the mainstream Christian movement. So the question should be how I felt about the movement, not the faith. And you miss my point. I am talking about religion as a whole, not specifically Christianity.
CaseyL, you have a point, and what bothers me is when religious people talk as if they know what is right, that they Know that what they believe is 100% correct. I believe in what I believe, but I don’t know that what I believe is correct.
At the same time, there are many secularists that protest current laws. And they tend to have that same air of certainty about them. Reality is that this will probably be an ongoing struggle as long as people tend to believe that they own property rights to what is good, right and ought to be. Which means forever.
CaseyL, I don’t think there are very many people, religious or not, who believe adherence to the current law in their countries is the highest moral value.
Most people here are pretty ignoranct of christianity. So let me educate you on something.
Every time you see a conservative claiming to be a christian I guarantee you that they are merely republicans posing as christians.
It is impossible to be a christian, a real christian, while embracing and furthering conservative republican principals. It is simply impossible.
“It is impossible to be a christian, a real christian, while embracing and furthering conservative republican principals. It is simply impossible.”
painting with an awfully broad brush, aren’t we? All conservative principles are anti-Christian? Including opposition to abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic-stem-cell research? Come on, Ken. Surely you don’t believe that.
I said absolutely nothing about “highest moral value.”
The “highest moral value” cannot be defined, or quantified, with any specificity that doesn’t intrude on other moral values; it therefore has no place in actual law-making.
(Example: Is feeding the hungry the highest moral value? If so, then why aren’t you out there emptying supermarket shelves into a cart and heading out to the homeless shelter?)
I referenced the concept of a Higher Law – one that, by definition, supercedes all others and therefore nullifies all others… a “Higher Law” that generally concerns the unquantifiable and unprovable (“All good people go to heaven”); a Higher Law that can, in the service of these unquantifiable and unprovable “goods,” mandate behavior that would otherwise be completely unacceptable – for instance, torture (“It is better to torture the body and save the soul than it is to lose the soul by forgoing torture.”)
Posted by: urban coyote | April 09, 2007 at 12:14 PM
How can Christian conservatives be so hypocritical? Because so many of them have an “authoritarian personality” and worship whoever is in authority.
But i think reasonable Christians and other theists can, and do, reach a balanced sythesis. God the ultimate authority is worthy of our unflinching devotion, but his earthly representatives (especially the self-appointed ones!) are entirely fallible and subject to scrutiny. I mean, that’s my point of view as a Christian who tries for intellectual honesty and open-mindedness. I’d hope it’s other people’s point of view, although i agree that lamentably the authoritarian strain in US evangelicalism right now is quite high.
Ironically, you’d think Protestants would be well-positioned to question earthly authority figures, given the history of rejecting Papal infallibility and all. US Protestantism is an alphabet soup of different denominations, and those schisms started someplace, so obviously someone along the way wasn’t afraid to make waves. But these days, generalizing very broadly, it seems to me that US Catholics have more of a reputation for accepting or rejecting items on the smorgasbord. I recognize that I’m really painting with a very broad brush but that’s interesting, no?
Does US Evangelicalism need a new Reformation? What would that look like?
Most people here are pretty ignoranct of christianity.
A statement that would be all the better with some proof or at least reasoning. For all you know, half of us are archbishops.
Trilobite-
You can call me Cardinal Feddie, thank you very much. 😉
CaseyL, are there no circumstances under which you’d take food from supermarket shelves? It seems to me that people have all sorts of good and bad justifications for violating laws, some of which are religious, some of which are not. Some of the justifications I might find convincing, some of them not.
And I don’t think that the idea that the ends justify the means can get you into trouble is uniquely applicable to those who are religiously motivated.
So the question should be how I felt about the movement, not the faith. And you miss my point. I am talking about religion as a whole, not specifically Christianity.
Ducking the question much? OK, how would you feel about the movement? And, if you were not a Christian, would you as an outsider not tend to collate the two? If it’s easier for you to imagine, what if the vast majority of the country were Hindu and the Hindi mainstream was communist?
As for your perception of hostility towards religion as a whole and not just Christianity, that’s a little like saying that the John Birch Society showed a hostility towards non-capitalist economic forms as a whole, not just Soviet-style and Maoist communism. Or that the 1920s Klan objected to all dark people, not just American blacks. People express their ideas broadly, but react to what they actually see around them. We’re in a country where the vast majority have always have called themselves Christian, when an American talks about religion, what do you think he’s thinking about? Most atheistic diatribes I’ve seen may say “religion,” but the specifics are all about Christian concepts and practice. Abrahamist at most. Harris wrote a “Letter to a Christian Nation,” not to “a Religious Nation.”
I hope you realize, by the way, that I’m not saying that people are right to despise Christianity however despicable the mainstream Christian viewpoint may be. Although an argument could surely be made that a movement is what it is in practice and not what some of its followers theorize, and that just as communists don’t get to say, no, communism isn’t bad, it just hasn’t been tried, maybe Christians don’t get to say that their religion isn’t really like it always has been in practice. But I’m not going there, I’m just saying that any Christians who take offense that non-Christians react to the mainstream practice and not to the minority theory should look to the beam in their own eye.
In general I don’t try to duck questions. And I really didn’t see myself as doing such.
I really and truly do not try to collate a specific religion with what the majority of its followers adhere to. But being human I sometimes do. And since I wasn’t around in the 30’s, and therefore not impacted by the soicety then, I really can’t answer your question. I can say, based upon my readings, that some religions have had a communist sense to them, and not necessarily in a bad way. But I won’t go there.
And, btw, many of the arguments I have heard against religion may talk about Christianity in some particulars, but almost all of them (emphasis on the word almost) start by talking about the nonsensicalness of believing in a god, any god. We could get into a discussion of how one defines religion, but I really don’t want to go there.
And I don’t take offense when this religious or even Christianity bashing takes place.
…so obviously someone along the way wasn’t afraid to make waves.
Making waves is great when you’re railing against the establishment, much like early Christians were, say, against the corrupt Jewish hierarchy and the Romans, or early Protestants were against the Catholic Church. Once you become the establishment, it loses its luster.
Freddie, it is indeed impossidble to be a conservative republican and be a christian. It is impossible.
Let me illistrate the difference between christians and republicans:
When a madman recently killed a bunch of Amish shoolchildren the Amish forgave him, as christianity demands. They are christians.
When Bush had Karla Faye Tucker on death row he mocked her before he killed her.
Anyone who voted for Bush endorsed his action and is not a christian.
This is just one example. Pick anything else: torture, human rights, dignity, abortion, anything you want, you will always see that conservatives are using christianity for political purposes – they are not christians they are just republicans posing as christians.
CaseyL, are there no circumstances under which you’d take food from supermarket shelves? It seems to me that people have all sorts of good and bad justifications for violating laws, some of which are religious, some of which are not.
This has very little, if anything, to do with my comment.
I wasn’t talking about breaking laws; I was talking about the basis for laws in the first place.
There is a difference between the philosophy of law-making and the philosophy of law-breaking that has to do with universality versus contingencies. Anyone can make a decent case for breaking some laws some of the time under exigent circumstances. However, only anarchists and nihilists would put forth a serious case for breaking any laws one wishes any time one wishes in any circumstance of one’s choosing.
The reason that is so is that laws allow human society to function at all. How is that possible? Because laws regulate behavior, assign ownership of property, and offer structures for conflict resolution. The efficacy of such laws efficacy can be measured objectively. The fairness can be determined, and tweaked when necessary, objectively.
Basing laws on religion, and on nothing but religion, removes them from an arena where their fairness and efficacy can be determined, because “Higher Law” trumps fairness and efficacy.
I don’t see why this is so hard to grasp. Perhaps, instead of seeing religiously-derived laws through the lens of whichever religion you profess, you could try seeing them through the lens of a religion you find distasteful.
I think abortion is a perfect place to engage with Feddie here: what tenet of Christianity says anything at all about the extent of the power of the state to regulate human reproduction? What tenet of Christianity declares that a doctor performing an abortion, or a woman undergoing one, should be punished by the state?
Thanks for a thoughtful response, john m., & sorry I was tetchy. I get peevish about the victimhood cult in today’s evangelical world, but you were not espousing it.
…only anarchists and nihilists would put forth a serious case for breaking any laws one wishes any time one wishes in any circumstance of one’s choosing.
Nihilists! F**k me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
“With respect to the more narrow Goodling question, Lithwick proposes an answer — people like Goodling started mistaking Bush for God.”
I don’t think that is it. I pretty much agree with trilobite’s first post on this thread–demonizing opponents is one of things that people do. I don’t think it requires Goodling to start to mistake Bush for God. It requires that Goodling confuse “the Cause” with “good”. She thinks the aim is so good that the methods of getting there are for the most part incidental. In many respects it is very similar to the semi-religious fervor which was once seen for Communism in Russia. The post-capitalist state is so desirable that all sorts of bad things can be justified to bring it about.
I’m not sure if there is any sense in trying to figure out precisely how many liberals are or are not hostile to religion, because it is not simply a question of percentages. I think there is a profound disdain for religion running thru the ‘liberalism’, as one can see from the Bright movement, and people, as is their wont, may or may not fall into step behind it.
Unfortunately, that disdain for religion not only feeds the Christian Conservative Right paranoia MREs, and permits a use of the Overton window when the media, for the sake of ‘balance’, puts on the ‘Christian’ viewpoint up, which usually ends up as someone like Bill Donohue, a process which ends up in having Dinesh D’Souza get trashed by Colbert.
Ironically, I think an underlying disdain of religion ends up getting rechanneled by the warmonger right in adding fuel in the WoT by raising the level of disdain for Islam and these are the folks most willing to come into comment sections and debate. Thus, an underlying rejection of religion tends to be taken for granted because the two sides fighting over it accept that point as a given.
“Basing laws on religion, and on nothing but religion, removes them from an arena where their fairness and efficacy can be determined, because “Higher Law” trumps fairness and efficacy.”
Yes but religion isn’t the only human concept that does this. It could be “Racial Justice” or “Anti-Colonial Action” or “Anti-Communist” or “A Sense of Egalitarian Fairness”.
seb — i agree with that re communism. also, to make it clear, my point about “mistaking bush for god” was more of a rhetorical point. i think mixing up “the cause” with “the good” is probably more accurate.
“I get peevish about the victimhood cult in today’s evangelical world, but you were not espousing it.”
So do I. At least that part of the evangelical world that does espouse it.
a process which ends up in having Dinesh D’Souza get trashed by Colbert.
just to note: Colbert is “devout” Catholic and teaches Sunday school.
Ken, I can’t quite agree. Speaking as an outsider (Cardinal Feddie can correct me on matters of doctrine, I’m sure), it seems plain that no candidate for the Presidency in U.S. history has been a perfect Christian, so, by your reasoning, a citizen must either endorse non-Christian conduct, or refrain from voting. Is that where you meant to go?
@ Sebastian Holsclaw | April 09, 2007 at 04:20 PM
I agree that Goodling probably never literally mistook GWB for God, never literally would have held GWB’s word to be a revelation that trumps the 66 books of the Bible, etc. Nothing that straightforwardly blasphemous.
But the broader problem that the Religious Right has largely conflated its own political power with societal righteousness. The natural corollary is to look at a [then-]popular politician who’s led the “right” people to victory as a sort of vicar. Jesus didn’t express an opinion on the Iraq war, but the Biblical basis for just war theory is pretty well-established so if our Godly president says this war needs to be fought then he must be right. Jesus didn’t explicitly state tax policy, but some of Paul’s writing kinda sorta support equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome, so if the President says he’s a compassionate conservative that’s good enough for me.
I don’t think anyone literally ever thought GWB was God, but many have seemed to view him as some sort of de facto priest, uniquely equipped to interpret God’s will for the masses. No one would really call GWB a priest — Evangelicals being convinced of the priesthood of the believer and all — but effectively that’s how they’ve treated him.
My point about D’Souza is the fact that he ends up in a place where he is arguing that fundamentalist in Islam have a point about the decadence of Western culture rather than as a jibe at Colbert, though Colbert’s beliefs raise an important corollary, in that any culture that values sarcasm and iconoclasm like the left does is going to end up, to all appearances, as mocking religion.
All conservative principles are anti-Christian? Including opposition to abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic-stem-cell research?
I was unaware that those were “conservative” principles. “Christian” for very limited values of “Christian”, perhaps, but not “conservative”.
“Conservative” principles are more along the lines of “Them what has, gets”, or “He who has the gold, makes the rules”, or “I got mine, screw everybody else”, or “I gotta gun and you ain’t”, or “My daddy’s got money so I’m better than you”. Hard to reconcile with that Yeshua ben Yousef character.
OCSteve: That is how most of us on the right view Robertson – an “embarrassing old uncle”.
Yet major candidates seek his blessing, and his abundant money. So, as long as that happens, I’m inclined to shrug off the protestations that Robertson is marginal, a character from the past, a diminishing influence. I see the guy and his pernicious institutions up close, and that’s just not true.
Publius, where would you honestly rank Regent University among U.S. law schools? It’s regarded as a clown college by law school students and professors that I know, but I’m open to being convinced they’re just biased.
Colbert’s beliefs raise an important corollary, in that any culture that values sarcasm and iconoclasm like the left does is going to end up, to all appearances, as mocking religion
yep. and that jumps right out when Colbert fans hear, for the first time, that he’s a Sunday school teacher. there’s quite a dissonance between the stereotypical Sunday school teacher and the kinds of humor he does. his Strangers With Candy character, for example, is pretty much the opposite of what you’d expect from someone who teaches kids about Jesus. of the people that i know who’ve learned about Colbert’s faith, most have been like, “no way. really? so he’s just, what, faking it on TV?” it really is hard to reconcile.
Wonkette turns her sights on Goodling. ouch.
“Yet major candidates seek his blessing, and his abundant money. So, as long as that happens, I’m inclined to shrug off the protestations that Robertson is marginal, a character from the past, a diminishing influence.”
I suspect that is scary things from the outside, while realizing that the things people call scary aren’t that important when seen from the inside. See for example the importance of ANSWER in anti-war organizing, or going the rounds shaking the hands of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
There’s an aspect of evangelical culture that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention from folks who know what they’re talking about, but that seems relevant here. Evangelical reading of Scripture identifies a lot of heroic personas, and places a great deal of emphasis on the passages which talk about people being called and gifted for various missions: “for such a time as this” is a passage you’ll hear a lot when evangelicals talk about responding to crises. There’s Moses positioned all unawares to lead the people of Irsael out of Egypt, Joseph sold into slavery and then rising to save the nation from famine, Esther become queen and able to intervene in another time of need, and so on and on. This is quite different from the actually messianic role, in that all these are normal people, just with the precisely right gifts and circumstances to save the day. In theory it shouldn’t be an occasion of pride to be one of their rank, but, well, pride is pride.
In addition, there’s the separate idea that in a time of need, grace can make use of our failings as well as our strengths – to confound the wisdom of this world, as Paul put it. Madeleine L’Engle demonstrated the idea compassionately (as one would expect of her) in A Wrinkle In Time, in which one of Meg’s faults, her stubbornness, is crucial to saving her family from the hive-mind of Camazotz. The principle can easily be extended too far, and an evangelical bent on defending Bush could come up with any of several rationales for Bush’s obvious character failings, including “well, if it saves us now, then there’s time to repent and repair it once we’re off the brink.”
When I was applying for jobs as an attorney, I reached out to people who graduated from my school, and similar schools (which would be service academies for undergraduate, and Rutgers for law school). As an attorney, I have made it a practice to help attorneys who graduated from my schools. It seems to be the system to get a foot in the door, and there is a pretty big industry to aid that system.
I have in fact had an interview with a hiring attorney who stated that people with a military background are too close minded to be effective attorneys (in the interview). I suspect that guy would have had the same response to someone from a religious school (my suspicion is that his problem really had to do with anyone interested in truth, rather than defending through any means available, because after working with him for a while, I was fairly disgusted).
So I don’t see anything especially nefarious about hiring from your alma mater. It is how it works: you have something in common, and probably have similar views of the law. When you get a foot in the door, you should help those coming after you.
the passages which talk about people being called and gifted for various missions: “for such a time as this” is a passage you’ll hear a lot when evangelicals talk about responding to crises.
This is a good point. I think another aspect of this culture is to expect crises to resolve themselves into narratives of overcoming, especially if you work hard and are virtuous.
Bruce Baugh: That sense of siege is crucial…
Amen to that, in a deeply depressing kind of way. I really do think that’s the unspoken glue that’s holding the Republican Party together: a mass sense of besiegement, of encroaching hordes who will defile all that’s good and holy and ruin your family and corrupt the essential purity of your bodily fluids, or something like that.
[And ick you with gay, it now seems.]
I’m not saying that all Republicans feel that, mind, but it’s the best explanation I’ve found for explaining the strange alliance of fiscal conservatives, foreign policy hawks and fundamentalist evangelicals we call the GOP. And it goes a long way to explaining the GOP’s takeover by radicals: if you’re feeling under siege you want someone strong, someone willing to bend the rules and Get Things Done, someone willing to fight back against the foe — imaginary will do, though real is even better — and you’re going to be willing to overlook their failings. It’s only natural. Which means that if someone cynical enough and unscrupulous enough realizes this… hello, modern Republican Party.
trilobite: that’s a little like saying that the John Birch Society showed a hostility towards non-capitalist economic forms as a whole, not just Soviet-style and Maoist communism. Or that the 1920s Klan objected to all dark people, not just American blacks. People express their ideas broadly, but react to what they actually see around them.
That may be true generally, but doesn’t explain the curious phenomenon of antisemitism in Japan, among others. I’m sure LJ knows more about it than I so I’ll let him take it from here.
ken: Even if I agreed with what you write — and I’m not sure that I do — that is not the way to go about convincing anyone of it. Take a deep breath, write more carefully and try to make your point without needlessly antagonizing everyone.
Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic: I don’t think anyone literally ever thought GWB was God, but many have seemed to view him as some sort of de facto priest, uniquely equipped to interpret God’s will for the masses.
I disagree. I think he’s being regarded as a pre-Enlightenment monarch, as an embodiment of true divine right. He was appointed by God, quoth any number of evangelical preachers, he was divinely inspired to lead us in the War on Terror, he has the ultimate power to make or break laws, and so forth. He’s basically Louis XIV with better hygeine.
Finally, to touch on a topic CaseyL and john miller raised: I’ve thought for a long time that the greatest sin of the evangelical movement is its elimination of doubt. [There’s an old quote that I can never quite remember that runs something like “Faith without doubt is terror”.] This obsessive need to prove Christianity, to prove its inerrancy, to prove the wonders of God, the “magic Jesus button” doctrine of salvation… it seems to me like overcompensation for the terror of what might happen if they’re wrong. Of fear instead of faith. When you try to eliminate that, you eliminate the only true feedback mechanism we have to determine whether we’re doing good things or bad, the only way we can curb the excesses of our zeal.
And doubt isn’t just a fundamental human emotion, it’s a cornerstone of science — as skepticism — and arguably Western civilization — as a questioning of authority. Eliminating doubt necessitates a war on science, it demands a war on culture… not because they’re different from religion but because they’re fundamentally incompatible with an absolute certitude. This is no longer a political issue, it’s something that strikes to the very core of their faith, or at least their theology, and it has to be destroyed.
None of the observations are original, mind, and I’m obviously painting with an enormously wide brush. [Heck, hilzoy did a paean to doubt here not that long ago.] I do think, though, that the first — and only — step that fundamentalist evangelism needs to make is to truly question their ways. And to be clear, I’m not saying that evangelicals are all self-absorbed dolts who have no sense of introspection, nor that questioning will cause them all to lose faith — though I suspect more will than would care to admit it — but that a culture so pervaded with certitude is a culture that’s going to get hijacked by some very bad people for some very bad purposes.
I think another aspect of this culture is to expect crises to resolve themselves into narratives of overcoming, especially if you work hard and are virtuous.
That’s another issue that I don’t quite understand in modern conservatism, since it seems to thread through a number of different branches: the notion that I Am A Hero. Not that I could be a hero if the situation warranted, or that there’s good work to be done that others might find heroic — I have a buddy who’s a volunteer firefighter, for example, and while I consider his actions heroic I think he’d just laugh in my face — but that somehow I, right now, in my everyday life, am a hero. As if making time for your kids is something to be proud of, or that sticking to a budget is noble, or that writing blog posts is making a stand against terror. They’re all hard and worthwhile, to various degrees, but heroic? The concept’s become so debased and so Disneyfied — Hometown Heroes! They’re so AWESOME! — that even when we talk about real heroes, e.g. WWII vets, we soften the edges of their sacrifice because, frankly, we can’t deal with the real thing any more.
True story, as an aside: when I went to Normandy as a young lad, I had tears in my eyes looking at the Pointe Du Hoc. I was crying buckets when we went to the cemetary. Hell, I’m tearing up now just thinking about those crosses. Yet there hasn’t been a “Greatest Generation” documentary that hasn’t made me want to throw something at the screen because they take the heroism away from the heroes. Normandy, for example… it was cold that morning, bullets were whizzing through the air, people were dying left right and center, the soldiers had to charge up a fairly flat beach through barbed wire trenches while guns large enough to hit battleships over the horizon roared above them… I mean, that’s the bloody point: the Normandy landings were terrifying. The men who fought there were heroes because it was terrifying. Because they could, and often did, die. Because the water was cold and the blood was warm and the shrapnel was hot and still they charged and climbed and won.
Heroism without the terror, without the terrible consequence of failure, isn’t heroism. It’s Hollywood Heroism. And it’s crap.
There’s nothing in my everyday life — nor most any other middle-class yonk on the internet — that compares. And yet, there’s a certain section of people who think that it does. They used to exist in great numbers on the left, though they’ve dwindled almost to non-existence; they’re rife on the right, though, and they’re growing in numbers. If I had to guess at a cause, I’d say it’s a confluence of three separate issues: the sense of siege mentioned above; the sense of purpose given in evangelical theology; and the sense of purposelessness of modern middle-class life, a kind of existential ennui that’s been paradoxically sharpened by the blurring of the lines between heroic and mundane. To be blunt: why be a nobody living an ordinary life, when you can be a Hero and Make A Stand without actually doing stuff that real heroes do? As I said in the journalism thread, the illusion of heroism is so much more comfortable than the real thing, and so much easier.
But I’ve talked enough — can you tell it’s been a long f***ing day? — so I shall leave this wonderful thread to those more eloquent and less verbose than I. Toodles.
Anarch: I’ve thought for a long time that the greatest sin of the evangelical movement is its elimination of doubt.
I read somewhere a while back that if the devil came to earth he would be a nice looking person who would take away all doubt from mankind–offer the yellow brick road, so to speak. Make it so very easy eliminate the need for self-reflection and debate and resolution. It will be all so easy, just do as he/she says. And with that the idea/concept of free will is eliminated.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it is true.
I don’t get political psychology. Why is it so opaque?
I don’t think it’s opaque at all. It’s essentially the same as the individual kind. How is it not?
The invocation of Ashcroft as a professional is yet another example of the Overton window and slippery slopes to my mind. It comes as no surprise that Monica Goodling’s web page was topped with a quote from the man himself.
“That’s another issue that I don’t quite understand in modern conservatism, since it seems to thread through a number of different branches: the notion that I Am A Hero. Not that I could be a hero if the situation warranted, or that there’s good work to be done that others might find heroic — I have a buddy who’s a volunteer firefighter, for example, and while I consider his actions heroic I think he’d just laugh in my face — but that somehow I, right now, in my everyday life, am a hero.”
I think this isn’t quite right. I think the actual role many evangelicals see themselves in is ‘shieldbearer’–loyal, steadfast, longsuffering, aid to a good cause. The problem of course is when you are shieldbearer to the wrong general…
But I could be projecting, because I was talking with a friend of mine about how in modern literature it is difficult to see compelling portrayals of supporting characters who really seem them selves as supporting a primary character. Even among literary analysis of older works, the need to define multiple characters as ‘heros’ is annoying. (This came up through a discussion of the Lord of the Rings where apparently a number of people see Samwise as ‘the real hero’. This comes from a deep misunderstanding of the dynamics of the characters. Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo are heros in the story. Elrond (hero from previous stories), Samwise and the rest may be heroic at times, but their function is in heroic support of the heros.
Agreed, Sebastian. Sam’s actions are heroic and indispensable, but Tolkein wisely kept the focus on Frodo’s moral struggle. One big problem w/ Jackson’s rendering of the trilogy was that he got carried away with the appeal of Sam-as-hero, to the extent that Frodo nearly disappeared from the third movie. Inserting that cliche cliff-hanging scene at the end was the nail in the coffin.
But then, Jackson missed the moral dimension of the trilogy in general.
But I could be projecting, because I was talking with a friend of mine about how in modern literature it is difficult to see compelling portrayals of supporting characters who really seem them selves as supporting a primary character.
I’m reminded of a line from “Shakespeare in Love”…
WENCH: “What is this play about?”
NURSE: “Well, there’s this nurse…”
Although perhaps you had to be there.
Thoughtful post and thread.
jrudikis wrote: “…I don’t see anything nefarious about hiring from your alma mater……”
On its face, neither do I. But with regard to the specifics of Regent University and Pat Robertson’s stated goal of eradicating the separation of Church and State and founding his university and employing it as a bootcamp and staging area for training attorneys and other specialists whose collective, disciplined mission is to effect that eradication from within the institutions and agencies of the U.S. Government is, in my opinion, unacceptable.
Look (now to the thread at large), all of us can argue in good faith to what extent the Founding documents of the United States are “informed” by the Judeo-Christian heritage and tenets (and we can disagree in good faith regarding specific issues like abortion, public religious displays, etc), but the goal of Pat Robertson and some within the Republican Party is to halt the discussion we have been having for 230 odd years in this country.
There will be no petition to a manmade institution that employs folks who believe, without doubt with a capital D, that only their God can be petitioned, and only by the faithful.
Nor do I desire the U.S. Government to be an arm of the Evangel.
I would react the same way if Madelaine Murray O’Hare started churning out graduates of a diploma mill for atheists and they began hiring each other en masse in the U.S. Government, or if Angela Davis started her own university with one major: Nationalizing All Private Property 101.
Note: if you believe that’s what happened in the 1960s and the 1970s, then you’re even more paranoid that I am and you vastly overestimate the organizational skills and discipline of the colorful Left.
The Robertson people, whom I’m sure are perfectly nice folks, are not hiring each other because they shared a fraternity or sorority membership, nor are they remotely similar to, say, William F. Buckley who, if he was a public servant, might hire fellow graduates of all religious denominations from Yale Law School.
One more point, of a more personal nature.
Both of my grandmothers were women of deep faith though different denominations. My neighbors, to one extent or another, are Christians. Many of my friends are church-going, good folks.
But they nearly all possess what I believe is the key ingredient of a diverse (may I use that word in its plainest sense without causing knees to jerk?) society: Doubt. And thus their faith possesses a certain humbleness and courtesy about how other folks choose to believe and what Death and Eternity have in store for them.
Not so with the several Robertson-like fundamentalists I’ve known and had discussions with. They are not humble or circumspect in their certain, literal reading of the Gospel. Let’s leave my eternal fate aside, since I’m a liberal, agnostic hypocrite quaking in doubt. No, one of them told me that my dear, sweet, faithful grandmothers were, as we spoke, burning in hell.
There is something about that statement that doesn’t work, unless you’re hiding in a cave somewhere and certainly not working for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.
You may start a church and not pay taxes. Fine. But stay out of my government.
So, I figure, the least I can do is wax a little sarcastic about such fair game and their beliefs. And I can get a little creepy chill up my spine, like I do when I watch the seedpods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” get smuggled into the basements of folks turning in for the night, when I hear that so many office cubicles are occupied by Robertson graduates.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Well, there are moments in The Return of the King where Sam is a hero. Well, okay, one short period – when Sam thinks Frodo is dead, and realizes that as the only one of the Company left he has to take the Ring and go on to Mount Doom and destroy it. And he does. (“I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.”) And this short period ends when Sam – the only Ringbearer ever to do so – gives the Ring back to Frodo. Sam isn’t a hero before that, he’s the perfect sidekick: and he isn’t a hero after that, he’s a heroic sidekick.
But briefly, yes, Sam is a hero – as all of the Company are, at some point. Boromir isn’t, but in a way (in the book) Faramir gets to be the hero – the opportunity Boromir rejected.
Tolkien does make a distinction between Heroes in the mythological sense and the Ordinary Folks whom the hobbits represent. There’s even a discussion between Sam and Frodo about it at some point, although without a copy to hand I’m not likely to get any of the dialogue right.
The Elves, Dwarves, and Men occupy some different world than the hobbits do; the former are more likely to be the stuff of epics, the latter of comic song.
Frodo, however, becomes a Christological figure, transformed by his suffering (and progressively more difficult for the reader to identify fully with). As that process deepens, Sam’s role as “sidekick” verges into the heroic—but I do agree with Sebastian that Sam’s heroism is more everyday, more metaphorical than grand and structural.
As for the shieldbearer in literature, did you consider the representation of wives?
Typepad thinks I am a comment spammer. Go over to TiO to see what I think, Mr. Thullen.
Also I’m waiting to hear from you about that other thing.
“This comes from a deep misunderstanding of the dynamics of the characters. Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo are heros in the story. Elrond (hero from previous stories), Samwise and the rest may be heroic at times, but their function is in heroic support of the heros.” …SH
A deep misunderstanding indeed. 🙂
It is important in in reading the books to recognize the class issues involved, because they were important to Tolkien. Frodo, Pippin, and Merry are from a higher social class than Sam. Frode is a country squire and Sam his gardener. Somewhat approaching nobility, Frodo, like the Prince who went to Iraq, acted because he had to, because it was expected of him, because he loved the Shire, because it was his duty. Pippin & Merry act out of adventurism, but also with the Ents and elsewhere are concious of duty. After the Ringwar, Pippin & Merry went on to further adventures and were buried next to Aragorn. Both also gave their Allegiance elsewhere than the Shire, thralls to other kingdoms.
Sam has little sense of duty, except to Frodo. Sam acts out of love and friendship. Sam is given the seeds, and rebuilds the Shire after the scourging. Sam becomes Mayor.
Tolkien was an expert on “heroes”, Beowulf, and with personal experience of the officer class and ordinary soldiers.
Frodo eventually succumbed to the Ring. Only Sam (and Bilbo kinda, Galadriel’s hubby, who gave his to Gandalf), possessed a Ring, The Ring, and gave it up willingly. This is the key scene of the story, and why Sam is the hero of LOTR.
Dutiful heroes preserve and destroy. As Frodo destroyed the Ring, as Aragorn ended the line of Numenor, as Gandalf caused the Elves to leave ME.
Lovers create, nurture, grow things.
As far as the topic goes, liberalism and the Enlightenment are in mortal opposition to anything I would call religion. Deal with it. I have much more sympathy for Goodlng and Dawkins than most in this thread.
Why pray toward Mecca 5 times a day? Why not 4 o 6? Why would Abraham kill Isaac?
No reason. Because authority so commands, and we submit. And so once Bush is accepted as authority, Goodling serves. This isn’t rocket science.
Anarch on heroes: well said.
Yes but religion isn’t the only human concept that does this. It could be “Racial Justice” or “Anti-Colonial Action” or “Anti-Communist” or “A Sense of Egalitarian Fairness”.
Those causes certainly attract people who regard them as messianic concepts, but there is still a key, basic, fundamental difference between those and religion as political ideology.
Traditionally, the religious have connected their faith to worldly causes: racial justice to address very real, quantifiable discrimination; anti-colonialism against very real, quantifiable oppression by the colonizers; egalitarian fairness as a reaction to very real, quantifiable inequality.
What is fundamentalist Christianity about? What is the Christian Right interested in achieving?
Salvation and righteousness.
How do you determine which policies lead to salvation and righteousness?
Well, for one thing, you can’t in any objective way, because the definitions of those things depend on which faith you practice, and which version of holy book you say is the “true” one. There is no real-world standard for “achieving Salvation,” because – however much anyone may deeply and sincerely believe Heaven and Hell are real, factual places – they’re not. The existance of either one is unproven and unprovable. So basing public, governmental policies on Salvation isn’t just illogical, its irrational.
For another, the standards of righteousness have a way of changing. It was once a standard of righteousness to kill as many unbelievers as possible; it was once a standard of righeousness to destroy a culture right down to its historical record in the course of forcibly converting its people to an approved religion. To own slaves was considered righteous, even as other Christians were saying the opposite. To keep people of color from voting, owning property was once a standard of righteousness. To outlaw mixed-race marriage was once a standard of righteousness.
Now it’s supposed to be a standard of righteousness to make war on Islam; and to keep gays from marrying or adopting children or even living in one’s town; and to keep young people ignorant of birth control.
The common thread among all of those standards of righteousness is that, if you remove the religious justification for them, there’s little or nothing left for them to stand on. Is there a real world reason to outlaw mixed-race marriage? For outlawing same-sex marriage? For saying “abstinence only” is a good policy for preventing unwanted pregnancies?
No, there isn’t. Not only is there no real world reason for supporting those things, there are real world reasons to oppose them.
Racial justice, inequity, and so on are real, observable, quantifiable things. You might be able to argue they’re desirable things – but if you take Biblical precepts out of the equation, you need to come up with factual reasons why they’re desirable things. You need to come up with some rigorous, logical philosophical, historical, statistical argument.
Ditto the policies to address those issues. You might disagree with things like affirmative action, progressive taxation, the ADA, and such – but you need to defend your position with something more, something more real, than “because it says so in the Bible.”
Oh, frak. I’m so so sorry. Someone please turn off the italics.
Please, Lord, italics off.
Anarch: “That’s another issue that I don’t quite understand in modern conservatism, since it seems to thread through a number of different branches: the notion that I Am A Hero.
Sebastian: I think this isn’t quite right. I think the actual role many evangelicals see themselves in is ‘shieldbearer’–loyal, steadfast, longsuffering, aid to a good cause. The problem of course is when you are shieldbearer to the wrong general…
Urgh. Thus is a goalpost moved.
I think Anarch is exactly right, and you see it all the time from the likes of Hugh “Working in midtown Manhattan is exactly like serving in Iraq” Hewitt, John “Those British pussies should’ve let the Iranians martyr them in service to the War On Islam I Mean Terror” Derbyshire, et al. The guys at Sadly, No! regularly have a field day with this sort of nonsense.
Incredible thread.
It seems that many Americans tend to forget that Fundamentalism was developed by conservative/orthodox Protestants in the early 20s/late Teens. The greatest threat to American Fundamentalists was not atheism, but moderate Protestants who were “modern” in their hermeneutics. Karl Jaspers, Rhineold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Martin Luther King Jr., Bonheoffer held to a “Modernist” interpretation of scripture.
Christians put Darwin in the schools. Show me the list of athiests that made that possible? Social Darwinism was embraced by many religious Protestants.
Many Fundies were Democrats (William Jennings Bryan was as Left as you can get, in the Democratic Party c. late 1890’s) and rejected Capitalist economic system that rewarded greed. While Fundies in the Republican Party thought Fundies in the Democratic Party should shut the Hell up!
Christians made Roe V. Wade possible. Only 10 percent of this nation claims to be atheist. Show me all the atheists in the Supreme Court who made Roe V. Wade possible.
Christians took prayers out of many public events. Many Protestants didn’t trust Jews and Roman Catholics with prayer, let alone Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and 7th Day Adventists.
I think the latest attempt by right-wing nationalists to revive history to paint a Christian solidarity in the United States is crazy. Mainline Moderates have always been the biggest threat to Fundamentalism.
Clicked on Orcinus by mistake but came up with this restrained take on Regent University as a result:
Orcinus
As a matter of statistical likelihood, if you pick a random self-identifying liberal and a random self-identifying conservative, it’s somewhat more likely that the liberal will be dismissive of religious faith. Emphasis on “somewhat”. I think that’s about as far as you can take the “liberals are hostile to religion” thing.
This is a big country, with lots of different kinds of people in it. We’re not ever going to all be the same. We might as well get used to it. What a cliche, right? But, that’s the reality. We really and truly might as well get used to it, because that’s who we are.
Regarding Goodling, I think Sebastian has hit the nail on the head with this:
She thinks the aim is so good that the methods of getting there are for the most part incidental.
The issue is not whether Goodling thinks that she is going to bring about the kingdom of God through her efforts in the DOJ. Some folks might think that, and do absolutely wonderful things. The beliefs and aspirations that motivate people are really their own star to follow.
The issue is whether Goodling was willing to observe the rules that we’ve all agreed to live by — which is to say, the law — or whether she thought her particular motivations and goals were so uniquely important as to justify stepping outside the law.
I don’t really care if someone went to Regent, or Liberty, or Patrick Henry, although contra jrudkis I would prefer that folks not use the DOJ as a jobs program for their alma mater. I don’t care if they went to NYU, or Harvard. I don’t care if they went to the state university around the corner from me. What I care about is that they do a good job, and that they are willing to respect the limits of their office.
Nobody should be disrespected for their religious beliefs, and nobody should expect special treatment for their religious beliefs. There are all kinds of people living here, and we all deserve our place at the table.
Thanks –
That was beautifully put, CaseyL. It’s been something I’ve been trying to articulate for some time but could never quite jot down.
As a counter to Goodling, let me propose Lt. Colonel Stuart Crouch, profiled in the March 31 Wall Street Journal. Motivated by Evangelical conviction, he refused to prosecute Mohamedou Ould Slahi,a “sure death penalty case” in the words of the article.
Col. Couch refused to proceed with the Slahi prosecution. The reason: He concluded that Mr. Slahi’s incriminating statements — the core of the government’s case — had been taken through torture, rendering them inadmissible under U.S. and international law.
It was his faith — what he heard in church (this being Falls Church Episcopal, a conservative, Evangelical congregation)– that tipped the balance. Religious faith, even strong Evangelical faith does not necessarily lead to the corrupt thinking of a Monica Goodling; sometimes it can yield a fruit of conscience and righteousness that stands as a kind of beacon.
I would suggest this is one of those instances.
To Sebastian: there’s a world of difference between regarding oneself as a shieldbearer to a general and a footsoldier in the War On Whatever. Or a vanguard of the proletariat, come to that. I suspect there are plenty of the former in the conservative movement, but it’s the latter who are getting all the airtime.
Yes but religion isn’t the only human concept that does this. It could be “Racial Justice” or “Anti-Colonial Action” or “Anti-Communist” or “A Sense of Egalitarian Fairness”.
Seb,
This statement seems somewhat disingenuous. Of course, people can elevate any human belief over all others. That’s obvious. The question is, “for what belief systems do normal people do that in practice?”
I assert that far more americans do so with Christianity than with any of the examples you listed. Now there is no way to know for certain what large numbers of people really believe in their heart of hearts, so I propose that as a proxy, we measure where people spend their time and money.
Many christains devote 10% of their income to their church. Can you show me an equally large group of people in America in 2007 that devote 10% of their income to eliminating racial injustice? Or anti-colonial action? Or a sense of egalitarian fairness?
Again, I’m not saying that there is literally no one on earth who strongly believes those things and puts up serious cash to but back their belief. But I am saying that the relative numbers are simply insignificant.
What do you think?
Mr. Harris, thank you for bringing up the case of Col. Couch. While I am appalled by the abuses of such faux-Christians as Ms. Goodling, I am uncomfortable with generalized Christian-bashing. True Christians, while not the majority in America, are fine and noble people. Would that all Christians were true to the ideals of Christ.
“To Sebastian: there’s a world of difference between regarding oneself as a shieldbearer to a general and a footsoldier in the War On Whatever. Or a vanguard of the proletariat, come to that. I suspect there are plenty of the former in the conservative movement, but it’s the latter who are getting all the airtime.”
But we were talking about Goodling and people like her. I don’t see any evidence that she sees herself as a hero, but she acts exactly like you expect of a shieldbearer.
Common Sense: “This statement seems somewhat disingenuous. Of course, people can elevate any human belief over all others. That’s obvious. The question is, ‘for what belief systems do normal people do that in practice?’
I assert that far more americans do so with Christianity than with any of the examples you listed.”
On the left it is just more fractured. And frankly you can only make that last statement because you inappropriately throw together all the versions of Christianity.
Seb,
On the left it is just more fractured.
Huh? What are the specific beliefs that you allege people on “the left” have fractured their allegiance to?
From an economic perspective, I’m not sure this argument makes any sense. I look across this country and I see many many thousands of churches that in aggregate represent vast sums of capital, time, and energy. Infrastructure is expensive; buildings and maintenance and minister salaries are expensive. I don’t see anything even close to that amount of economic activity in beliefs associated with “the left,” even if you consider lots of causes on the “the left” together.
Seriously, what are you talking about? What specific things on the left garner so much cash, even in combination? As someone on “the left” who donates to his local church, I’m really confused as to what you could possibly be thinking here.
And frankly you can only make that last statement because you inappropriately throw together all the versions of Christianity.
Why on earth was that inappropriate? The specific argument that you made referred to the proportion of the population that elevate particular belifs above all others. You argued that religious beliefs were not the worst offender. In that case, talking about the aggregate behavior of christains in America seems pretty darn relevant. Can you explain why it is not?
At least, I think that’s what you argued. I suppose you could have written your comments in the spirit of “there are statistically insignificant numbers of people who elevate non-religious beliefs in the same way,” but I asume you were not trying to introduce a pointless statement into the discussion just to muddy the waters.
Focusing on the important point: “They are, quite literally, the dark side of the force.”
There’s a literal Force? Really? Literally?
@Sebastian at 5:28: I don’t think so. People who pooh-pooh Robertson’s influence are looking at him from considerably further away (“outside”) than am I — someone involved in Virginia politics.
“From an economic perspective, I’m not sure this argument makes any sense. I look across this country and I see many many thousands of churches that in aggregate represent vast sums of capital, time, and energy. Infrastructure is expensive; buildings and maintenance and minister salaries are expensive.”
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were applying your statements to ALL Christians. Our disagreement is rather deeper than I thought.
And I absolutely do think there are a statistically very signifcant number of people on the left who do exactly what you are accusing ‘Christians’ of doing–elevate their exalted sense of morality above the legal system.
“I don’t think so. People who pooh-pooh Robertson’s influence are looking at him from considerably further away (“outside”) than am I — someone involved in Virginia politics.”
How important is Virginia politics in the scheme of the US right? I don’t think it is particularly important, not particularly unimportant, but not particularly important either.
And I absolutely do think there are a statistically very signifcant number of people on the left who do exactly what you are accusing ‘Christians’ of doing–elevate their exalted sense of morality above the legal system.
Even if true — a matter which is, um, yet to be established — those people do not attempt to convince voters that there will be eternal metaphysical implications and/or punishment by the creator of the universe for not enacting those morals.
I guess I’m not surprised to see that no one took up my abortion challenge. Especially because it wasn’t generally directed. Let me try it another way: I think we can all agree that worship — actual worship — of a literal golden calf (that is, a sculpture of a calf made of gold — no metaphors here) would be utterly and totally incompatible with Christianity. No Christian can do so, absent coercion, and call herself a Christion. Agreed?
We have no laws that prohibit the worship of golden calves. In fact, we have a constitutional structure that forbids laws prohibiting the worship of golden calves. Everyone still with me?
This constitutional structure is not in any way inconsistent with Christianity: one can be a full-fledged good Christian and continue to live in a state that does not, and may not, outlaw the worship of golden calves. This is because there is no tenet of Christianity that requires that a state punish particular behavior, because the tenets of Christianity are not concerned with what the state does or does not permit. They are, imho, about how an individual believer interacts with God, and the community of other believers.
In our current constitutional state, we find ourselves not only unable to prohibit worship of the golden calf, but also unable to prohibit — we can restrict fairly substantially, but not prohibit — abortion. Somehow the one condition is tolerable, and the other not.
Somehow the one condition is tolerable, and the other not.
You just wait.
elevate their exalted sense of morality above the legal system
Well duh, that’s because the legal system and morality are not equivalent – any discussion on ethics is an exercise in elevating one’s “exalted sense” of morality above the legal system, since it will inevitably touch on subjects not covered by or disputed within the legal system.
But I’m sure you are aware of the difference between a theological and a philosophical discussion of ethics – hint: arguments relying on a mysterious higher power or a certain book as their ultimate foundation are not taken seriously in most philosophy departments.
I think there can be a rational discussion about abortion without any religion involved (I don’t think the same can be said about the Golden Calf 😉 ), i.e. it is a topic that is not religious per se.
An often overlooked difference between the secular discussion about this and the (traditional)religious one is that (at least following the traditional church doctrine(s)) the target is different.
The secular discussion puts the right of the unborn as a living entity against that of the woman carrying it, while (again only talking about official doctrine) the Christian POV concentrates on the danger to the soul of the unborn.
In historical context the question of abortion was closely related to the question of the time of the infusion of the soul and the question of original sin. For the time that both the Aristotelean gradual soul-infusion theory and the Augustinean theory of original sin were accepted, abortion became a deadly sin only after the assumed time of infusion (before that point it was just a lesser sin for “meddling”). This coincides more or less with the first trimester that is the base for many abortion laws today. The main sin was not (and many eminent theologians were quite specific about that) the killing of the unborn but the condemnation of the unbaptized soul to hell*. Iirc the shift from the Aristotelean view to the “soul is present from the moment of conception” started not before the late 16th century and was pushed more by protestants than the RCC but I would have to look that up (I do not know the Orthodox position(s) on that topic) .
The idea of the unborn as “innocent” was (and still is in some parts/denominations) a heresy**(the waters have become a bit muddled about that since Vaticanum II).
I do not think that many Christians are actually aware of that (despite e.g. John Paul II repeatedly referring to it).
Thus (and I think wisely) in effect the religious “95-100% no to abortion” position is now more or less on the same paper as the secular.
I just put that here as a caveat for any decidedly “Christian”*** argument on the topic.
*The most perverse conclusion from that that I am aware of were local laws that women that had died in pregnancy could not be buried in in “sacred earth”, if the “unsaved” unborn was not cut out and buried outside the churchyard.
**Luther was a strict Augustinean on that but mainstream Lutheranism has quietly abandoned that belief and now roots for the “innocent unborn” concept.
***The Jewish tradition allows abortion in case of severe danger to the mother until the head of the baby is out of the birth canal. The unborn is in that case seen as an attacker that can be slain in self-defense due to lack of other options.
nd I absolutely do think there are a statistically very signifcant number of people on the left who do exactly what you are accusing ‘Christians’ of doing–elevate their exalted sense of morality above the legal system.
Apparently I’ve been unclear. I am not accusing millions of christians of elevating their personal morality above the legal system. What I am saying is that there are a lot more christians in America who believe strongly enough in their religion to give a great deal of money to it than there are people who believe strongly enough in racial justice to give an equivalent amount of money.
But I think our disagreement goes much deeper than that. I’m trying to make an actual argument with actual evidence that can be, if not tested, at least considered. You’re just giving me opinions with no evidentiary basis whatsoever. Again, can you please name what specific groups on “the left” garner anywhere near as much financtial support? I’m not interested in vague allusions, I’m interested in a testable hypothesis.
And by the way, I’m not accusing christians of doing anything. I am a christian. I’m making observations about how many people are willing to pony up serious cash based on their beliefs.
This is getting to be over my head, but I’ll note that I am willing to found “The Church of the Golden Calf” so long as the IRS recognizes it as tax exempt. Mostly I’ll just sell indulgences over the Internet with a sliding scale based on how heinous your sin is (to the Golden Calf of course). From there I may spin it off into a media empire, but we’ll have to see how it goes…
The problem is to get enough gold to cast the calf in the first place (before you are tax exempt). I think a minimum size would be needed (and then half of the inflowing money is used to enlarge the calf to lure in even more).
Getting a large scale gold credit from Fort Knox could be difficult.
If OCSteve wants to found The Church of the Chocolate Calf instead, I’m in. Providing only the finest chocolate is used to cast the calf. Given Bill Donahue’s aversion to anatomically realistic statues in chocolate, however, the calf would have to be a gelding. As we Brits say, bollocks.
We use only the finest baby calf, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple-smooth treble milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.
The problem is to get enough gold to cast the calf in the first place
Ahh but you see this is an Internet based church. I really just need a good photoshop.
the calf would have to be a gelding
Nonsense. The anatomically correct version would be in an adult’s only section requiring CC verification. You would also have to click “Agree” on the EULA warning you about the dangers of viewing anatomically correct farm animals.
If I switch to chocolate, does Godiva do, or is that overrated?
Godiva is overrated. The Belgians sell it to tourists. 😉 Still, if it’s an American church, it’s probably the best you can do…
(The best chocolate in the world, IMO, is Valrhona: their 41% milk chocolate would make a believer out of an atheist. I should know. The effects are sincere, but short-lived.)
However, Valrhona isn’t Fair Trade, and a church really ought to offer only morally pure chocolate to worship… right?
Jes, I realize that the Crunchy Frog did use milk chocolate, but let’s be real: if you’re going to make an idol out of chocolate, you shouldn’t be ruining it with milk.
but also unable to prohibit — we can restrict fairly substantially, but not prohibit — abortion. Somehow the one condition is tolerable, and the other not.
Why do otherwise smart people completely and conspicuously fail to grasp the basics of the abortion issue?
Either you think it’s a baby, or you don’t, or you think it’s some kind of intermediate being w/r/t rights etc. These beliefs have no necessary relation to any creed — one could be an atheist and oppose abortion.
If you think a zygote, to say nothing of a fetus, is a baby, then you are going to see abortion as legalized murder, no better than the Nazis’ extermination of the mentally ill.
Whereas calf-worship harms no one physically, and may even promote the well-being of calves.
The hypocrisy & inconsistency of so many fundamentalist “pro-lifers” should not lead us to confuse their ideology with the genuine issues about abortion.
I’m quite fond of Dove chocolate, esp. the dark.
Shall the Church of the Cocoa Calf divide into two sects, the Milk and the Semisweet?
Or shall we all worship in the same congregation, before a Calf shaped according to the wisdom of Solomon; viz:
1. The Sacred Cocoa Calf shall be divided in two parts, with a line drawn from nose to tail-tip, down past the Maybe-Maybe Not Sacred Bovine testicles, along the belly and neck and up again to the nose.
2. The Worshippers of the Milk Chocolate shall genuflect along the right-hand side of the Sacred Cocoa Calf, which shall be made of Milk Chocolate.
3. The Worshippers of the Bittersweet shall genuflect along the left-hand side of the Sacred Cocoa Calf, which shall be made of Bittersweet, or Dark, Chocolate.
4. It will be permissible, by the payment of a fee of no more than five pieces of goldfoil-wrapped chocoate coins, for a Worshipper of the Milk to change and become a Worshipper of the Bittersweet; and also the opposite shall be true and permitted.
Yea. Verily.
Anderson: Why do otherwise smart people completely and conspicuously fail to grasp the basics of the abortion issue?
Beats me. The basics of the abortion issue are very obvious: either you consider a woman to be a human being, whether or not she’s pregnant, or you don’t.
If you do, you’re going to see forcing her through unwanted pregnancy and childbirth as a vicious attack on basic human rights, which has the immediate and obvious direct effects of vastly increased maternal morbidity rates and deaths/sterility due to illegal abortions.
If you don’t, you’re going to frame the abortion issue as primarily about the fetus, because the woman is in your view merely an incubator, not a human being who gets to decide what she will and will not do with her own body.
The hypocrisy of so many fundamentalist pro-lifers is in their pretense that they care deeply about “the babies”, when in fact their primary concern is to ensure that women do not have full human rights, above all the right to decide when and how often to bear children.
…though actually, I think I’d rather argue about chocolate.
Most milk chocolate is awful. Hershey’s chocolate is particularly awful. Although I have a nostalgic fondness for Cadbury’s milk chocolate, I acknowledge it is pretty much vegelate.
Generally I opt for dark chocolate, because that is more likely to have mouthworthy amounts of cocoa solids, but milk chocolate made with pure cream, no soya substitute, so much cocoa butter it begins to melt the moment you put it in your mouth, and 40+% cocoa solids… that’s “I’ll have what she’s having” chocolate.
Some follow the heresy of white chocolate, while others believe it is punishable by death.
I’m a chocolate Unitarian, myself.
Incidentally, Jes on April 09, 2007 at 07:56 PM, and Jackmormon at 08:27 PM, are entirely correct about Sam’s heroism in LOTR. (Some of what Bob says at 08:53 PM is, and some isn’t; “Gandalf caused the Elves to leave ME” is flat wrong, I’m afraid; Gandalf had nothing whatever to do with it; the Elves had been leaving ever since the Second Age began ending; blame Illuvatar — that Tolkien was concerned with class issues also isn’t something I recall as having any factual basis, though I’m willing to correct myself if there’s evidence I’ve forgotten about.)
I’m tempted to fliply declare Sebastian’s comments about LOTR at 7:26 p.m. flat wrong, but it’s certainly possible that with some elaboration, his view is unobjectionable. This, though: “…apparently a number of people see Samwise as ‘the real hero’. This comes from a deep misunderstanding of the dynamics of the characters,” is just wrong (I’m not sure if Sebastian is valuing Joseph Campbell over the actual stories Tolkien created, or what, but saying that the view of Sam as “the real hero” is “wrong” is wrong: it’s a perfectly legitimate POV).
“But I think our disagreement goes much deeper than that. I’m trying to make an actual argument with actual evidence that can be, if not tested, at least considered.”
Your actual argument assumes that tithing goes largely toward political activity, an idea which is wrong. If you think giving money to what you think is a good cause is symptomatic of political ill, I ask that you consider that in the light AIDS or cancer-related fundraising. Are the hundreds of thousands of women who give money and participate in the Breast Cancer Three Day to be accused of putting their personal morality above the law? I would suspect not, if for no other reason than that what they are doing is not illegal. You attempting to lump all Christian charity/tithing activity into the corrosive activity that we are talking about doesn’t make sense to me.
You are marshalling ‘testable evidence’ that has almost nothing to do with your thesis. If I believed that all liberals were Martians, proving that there existed a planet ‘Mars’ wouldn’t exactly prove it.
Being in the middle of a Tolkien re-reading jag, I’d guess that Tolkien would say that a pure love for any part of the world, whether it’s a nation or a comrade or a grove, is a form of love for the whole world. (And that part of this love must be a willingness to allow it to change, even if that means letting it go, so that love doesn’t become mere covetousness.) Also, of course, Tolkien would denounce as obvious folly the idea that being heroic means never making any really bad mistakes. Part of what makes Lord of the Rings so powerful for me, in fact, is that everybody does. C.S. Lewis would have called hero-worship like the Bush cult idolatry; I suspect Tolkien would have agreed.
Wow, so many issues I could jump in on. I’ll stick to the important stuff–Tolkien.
Gary Farber is mostly right, but a little wrong in his evaluation of Bob’s rightness and wrongness regarding Tolkien. Or anyway, I for one perceive a class structure in the Shire–so did Ursula K. LeGuin, who said she had mad visions of starting a hobbit socialist party, based on the way Sam internalized his subordinate status. For instance, when Sam decides to give up the Ring, he does so partly on the basis that he is, after all, just a gardener. Actually, I like his reasoning–nobody should harbor the ambition to rule the world and turn it into one gigantic garden (though that’s a nobler ambition than most would-be conquerors have).
But there’s definitely a hint of class-awareness in his reasoning.
That aside, Gary is completely right.
Lots of other interesting issues in this thread, but I’ll have to let them pass. I’m not quite sure what Seb and common sense are arguing about, so that’s one in particular I’ll steer clear of.
I think Tolkien made it explicit (not in the book itself of course, could be in one of his letters) that Frodo failed in the end (claiming the ring for himself) and that Gollum did not achieve redemption only because of Sam’s mistrust. It was quite important for Tolkien to demonstrate that humans can’t achieve redemption/defeat The Evil solely by their own power but that it is possible to spoil other people’s way to redemption by treating them the wrong way.
I think that it is even stated explicitly in the Silmarillion that Sauron might have been sincere in his repentance after the fall of Melkor/Morgoth and became the new Dark Lord only after he was confronted with the open distrust by the Valar (the text leaves it, I think deliberately, open whether he was really sincere or only pretending).
Seb,
Let me say, yet again, that I do not believe that christains are doing anything wrong by tithing. But the fact is that there are lots of christains who tithe lots of money, and that gigantic money flow says something about what christains (including me) think is important in their lives.
Let me ask you, yet again, to point out the equivalent on “the left” that you alluded to earlier. If it is a fragmented equivalent (as you stated earlier) than point out all the fragments. But please, point out something to justify your earlier comments.
Tolkien is fairly clear on what Sam’s distrust did to Gollum. There’s the crucial scene where Gollum caresses a sleeping Frodo, after having arranged things with Shelob, and comes close to repentance. Then Sam awakens and accuses him (correctly) of sneaking off and the moment of repentance is ruined forever. I liked the complexity of the moment–Sam is right to be suspicious, but on a deeper level he’s wrong to voice his suspicion. The scene was, I suppose, too nuanced for Jackson and he simplifies the relationship between the three characters too much. (I liked the movies overall, but Jackson mangled some of the characters, turning the Ents into morons and Denethor into Dubya and in the Sam/Frodo/Gollum triangle he turns Frodo’s Christlike compassion for Gollum into a Ring-influenced naivete, something almost evil at the end.)
“Or anyway, I for one perceive a class structure in the Shire–so did Ursula K. LeGuin, who said she had mad visions of starting a hobbit socialist party, based on the way Sam internalized his subordinate status.”
Oh, LOTR is chock full, bursting at the seams, with class issues one can analyze from the POV of the real world.
But that speaks not at all towards Tolkien’s intentions, which is where I took issue with Bob’s declaration that class issues “were important to Tolkien.” I don’t recall any evidence at all that this is true (but, as I indicated, my major involvement in following Tolkien scholarship was decades ago, so I’m perfectly happy to be corrected if someone has some relevant facts I’m forgetting or unaware of); John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (CBE) was an Oxford don, and so far as I recall, was almost entirely apolitical, and had no record whatever of concern with labor and class issues. If there’s evidence in Tolkien’s life that “class issues” “were important to Tolkien,” I’d like to know what it is.
(That his work reflects English class structures certainly isn’t it.)
(One can find with no difficulty plenty of “class issues” in Wodehouse to analyze, but this scarcely demonstrates that class issues “were very important” to Wodehouse; so far as I’m aware, class issues were, in fact, something Tolkien was completely indifferent in regard to.)
Incidentally, there isn’t an “Ursula K. LeGuin,” any more than there’s a Tolkein; it’s “Le Guin.”
Shall the Church of the Cocoa Calf divide into two sects, the Milk and the Semisweet?
Great. I don’t even have my PayPal “tithing” button set up yet and I’ve got sects splitting off. I’m going back to the gold.
Donald: For instance, when Sam decides to give up the Ring, he does so partly on the basis that he is, after all, just a gardener.
But mostly because he loves Frodo.
OCSteve: Great. I don’t even have my PayPal “tithing” button set up yet and I’ve got sects splitting off. I’m going back to the gold.
White gold or red gold?
“I liked the movies overall, but Jackson mangled some of the characters”
I’d more or less agree: Jackson, and Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens overall did a magnificent job of adaption, but a number of the more subtler story aspects were distorted or lost. (I really disliked the way Denethor was made so simplistic and over-the-top, with no nuance, and I also was unwild about Gimli turning into comic relief, but there’s much much more than can be — and has been — criticized, even though I love the films nonetheless (the full “extended” versions, of course).
In the larger story, though, Gollum was lost when he acquired the Ring through murder; no real redemption for him was possible from that moment on; as a capper, he bore the Ring far too long to ever overcome what he’d let it do to him. What Sam did or didn’t do couldn’t ever change either fact about Gollum in Tolkien’s moral universe. (Boromir, in comparison, had free will, but allowed the Ring to tempt him in a way that Faramir successfully resisted.)
“But the fact is that there are lots of christains who tithe lots of money, and that gigantic money flow says something about what christains (including me) think is important in their lives.”
I find myself unable to resist asking: who are these “christains,” exactly?
publius, great post and thread. some of that old legal fiction magic at work.
like most people, right-wing evangelical christians are desperate for meaning in their lives. that is, what they do, they do in an attempt to give their lives (grand) meaning. whereas accepting a secular humanist world view, (to their view) would mean accepting that life may be meaningless. for some people that is just too scary. hence, the resentment and desire for authority.
Not to wrench this back on topic or anything but…
Sebastian: I don’t see any evidence that she sees herself as a hero, but she acts exactly like you expect of a shieldbearer.
Ok, I think I may have located the source of our disagreement: there are apparently two distinct meanings to the word “shieldbearer”. One refers to a lightly armored carrier of a shield whose responsibility was to, well, shield the bowmen or lords; the other — and interestingly, the only one I found in the OED — referring to a young warrior who carries the shield for a lord so that he won’t have to carry it himself until battle.
Now I completely disagree that Goodling perceives herself to be, or is acting like, a shieldbearer in the latter sense. She, like Libby before her, seems to be throwing herself on her sword or, if you prefer, taking a bullet meant for the President. That’s not what (the second sense of) shieldbearers do, that’s what bodyguards or soldiers — in other words, heroes — do. It might be more accurate to talk about her in the former sense, but I’m not really familiar enough with that position to say.
This is obviously speculation since neither Goodling nor Libby are talking. Either way, though, I think they’ve really got more in common with Goodfellas than a Viking saga, both psychologically as well as in effect:
or alternatively
from the criminally under-rated Layer Cake. Loyal to the end, and then some.
I’ve always thought that the notion of omerta and honor among thieves was related to the notion of cameraderie under fire. Anarch, you seem to be making a case that the two phenomena are much more distinct than alike. My feeling is that it is sort of like discussions of nationalism, in that you don’t get to keep all the good things and discard the bad. I think the ability to view the good and the bad as completely separate allows Bush to retain the 30% of support that he has, which is the only explanation I can come up with that does not plunge me into total despair.
“In the larger story, though, Gollum was lost when he acquired the Ring through murder; no real redemption for him was possible from that moment on; as a capper, he bore the Ring far too long to ever overcome what he’d let it do to him. What Sam did or didn’t do couldn’t ever change either fact about Gollum in Tolkien’s moral universe.”
Well, no, that’s incorrect. Tolkien was a Christian and it shows through quite clearly in the Gollum story–I’m not currently in one of my Tolkien reading phases, but Gandalf at one point says he has hopes of Gollum’s redemption and he is speaking of someone he knows murdered Deagol and has eaten babies. Frodo becomes one of the Wise, and sees more clearly than Sam that there is a possibility of Gollum’s redemption. The last chance of this in the book is when Sam and Frodo are asleep on the climb up to Shelob’s lair–Gollum goes slinking off to conspire with her, comes back, sees Frodo asleep and momentarily comes very close to repentance. Sam awakens, snaps at him, and the moment is gone. It’s arguably the most moving scene in the novel.
Yes, that’s the scene under discussion, Donald.
Specifically, from “The Taming of Smeagol” in The Two Towers (Ballantine edition, the 34th printing, page 280:
Twas pity that stayed Frodo’s hand — famously; a reading of a chance of redemption for Gollum is possible, but it is reading something into the text that isn’t remotely explicit.
Later came the other scene (p. 411):
Again, a reading that Frodo explicitly sees Gollum as capable of redemption is entirely fair, but it certainly isn’t explicit in the text.
What’s explicit is that Frodo, as did Bilbo, stayed his hand in killing Gollum, because of Pity.
“…and so far as I recall, was almost entirely apolitical, and had no record whatever of concern with labor and class issues. If there’s evidence in Tolkien’s life that “class issues” “were important to Tolkien,” I’d like to know what it is.”
Bad phrasing on my part? By “class issues” I meant more along medieval or pre-medieval lines, something like what it means to be noble. Chivalry. Honor. Nobless oblige. A sense of being an expression of history.
Or how static heirarchical structures become sterile and corrupt over time? Whatever, over my head. Tolkien, as far as I know, was no socialist but a conservative, but with a very Catholic tragic conservativism.
LOTR is the tragedy of the Elves in Middle-Earth. They let the Dwarves die, and the Numenoreans get very close. Gandalf is the wrath of the Valar. Coulda let The Ring stay buried for another thousand years, the Elves didn’t care.
LOTR is all about politics, but the politics are complicated.
“And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.” …GF, 3:09
I don’t trust Frodo after the first book. The Ring is controlling Frodo;thr Ring wants to get to Mordor and Sauron;the Ring needs Gollum to make it. Frodo is not in his right mind and rationalizes a lot. Or maybe the Valar are running things.
Remember, it isn’t as if Frodo can hand the Ring to a Nazgul. Sauron/Ring can’t trust anyone.
“Bad phrasing on my part? By ‘class issues’ I meant more along medieval or pre-medieval lines, something like what it means to be noble. Chivalry. Honor. Nobless oblige. A sense of being an expression of history.”
Ah. Thanks for clarifying, Bob. Yeah, I don’t think of “class issues” as meaning that. (Various Marxist sorts of analyses of Tolkien are not uncommon, and I took you to be making some sort of claim that Tolkien cared about issues of the sort the Labour Party cared about, which was a claim I found startling; I’m glad we’ve cleared this up.)
“Tolkien, as far as I know, was no socialist but a conservative, but with a very Catholic tragic conservativism.”
I’d say that was a very fair description, though I’d emphasize again that his “conservatism” also wasn’t political, but simply was lodged in his reverence for, and appreciation of, old things. It was cultural, rather than overtly political.
(Tolkien’s background was what would be called petit-bourgeois; his father, who died when JRR was 3, was a bank manager; they moved in with JRR’s mother’s parents; JRR’s maternal grandfather ran a book and stationery shop. His mother only converted to Catholicism when JRR was 8, by the way, leading her Baptist family to financially cut her off. JRR was born in South Africa, incidentally; his father died before he could join them in England on what was only supposed to be a visit.)
As a secular humanist I don’t hate religions – I do hate people who are religious in a way that makes them avoid having to think and take responsibilities. The assume they are morally superior because they have the rulebook and follow it without giving any thought to the commands. Those same people often say that I cannot have proper morality, since I do not believe in god.
Most of those, imho, are people who indeed need authority, need to follow strict leaders. They become fundamentalists in the ruling ideology of their environment. For me Pat Robertson is the as-Sadr of the US. But our dogmatist socialist party (who actually requires tithing too; their governmental representatives and quite a number of members give their income to the party and receive a moderate income back) feels the same to me.
I do know that our strict reformist party feels that authority must be obeyed. A few months ago I read the biography of Jan Montyn and I was shocked to learn that the reformist party (SGP) actually stated that all authority should be obeyed – so when Hitler conquered the Netherlands he should be completely obeyed too.
Quite a lot of our emigrating farmers come from such communities, which leads to the Boers in South-Africa and quite a number of strict protestant communities in the USA.
I’m not particularly knowledge about Dutch politics, but I think referring to the Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij as the “reformist party” is a bit misleading in English, because it implies they’re for some sort of progressive reforms. I’m not clear that eliminating female suffrage counts as such. 😉
I don’t know how accurate or inaccurate this is:
I have no idea if this is correct, but does the “reformed” part of the name possibly derive in some way from the Dutch Reformed Church, rather than being in any way a contemporary adjective? Or is that just coincidence?
Gary, I don’t have a copy of LOTR on hand, but Gandalf explicitly talks about the possibility of a cure (moral cure, that is) for Gollum. Frodo is initially skeptical (reacting the way people sometimes do at the notion that a bad person could be redeemed, especially a bad person that tried to kill his uncle), but he takes on Gandalf’s perspective once he sees Gollum. That entire section of the book (the second half of The Two Towers) revolves around Gollum and whether he will be redeemed.
C.S. Lewis also read that mountainside scene the way I did and he and Tolkien, of course, talked quite a bit about LOTR as it was being written, so his reading of it probably should carry some weight. I’ve never been quite enough of a Tolkien fanatic to read whatever collections of Tolkien’s letters his son might have published (which probably includes grocery lists at this point), but I suspect some support for my viewpoint could be found there. In fact, as I recall, Tolkien once even said that in theory an orc could be redeemed, which startled me a little. I don’t think there’s much sign of that as a possibility in the book–they seem to be more in the balrog/Sauron/Melkor category. Though come to think of it, the Valar thought Sauron might have repented after the 1st age.
“and I took you to be making some sort of claim that Tolkien cared about issues of the sort the Labour Party cared about”
Well…I don’t know if Tolkien had any of the sort of reaction to WWI that Wilfred Owen did, for instance.
If I were to say:”Political elites tend toward wars, for reasons both noble(Frodo) and adventuristic(Merry & Pippin)” both a Marxist and Medievalist might agree. But that same nobility paid for Chartres and the Canterbury Tales.
I might say that Tolkien might have the historical determinism of a Marxist. If historical determinism is particularly Marxist.
More like the historical determinism of a Manichaean, if you ask me.
“Gandalf explicitly talks about the possibility of a cure (moral cure, that is) for Gollum”
I remember the conversation in Khazad-Dhum where Gandalf says Gollum might yet serve a purpose and should not be killed.
(Pulling out my leather-slipped cased HM 1974 Red Edition…gotta check E-Bay again)
Can’t find it. Jackson may have moved that dialogue.
But I see Frodo as using Gollum, not telling Gollum the purpose of the quest, and feeling very guilty about it, and rationalizing.
Anderson, I didn’t say there was no moral/ethical argument to make on the subject of abortion. Just that if someone wants to make a Christian argument on the subject of the reach of the Fourteenth Amendmant, I’d be happy to hear it.
And Anderson, you or I might not think that allowing someone to worship a golden calf — or even a chocolate calf — would harm them, but I don’t think you should assume that this is universal among Christians.
I was probably over-strong in what I said “was possible” for Gollum, because there are multiple possible meanings for that, particularly including both what “was possible” for characters as regards the author’s intentions and the story, and what “was possible” as regards the moral universe that Tolkien attempted to create. I don’t think Tolkien ever made explicit what was and wasn’t morally possible for Gollum, so I shouldn’t have phrased what I said in a way that could be interpreted as declaring such.
On the other hand, what an author intends, and what actually winds up in the finished text, are often two different things, and particularly so when the author goes through many drafts, let alone the never-ending revisions and rewrites Tolkien lived for. His intentions as regards the moral possibilities of his universe are separate from what he actually wound up having published, and the end result is more than a bit ambiguous at times as to how much free will various characters have; he may have meant that everyone, including Sauron, had free will, but while many characters clearly do — Saruman, for example — and the free choices of many characters as to whether to do make decisions that are good or evil, of course, are at the heart of the book — quite a few cases aren’t remotely clear: does Shelob have free will to do good? As you note, theoretically an orc might be capable of turning to good, but that’s pretty darn theoretical, and not exactly well-backed by the text.
One might also argue that Sauron, a mere captain of Morgoth (Melkor), had, by the time of the Third Age, freedom to repent and turn to good, but in terms of the actual story, well, that certainly would have been a different story, after all.
Thus my point was more about story, and yours about the moral universe of Tolkien, and it’s not clear to me that either point is wrong, but rather simply addressing different aspects of the work.
Presumably Morgoth/Melkor, too, could have at any point smacked himself in the head, and declared “Eru, you were so right! Please forgive me!,” and then there would have been a lot less evil in Tolkien’s universe (any?), but it would have been a very different universe, even though “theoretically,” presumably Melkor had the same moral freedom, and possibilities for redemption all Eru’s creations did.
A lot of characters seem to wind up in positions where there’s a certain point that, once they’ve crossed, redemption is no longer possible. Could the Nazgul and Witch-King change their mind, and turn to good, by the time of the Third Age? Boromir’s madness passed, and he died trying to protect the hobbits: perhaps that provided redemption for him before he died, but he did die, and the story would have been a different one if he had not.
Pride of Man is a sin that is punished in Middle-Earth.
On the other hand, the entire point of the Lord Of The Rings is that Middle-Earth is redeemed. By the hobbits, the little, plain, people.
But on the other other hand, Frodo fails at the last at Mount Doom, and is saved only by Gollum’s attempt to take the Ring for himself.
It’s Gollum’s seizure of the Ring, and accidental plunge into Mt. Doom, that saves Middle-Earth. It’s not a redemption of Gollum, but it’s his selfish act that ultimately redeems Middle-Earth, and Frodo. Gollum isn’t redeemed, but his act winds up serving as an act of redemption for others.
Gandalf said “Even Gollum might yet have something to do,” and so he did. Even though it wasn’t a redemption of himself.
You write that after Sam snaps at Gollum, “the moment is gone”: does that mean that Gollum was still capable of redemption after that, or not?
Possibly morally he still was; storywise, nuh-uh. No?
A quote from an appendix:
“The Third Age
These were the fading years of the Eldar. For long they were at peace, wielding the Three Rings while Sauron slept and the One Ring was lost;but they attempted nothing new. living in memory of the past”
OTOH, in the 2nd Age, while Sauron wielded the One and built Mordor, the Elves wielding the Three built Rivendell and Lothlorien, and the Dwarves thrived and built Moria.
1) Not Manichaean, unless I don’t understand Manichaen. Evil and Good are inextricable and need each other.
2) The Rings rule. Power corrupts. The Two Towers Bk II is about Frodo’s increasing corruption, and increasing identification with Gollum, not pity for Gollum. It’s pretty explicit.
I very much question how much “free will” is in LOTR.
For example, at the conclave in Rivendell, did Frodo choose to be Ringbearer, or did the Ring choose Frodo? Jackson does a good job of showing the ambiguity.
And Gandalf is secretly wearing the Ring that inspires hope and courage. Sumofagum that a Fellowship forms around him.
What exactly did Tolkien mean in the title?
“where Gandalf says Gollum might yet serve a purpose and should not be killed.”
“Even Gollum may have something yet to do” is the line I slightly misquoted. But that’s Frodo to Sam, after the Ring is destroyed. I earlier quoted from back on pages 92-3 of (old Ballantine edition) Fellowship of The Ring, but will quote a bit more now than I did:
Is that what you’re looking for?
“Is that what you’re looking for?”
No. Remember the scene in the first movie, where Gandalf and Frodo are resting in Moria, and Frodo sees Gollum sneaking in the distance? Gandalf says it, or something like it, then. I have been looking, for I am sure that it is in the books, although it might be a conversation between Gandalf & Aragorn.
Ok found it. “Council of Elrond”
Elves captured and imprisoned Gollum, but Sauron arranged an orc attack to free him.
Gandalf:”Well, well, he[Gollum] is gone. We have no time to seek for him again. He must do what he will. But he may play a part yet that neither he nor Sauron have foreseen.”
Bob, your reading of Tolkien is off. You can find that notion of pity as evil in Dante’s Inferno, as I recall. It is foreign to Tolkien. You can find it in Jackson’s version of the story, but that’s one of the ways (one of the worst, in fact) in which Jackson has distorted the story. (Though I am a fan of the movies). In Tolkien, the wiser the character, the more inclined they are to feel pity.
Gandalf’s hope that Gollum might be cured is in “The Shadow of the Past”, a sentence or two after his anti-death penalty speech. “I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.” Frodo also says to Faramir that Smeagol is not altogether wicked. Bob will dismiss that as the Ring talking, but I think that’s Peter Jackson’s version of the story, not Tolkien’s.
Also, Gary, when you typed out selections from the passage dealing with what I’m saying is Gollum’s near repentance scene, there are some sentences left out that are relevant. The parts I mean are right after “a green glint flickered under his heavy lids.” It goes as follows–
“Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall.”
Tolkien represents Smeagol/Gollum’s two personalities with eye color–in the portion you quoted above, the Smeagol personality was ascendent and the green glint had left and his eyes were tired and gray and old. He feels pain, seems to be having an interior debate, looks like an old sad hobbit, and caresses Frodo. Sam wakes up, snaps at him, the eyes turn green and he reverts back to his spidery Gollum look. And notice that the moment has passed beyond recall. The implication is that something terribly important has just happened inside Smeagol/Gollum’s soul.
I agree that there’s no obvious hint of possible orc redemption in LOTR–I had assumed they were like the Balrogs and Sauron at that point. In Christian theology (or angelology ,I suppose) demons are usually assumed to be beyond redemption (Origen disagreed) because they knew all the facts and had seen God and still rebelled, and I assumed that Sauron, the balrogs and the orcs were all in that damned beyond redemption category. But in the Silmarillion Tolkien apparently allowed for the possibility of Sauron repenting after the 1st Age and completely outside the published works he’s supposed to have allowed for the possibility of orc repentance. I don’t have the cite for that.
and in the Sam/Frodo/Gollum triangle he turns Frodo’s Christlike compassion for Gollum into a Ring-influenced naivete, something almost evil at the end.
The third film diminished Frodo in general. He comes across as a junkie jonesing for a fix (and, in typical junkie fashion, leaving it to his friends to (literally) carry him), not as a person struggling with the temptation to do/become evil. One of the amazing things Tolkein did was convince the reader that this funny little hobbit-squire might just, if he turned evil, displace Sauron. His moral choices were that important. The movie gave him no such majesty. And it’s surprising, given that Tolkein did it largely through visual imagery — those visions Sam had of Frodo as a cloaked giant with lambent flame in hand, in particular. And Gollum’s cringing, not from fear, but out of awe. These would have been great on film, but for whatever reason, Jackson replaced them with more Sam.
To me, this seems of a piece with Jackson’s degradation of Faramir and Denethor, Elrond’s transformation into an asshat, etc. I got the impression that Jackson just doesn’t believe in Tolkein-style nobility of spirit. Fair enough, David Brin doesn’t either, but in that case, why adapt the trilogy?
Gary your quote is better, and the words Jackson used in Moria. I needed more reference to find it.
Gandalf is wearing the Ring of Hope & Courage, of course, the old optimistic fool. Makes him believe in redemption. 🙂
Tolkien, darnit. Not “Tolkein.” (Or “Leguin,” “Azimov,” “Hienlein,” or “Ghandi.”)
Although these are probaly all famous “christains.”
🙂
trilobite: I got the impression that Jackson just doesn’t believe in Tolkein-style nobility of spirit. Fair enough, David Brin doesn’t either, but in that case, why adapt the trilogy?
One of the things about LotR that never struck me until I saw Jackson’s adaptation: if you had only ever read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, you’d have no idea that there’s anything intrinsically funny or inferior about being short.
Jackson treated the hobbits and Gimli (I think he’s the only dwarf we see) as figures of fun, introducing any number of “short” jokes, both textually and visually. I thought Frodo had escaped this diminishing because he’s the hero, but, trilobite, your comment makes me see that no, he didn’t: just as Jackson could not see that Gimli is a hero, because he’s a dwarf, I don’t think he could see that Frodo is a hero – not the hero Tolkien portrayed him as – because he’s a hobbit.
The thing I missed most from Jackson’s adaptation of The Two Towers was the whole Gimli/Legolas relationship. I thought at first viewing it was just because you can’t fit everything in, but I think it was systemic, not coincidental.
Nah, I am not taking off Jackson instead of Tolkien. I simply think that Tolkien, as a Catholic Medievalist, had a much more complicated and nuanced view of “nobility of spirit” and human nature than y’all are saying.
Frodo just ain’t all that good. He has the qualities, which aren’t completely positive, that will make him hold onto the Ring or die.
All sorts of clues, he is an orphan, he appreciates the Shire as an abstraction. He loves holding the Ring, like Gollum, but not wearing or using it. He is the wastrel 2nd son of the country squire, buried in books and useless, might as well send him off to India to manage the wogs.
Tolkien is about war. He didn’t like it. Sam is the hero of LOTR.
Bob, that very much depends on what you mean by “hero.” Frodo was much more consistently the protagonist; Frodo had the elvish air and the deep understanding; Sam DID more, and did it right almost every time. Sam is the Ulysses-type hero, the one who can turn his hand to everything and come up on top; Frodo is the Achilles type, the charismatic nobleman with a fatal flaw. On its surface, the narrative structure favors Frodo, but you’re hardly the only one to walk away thinking that Sam was the one who really deserved the plaudits. I think the ambiguity is deliberate, and important. The truth is, neither of them are complete alone, and indeed, it takes both of them plus Gollum to destroy the ring.
I think it’s too simple to say that LoTR is “about war.” I agree that WWI is a big influence on the book — think of Merry’s textbook case of shell-shock, for instance. But the story is not primarily about a war.
“He has the qualities, which aren’t completely positive, that will make him hold onto the Ring or die.”
What qualities do you have in mind, beyond being mortal?
Who in Middle-Earth doesn’t have these qualities, once the Ring is in their possession, other than Tom Bombadil?
“All sorts of clues, he is an orphan, he appreciates the Shire as an abstraction.”
Post-destruction of the Ring, maybe. But, page 53 of Fellowship, where Bilbo and Gandalf are talking in Bag End, after Bilbo has “disappeared” and is about to set off on his journey:
And now we end my accidental excessive blockquoting.
“Frodo loves the Shire, and not at all “abstractly.”
Sure, as long as he didn’t have to like do any work there, he would look over his writing desk out his little window and sigh over how beautiful it all was. (Magnificent casting by Jackson, by the way). Sam served seven terms as Mayor after he was gardener. Does Frodo do any work? Oh, yeah, he finishes Bilbo’s book.
I am a speculator, hey. But Tolkien’s crew went off to the trenches and didn’t come back. I am sure he loved them until his death, but I think he drew Frodo as the guy who would be first in line to fight those demon Huns. Heroism and idealism is tragic & destructive.
My favorite scene in the movie is when Frodo jumped up to be Ringbearer at Rivendell and Gandalf winces. Jackson did just fine. Apparently Tolkien has readers who think he is Pyle or Walter Scott or RL Stephenson or something. LOTR is not a boy’s adventure.
“Sure, as long as he didn’t have to like do any work there, he would look over his writing desk out his little window and sigh over how beautiful it all was. (Magnificent casting by Jackson, by the way). Sam served seven terms as Mayor after he was gardener. Does Frodo do any work? Oh, yeah, he finishes Bilbo’s book.”
I don’t follow what this has to do with how much Frodo does or doesn’t love the Shire, I’m afraid, or with some unique “qualities, which aren’t completely positive, that will make him hold onto the Ring or die.”
I’m still wondering what those “qualities” are, exactly.
“…but I think he drew Frodo as the guy who would be first in line to fight those demon Huns.”
This also seems entirely wrong, I’m afraid.
Frodo is nothing if not endlessly reluctant.
The text is quite repetitive and entirely clear on that point.
But FWIW, outside the text is Tolkien’s view:
“…but I think he drew Frodo as the guy who would be first in line to fight those demon Huns.”
That’s Boromir you’re describing; not Frodo, who is the exact opposite.
Gary, I think the word you’re looking for is “hexalogy”. No need to produce a Latin-Greek hybrid, especially if (as you say) it would introduce ambiguity.
“I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?” (FR I:2, 70).”
Chosen?
(Reluctance reluctance I am not typing it all) “At last with an effort he [Frodo] spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice. I will take the ring, tho I do not know the way.”
I suppose it may be a question of whether Gandalf or The Ring is controlling Frodo. Or maybe it is all metaphorical, and Frodo is amazed at his hidden resources. I think the Rings rule. Or Gandalf and his boss. But it really matters which, and who is “The Lord of the Rings”
But “qualities”? Well, Bilbo wears the Ring many times without seeing spooky stuff, or at least that is not mentioned. Why does Frodo make contact with the Dark Side?
“Shadow of the Past” is an important chapter
Gandalf:”A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo.” and “The Ring was trying to get back to its master”…but “…something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker”
Frodo:”Why did you let me keep it? Why didn’t you make me throw it away…etc”
Gandalf:”Let You? Make You? Haven’t you been listening?…” (Ed the Ring rules)
Gandalf:”Yet the way to my heart is pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good.” (Ed:Gandalf’s Ring controls him, and he knows it.)
Finally:”He did not tell Gandalf, but as he was speaking a great desire to follow Bilbo flamed up in his heart…so strong it overcame his fear.”
I don’t know, but I think the One Ring chose Frodo because of strengths and weaknesses. Frodo didn’t even come close, he would have lost the Ring at Shelob’s lair because he trusted Gollum over Sam.
I’m not going to get in the middle of the moral discussion, but I would like to be sure that everyone is taking into account the true ages of the characters. My biggest problem with the movies was that they all appear to be much younger than they are in the books.
Pippin was 28, Merry 36, Sam 38, and Frodo 50 years old. They may have been in the prime of life for a hobbit, but they weren’t happy-go-lucky young men.
bob: But “qualities”? Well, Bilbo wears the Ring many times without seeing spooky stuff, or at least that is not mentioned. Why does Frodo make contact with the Dark Side?
Movie or book? In the book, it’s clear that Frodo makes contact with the Dark Side when he puts the Ring on only when in the presence of one or more Ringwraiths (given that Gandalf too is a Ringbearer, I find it interesting that Gandalf’s Ring didn’t register Bilbo’s wearing the One Ring, in The Hobbit: possibly Gandalf used to leave it in a safety deposit box for short quests), or when (as at the end of Book 2) he’s sitting in a place of power and this enables Sauron to turn his attention on him, or when he’s standing on Mount Doom at the center of Sauron’s power and not only puts the Ring on but claims it for his own.
In the movie, the Dark Side contact just seems to happen of itself without rhyme or reason.
Three things:
1. Nobody really knows when a cell turns into a human. If we did, the right answer would be self-evident. We don’t, so it isn’t.
2. Valrhona Noir Amer or Callebaut Bittersweet. Everything else is noise. Godiva comes in a nice box, Dove is good on an ice cream bar. All IMO, of course.
3. What the hell happened to the ent wives?
Thanks –
wmr: Pippin was 28, Merry 36, Sam 38, and Frodo 50 years old. They may have been in the prime of life for a hobbit, but they weren’t happy-go-lucky young men.
Pippin was still in his “tweens”, and even Merry and Sam are both still considered youngsters in hobbit terms. Tolkien is quite consistent about this: hobbits live longer than humans, and mature later. (Frodo is meant to be the equivalent of a human in his early thirties, I’ll give you that, but Pippin ought not to be considered more than 19 at the start of Book 1.)
Aragorn, on the other hand, definitely is portrayed as way, way younger than he’s meant to look: he’s in his late eighties, as I recall, and while that’s “the prime of life” for a Númenórean, he should have hair “flecked with grey” and look like, well, a man in his forties, not like Viggo Mortensen. He came of age at 20, though, and hobbits don’t come of age till 33.
Treebeard’s Song about the Entwives
From the Stupid Ring Parody
Where have all the Entwives gone? Long time passing.
Where have all the Entwives gone? Long time ago.
Where have all their flowers gone?
War came through, done gone and smashed ’em, ev’ry one.
When will they ever learn?
“I suppose it may be a question of whether Gandalf or The Ring is controlling Frodo.”
No, it isn’t. If anyone is “controlling” things, it’s Eru, as Gandalf alludes with his comments about how Bilbo was “meant to” find the Ring, and it was “meant to” come to Frodo.
P. 88, again from “The Shadow of The Past” (you may find it helpful to reread the entire chapter):
This is, again, completely explicit by the author. “And not by its maker.”
“I think the Rings rule. Or Gandalf and his boss.”
The Ring doesn’t rule Middle-Earth, and neither does Gandalf, Sauron, Saruman, the Valar, or Morgoth; only Eru/Illuvatar. If you don’t get this, you don’t get the most elementary and basic aspects of Tolkien’s created theology/mythology.
“(Ed:Gandalf’s Ring controls him, and he knows it.)”
There’s no hint whatever that I’m aware of in Tolkien that the Elven Rings either control their wearers or have any deleterious aspects until such time as Sauron retakes his One Ring. Gandalf’s Ring doesn’t control him; if you have evidence otherwise, feel free to present it (if you just want to hold that it’s the way you prefer to interpret what Tolkien wrote, you’re entitled, of course).
“But “qualities”? Well, Bilbo wears the Ring many times without seeing spooky stuff, or at least that is not mentioned. Why does Frodo make contact with the Dark Side?”
Because he was chased by the Black Riders (Nazgul); he didn’t see any “spooky stuff” or “the Dark Side” for the years he had the Ring before that, either.
“‘Shadow of the Past’ is an important chapter”
Crucial.
wmr: “They may have been in the prime of life for a hobbit, but they weren’t happy-go-lucky young men.”
They were for hobbits, though, and since they weren’t men, that’s what’s relevant.
KCinDC: “Gary, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘hexalogy’.”
I failed at an extremely weak joke, but yeah. Though Google only shows ~400 uses (including an appropriate one to the Star Wars movies).
Sinatra’s Song about the Entwives
“The night is bitter
I think I’ve got a splinter
The winds grow colder
And suddenly you’re box elder
And all because of the gal that got away..”
By coincidence, I was just reading about Frank Sinatra.
By coincidence, I was just reading about Frank Sinatra.
Followed the link, very interesting.
Just think of how much better a place the world would have been over the last 70 years if J. Edgar had been able to find himself a better hobby. Or, you know, a boyfriend.
And no, I’m not poking fun.
Thanks –
“Gandalf’s Ring doesn’t control him; if you have evidence otherwise, feel free to present it”
I did, twice. From the Appendix at 3:09, and from Gandalf at 8:33
Gandalf:”A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo.” and “The Ring was trying to get back to its master”.
It is hard to understand Gandalf’s statement about a “Ring of Power” and his later statement about not being responsible if he gets the One, if Gandalf feels totally in control of his Ring and its effects.
There is also the doom of the Dwarves, and the decadence of the Elves while the One was hidden.
Note:For 60-100 years Mithrandir takes a special interest in the Shire despite not knowing Bilbo possessed the One. Because he likes to smoke?
I go so far as to think that the One determines that the bearers of the Three allow the One to go to Mordor, tho it may be the end in several ways. But not really the Bearers, their Rings decide.
Enough. Too much. I am done.
Interesting, Bob, but it’s not what Tolkien says. He’s a devout Catholic and though there are almost no religious practices in LOTR and I can’t recall anyone referring directly to God, He’s there in the background, in passages like the ones Gary quoted. Gandalf alludes to God in veiled fashion and Frodo has no idea what he is talking about. That’s part of what’s fascinating about the book–Tolkien takes the Northern pagan mythology that he loved and baptizes it, but in a subtle way. The Ring tries to manipulate events, but ultimately its decisions are thwarted by Eru.
I also think Tolkien consciously or unconsciously played the role of a Calvinist God, determining for his own purposes that Gollum’s near-repentance is sabotaged, but manipulating things in such a way that Gollum would still be there to save Frodo from himself. It is still Gollum’s choice, so he can’t claim he was damned unjustly, but at the precise moment when Gollum still has the choice and some inclination to back away from his decision to betray Frodo, Tolkien chooses to wake Sam up and misinterpret Gollum’s caressing gesture towards Frodo. If I were the type to write letters to authors and if Tolkien hadn’t inconveniently died decades ago, I’d ask him if he was trying to make some sort of theological point.
Donald Johnson, I believe that Tolkien was absolutely trying to make the point you allude to, and it is exactly a point that C.S. Lewis made (more explicitly) in his Narnia chronicles.
Yes we have free will in what we choose to do….but in the long run God makes even the choices of evil people or misguided people or misled people…work out for something.
I agree Sebastian. What bugs me a little, though, is that Tolkien could have probably saved Gollum and Frodo too in a plausible fashion–or at least saved both their souls. (Perhaps a redeemed Gollum would have taken the ring from Frodo and then jumped deliberately into the volcano.) It might not work well dramatically–a little too much of a happy ending, but I’d wonder what Tolkien would say about how God works. Since Tolkien as author is the stand-in for God. God presumably doesn’t sabotage a possible repentance for dramatic effect later on. So did Tolkien think that what he did with Gollum is what God might do, presumably for different reasons? Lewis might say I’m a typical modern, trying to put God in the dock. And he’d probably be right.
None of this gets Gollum off the hook for his decision–deciding to stick with your plan to betray your benefactor to a giant spider because his friend called you a sneak isn’t very nice.
This isn’t in any way, shape, means, or form, evidence that Gandalf’s ring controls him.
That the One Ring is immensely powerful, including increasingly so over its bearer as time goes on (but that hobbits are unusually resilent in resisting it) is an overwhelming part of the book, of course. But in no way, at no time, is the Ring made out to be the master of Middle-Earth, more powerful by itself than all other powers (such as, again, Tom Bombadil), let alone more powerful than Eru/Illuvatar. That’s just not in Tolkien’s work, anywhere, and it’s in utter contradiction to everything Tolkien wrote about his universe.
“It is hard to understand Gandalf’s statement about a ‘Ring of Power’ and his later statement about not being responsible if he gets the One, if Gandalf feels totally in control of his Ring and its effects.”
Not at all. Bob, the Elvish Three Rings were forged by the Elves (Celebrimbor, to be specific), and untouched by Sauron; he had no power over them. This is explicit in the text. (Gandalf wore Narya, the Ring of Fire, the Kindler, incidentally, after Círdan gave it to him.)
I’m afraid you’re simply imagining your theory about Narya’s effect on Gandalf out of whole cloth. As I said, you’re perfectly entitled to enjoy your own version, but if you want to say that it’s in the text in any way that Narya was controlling Gandalf, you’re just factually wrong on that.
“Note:For 60-100 years Mithrandir takes a special interest in the Shire despite not knowing Bilbo possessed the One. Because he likes to smoke?”
That’s one reason. But there are a variety of reasons, ranging from the innocence of the hobbits, to the role of the ancient fallen kingdom of Arnor, and the Dunedain’s place in serving as Rangers (the Shire being part of former Arnor), to the aid Bilbo provided to the defeat of Smaug, and the intriguing aspects of hobbits that Gandalf saw further confirmed in that, to hobbits being part of Gandalf’s ambit, just as birds and small animals were those of Radaghast’s, and so on and so forth.
“Since Tolkien as author is the stand-in for God. God presumably doesn’t sabotage a possible repentance for dramatic effect later on. So did Tolkien think that what he did with Gollum is what God might do, presumably for different reasons?”
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by ‘thwart’. It seems possible that Eru set the situation up so that the Ring could be destroyed no matter which way Gollum chose. If he repented Gollum would have been instrumental in destroying the ring willingly, by failing to repent he is instrumental in the destruction of the ring anyway. Gollum was the right person at the right time. You could guess almost that if he repented we would see a scene where he chooses to grab and destroy the ring when Frodo balks at the end. The state of his soul was independent from his role as final instrument of the destruction of the ring.
“just as birds and small animals were those of Radaghast’s”
Radagast, that is, you silly person.
“A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo.”
Not The Ring of Power, A Ring of Power, including them all and Gandalf’s. I cannot interpret that to mean the Narya does not influence Gandalf. The Rings have agency.
Cirdan:”Take this ring, Master, for your labours will be heavy;but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world gone chill.”
Elrond at the Council about the Three:”…to preserve things unstained. These things the Elves have in some measure gained, though with sorrow. [Ed:??] But all that has been wrought will turn to their undoing, and their minds and hearts will become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the One. It would be better if the Three had never been.”
Sauron does not control the Three, but the “One Ring to Rule Them” does have great influence, if not control, over the Three. Frodo, bearing it, is the only one to see Galadriel’s.
Again, preface to “Third Age”:”These were the fading years of the Eldar. For long they were at peace, wielding the Three Rings while Sauron slept and the One was lost; but they attempted nothing new, living in memory of the past.”
The two clauses here seem to imply a causal relationship, and might explain the “though with sorrow” above.
Now how Sauron forged a Ring that could rule the Three, and the relationship between the One & the Three at the End of the 2nd Age, are a little unclear. Gil-galad certainly doesn’t seem controlled at Dagorlad.
But “whole cloth” is unfair.
Yes, Narya has power to help Gandalf. This doesn’t even hint, let alone prove, that “Gandalf’s Ring controls him, and he knows it.”
Italics mine. This demonstrates not even faintly any hint that the Elvish Three Rings “have agency,” let alone control over their bearers.
The proposition doesn’t make sense: who would have inserted such agency? Celebrimbor, their creator? Why? Sauron? He had no opportunity. The Rings were “untouched” by him.
And in specific, the power to “rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill” isn’t the power to control, and in no way does the fact that Narya “will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself” mean it “controls” its wearer. I don’t know what to say to your introduction of these quotes as support for such assertions, since it seems plain English to me that they do absolutely nothing of the kind.
To quote:
There are links there.
“But ‘whole cloth’ is unfair.”
I certainly didn’t mean any implication that you were deliberately distorting Tolkien; I just mean that your interpretation is, ah, highly idiosyncratic and, ah, very creative, and most imaginative, as well as quite original.
But that’s our Bob, and who doesn’t love and appreciate him for it?
🙂
I still don’t understand why the One can rule the Three.
“Shadow of the Past”:
“As long as you never used it, I did not think that the Ring would have any lasting effect on you..”
But:
“You see? Already you too, Frodo, cannot let it go, nor will to damage it. And I could not make you–except by force, which would break your mind.”
Frodo is toast, the Ring and the Quest will destroy him or damage him beyond repair. Now Gandalf is either being delusional, overly optimistic, or disingenuous. Now Mithrandir, being good & wise, would be neither intentionally, so I think one or both of the Rings in the room are doing some stuff.
I can come up with other examples.
The Council of Elrond, with three Rings, is very interesting. 🙂
“I still don’t understand why the One can rule the Three.”
Because the purpose Sauron made the One Ring for was to control the wearers of the other rings.
FAQ of the Rings:
Folks have been writing long and detailed essays about all these questions since the early Sixties (have I mentioned in your hearing that I not only used to have a complete run of Tolkien Journal and that it was given to me by the original editor, but that he also [back in the early Seventies], gave me several dozen spare copies of many early issues? Or that I equally used to own just about all of the major Tolkien zines of the Sixties and early Seventies, as part of my having one of the top ten collections in the world of science fiction/fantasy fanzines in private hands back in the day? Not that I pretend to have kept up with the explosion of Tolkien scholarship once it really became a significant academic field by the Eighties and after), and no one, to my knowledge, has ever suggested that the Three had similar powers to dominate their owners on their own; on their own, they were forces for good, or at least for preservation, and that’s all; only if Sauron put on the One Ring could he control the Three Rings and their bearers. This is what made the Three different from the Seven and the Nine, which he made; he didn’t make the Three.
Also, keep in mind that:
And Sauron had great power because he was a Maia, one of the original Ainur. That’s another way to answer your question. (Or, to look at it yet another way, that of the professional fantasy writer, it was what’s often called a “hand-wave.” :-))
“Now Gandalf is either being delusional, overly optimistic, or disingenuous.”
I’m not following what you’re saying there.
russell: Just think of how much better a place the world would have been over the last 70 years if J. Edgar had been able to find himself a better hobby. Or, you know, a boyfriend.
Yes indeed. I am tempted to list the public figures who would have left the world much better off if they’d felt able to fall in love with/live with a man (or at least not loathe themselves so thoroughly becasuse they weren’t straight) but I don’t want to sound like Out magazine.
George W. Bush, though? Boyfriend. Definitely.
J. Edgar did find a lifelong boyfriend that he lived with, vacationed with, and was a constant companion with: Clyde Tolson.
The passage about Gollums potential redemption and the probable outcome is discussed by Tolkien in Letter #246 (I find the reference on the net but not the full/unaltered text).
Concerning the 3 Rings, in the text of LOTR itself the main characters are themselves not sure what would happen with the 3 the moment the One was destroyed. They are inclined to the “turning into mere jewelry” possibility but hope to be wrong.
In the Council at Minas Tirith Gandalf proposes to pretend that Aragorn has the ring and is working to learn how to use it to make Sauron believe that he has to strike before his opponent manages to control it.
Tolkien is not completely consistent in the text. The One seems to be the only ring that allows its wearer to become invisible (Gandalf never uses his for that purpose despite a lot of situations were it would have been useful).
Tolkien states that dwarves can’t be wraithed but only corrupted. It would be interesting to know whether the invisibility feature of the One would work on them (Only 7 beings ever wear it: Sauron, Isildur, Gollum, Bilbo, Frodo, Tom Bombadil, Sam).
There is a single scene where orcs are seen as “normal”, not evil incarnate. The couple of orcs Sam spies on in Mordor complain about the “typical elvish behaviour” of leaving a non-elvish comrade behind.
The scene in the Sammath Naur at Mount Doom underwent many revisions including some where Frodo has to confront he Witch King (not yet slain at this stage) and iirc tries (unsuccessfully) to use the ring to subdue him in a “Now I am your master” fashion.
Tolkien even considered having Frodo&Sam entering Minas Morgul in search of something and escaping only because Sam is mistaken for The Captain of Morgul (=the Witch King). Completely inconceivable in the finished text (Aragorn was also for a long time a Hobbit named Trotter, possibly a disguised Bilbo (!) etc.)
J. Edgar did find a lifelong boyfriend that he lived with, vacationed with, and was a constant companion with: Clyde Tolson.
You’re right, I’d forgotten about that. But, assuming Hoover and Tolson were partners, lovers, or whatever, what they were unable to do is be that openly.
Psychoanalyzing public figures is kind of a dumb parlor game, but Hoover was a manifestly paranoid and vindictive individual. Maybe that was related to the fact that he had to keep a significant part of his life secret, maybe not. Maybe that’s just the kind of guy he was.
Whatever the reason, the distortions of his personal character certainly contributed to making lots of other folks’ lives miserable.
Thanks –
Good point about the orcs, hartmut. Lewis often wrote about how evil was parasitic on good–to be a truly successful evil leader like Genghis Khan you have to have at least some virtues, such as physical courage. It’s impossible to run a society entirely on evil principles, so the orcs would have to have some concept of loyalty to comrades to function at all.
Sebastian, assuming you’re still around, I meant that Tolkien saw that Gollum was on the verge of repentance and then had Sam wake up and quite naturally accuse Gollum (correctly) of being a “sneak”, thereby angering Gollum and ruining what might have been his turn towards Good. So what I’d ask Tolkien is whether he thinks God would do that. It’s still Gollum’s choice to be a traitor and Tolkien (standing in for God) then uses this free will decision for evil in order to bring good out of it for Frodo and Middle Earth. But with a little bit of rewriting (keep Sam asleep for five more minutes) and Gollum could have been saved. Probably too sappy for a novel to have that outcome, so Tolkien did the right thing as an author, but my point is that Tolkien in his role as the Creator of his universe is acting out what believers in double predestination claim is actually the case–God could save some and chooses not to.
Russell, I think there are some people who just feel the need for their sex and/or love to have a degrading component. Some are fortunate enough to be able to step back and think of this as a fetish, deal with it as such, and not have it spill over into the rest of their lives in corrupting ways. Others, alas, aren’t. I think that it was that way with Hoover, as with a lot of the current crop of televangelist scandals and the like: they could have relationships without the degradation, but that wouldn’t be as satisfying.
“Tolkien (standing in for God)”
I was going to address your previous comments about this formulation last night, but got too tired, and forgot.
Which is to say, that I find it sort of puzzling/confusing: the role of an author, whether of realistic fiction, or more fantastic, is not to attempt to mimic the author’s impression of what God (Christian or otherwise) would morally do to the characters.
I’m probably not understanding what you mean by this, because the idea seems a bit, well, wacky, to me.
One can certainly analyze away as one likes, as a reader, comparing what an author’s characters went through, and compare that to what one’s conception of what a just God would do: fair enough. But that’s not at all what the job of an author is. Characters in fiction aren’t real: we don’t need to act morally towards them, or act as if they were real, and were sending a moral message with their story. Fiction isn’t allegory. I don’t get what the basis of your question is, therefore. I don’t understand the premises you are working from.
“So what I’d ask Tolkien is whether he thinks God would do that.”
I’m baffled at why you would think Tolkien would be attempting to model God: that’s not what writers do, at all, with fiction, normally.
As a footnote to Gary’s 10:21 am comment, I’d just add that Tolkien in particular approached his storytelling as a matter of imagining or discovering what had “really” happened to the characters. He was explicitly not writing to teach any particular moral lesson; you can certainly make a case for “this is the how the world works and what comes of our intentions and hidden desires” as a lesson, but Tolkien would have called that illustration, not instruction, I think. The characters in his stories surprised him more than once, and he chose to go with the surprises and see where they led. This is not the approach of a Brecht-style (or C.S. Lewis-style) instructor.
When it comes to choosing good, Tolkien was pretty orthodox, and content to say “there’s a mystery there”. But we can see at least some of what that mystery includes. There are moments when we see enough and are humbled enough that we can choose good rather than evil. But then we have to live with the consequences of the choice. And we don’t get endless opportunities to back up and do it over. So we are sometimes truly free to choose good, and sometimes bound by what we’ve done with our freedom.
Sigh. I’m not interested in pursuing the God/author analogy and whether it is or isn’t appropriate. It wasn’t my point.
Tolkien wrote LOTR as something that would be consistent with his theology, so I wondered how he would have explained (theologically speaking) what happened in the near repentance scene with Gollum. Obviously Providence was at work in arranging that Bilbo found the ring. Tolkien intended the reader to understand that point. So did Tolkien want the reader to think that Sam awakening and pushing Gollum over the edge (as Lewis put it) was also providential?
Simple question.
I’d say no, Donald, that Tolkien was interested in this dramatic moment where personal struggles and the whole situation combine to produce a perfectly natural and yet tragic outcome.
Fair enough, Bruce. I wonder if Tolkien talks about this in his letters?
“Tolkien wrote LOTR as something that would be consistent with his theology”
While I partially agree with this, I think it’s inadequate enough of a description to be fully accurate, either. I don’t think his intention was particularly to write something consistent with his theology, though I could be wrong, and forgetting relevant portions of his letters, or discussions with the Inklings, or whatever; but absent that, my impression is more that the moral, and theological, aspects of his work were simply natural outgrowths of his own beliefs, which he wasn’t trying to be inconsistent with. But it’s just background.
Absent being reminded of more intentionality in those areas than I’m recalling at the moment, I’d say that his intentions in his work were multifold, primarily being philological and imaginative in their nature. Then he mined his fields of expertise in language and history, and kept imagining, and re-imagining, his stories.
Then, inevitably and necessarily, his worldview was the context for his work.
But that was background; context. Thus my unease with saying “Tolkien wrote LOTR as something that would be consistent with his theology,” as if that was at all in the forefront, or even in the first 50% of his priorities, and I don’t, until I’m corrected or convinced otherwise, think that was so.
“So did Tolkien want the reader to think that Sam awakening and pushing Gollum over the edge (as Lewis put it) was also providential?”
So I’m doubtful that he was particularly thinking of that at all. I mean, maybe: but I’m inclined to think that worrying about that sort of thing was about the 12th thing on his mind, or 19th, and not in the top five. He wasn’t C. S. Lewis, whose theological/apologetic motivations were #1, #2, and #3 in priority.
Otherwise, the simple response I have to your question is “I dunno.” I have some top Tolkien scholar friends whose opinion I could ask, fwiw….
Gary–
If you’re discussing Tolkien with one or more of those people and you happen to think of this question, then please ask. Though next time I’m at Barnes and Noble I could probably leaf through the Tolkien books and maybe find clues. (Assuming they still have a large selection of Tolkien trivia–it’s been a few years since the movies came out and the interest level has presumably dropped somewhat.)
Anyone interested in some fresh light on Tolkien’s thoughts about his own beliefs and his secondary creation may want to check out Morgoth’s Ring, volume 10 in Christopher Tolkien’s mondo series of odds and ends. At the back is a section titled “Myths Transformed”, which contains various drafts of some genuinely fascinating writing Tolkien did in the ’50s. He thought about what it would take to make Middle-Earth consistent with modern science as he understood it, and from there ranged widely over a whole lot of conceptual, theological, artistic, and other issues. Very hard to summarize, but I found it engrossing.
“(Assuming they still have a large selection of Tolkien trivia–it’s been a few years since the movies came out and the interest level has presumably dropped somewhat.)”
Given the release in five days of the first “new” (in its full form) Tolkien work in thirty years (okay, yeah, most of it has been seen before, but still), I really don’t think you’ll have that great a problem finding the older books in book stores for a while (after April 16th).
Volume 10. My gosh. Actually, I’m half-tempted to buy it (and the other volumes), but my wife would shoot me.
Thanks for the update, Gary. I’ll look for it.
You know, I’m tempted to say “For crying out loud, it’s only a book!”.
But, then again…..
Any George McDonald fans out there? Haven’t read him in probably twenty five years, but now I’m inspired to pick him up again.
Go figure.
I read Lilith and Phantastes a long time ago. Wasn’t crazy about them. I read a collection of his sermons (abridged, I think) some years ago too and liked those. The universalism appealed to me (whether it’s true is a different matter). I liked what I think he said–Don’t believe things about God that just strike you as immoral. Maybe you’re wrong about it, but it does no good to force yourself to think of God acting in what you believe does not demonstrate love. If you’re wrong eventually you may come to see that. I may be distorting what he said–now I’m thinking of going back to reread him myself.
“Actually, I’m half-tempted to buy it (and the other volumes), but my wife would shoot me.”
There are probably libraries where you live.
Alternatively, Tolkien’s stories are all about old people from long ago, who wandered around a lot, and hit people with swords, and had tragic love, and killed a lot of evil creatures, until they got killed, usually in the course of seeking some magic item, to do something with it, maybe while singing an occasional song, and then someone wrote a long poem about them, so, really, if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all, you know.
“You know, I’m tempted to say
‘For crying out loud, it’s only a book!’.”
In the course of writing a comment above last night, I wrote a long set of paragraphs that included a point along those lines, but I ended up deleting them as probably sounding more obnoxious that I remotely intended, while not having all that much value anyway.
(Folks have no idea how frequently I do that.)
If I were really niggling, I’d point out that it’s a lot more than a single book that Tolkien contributed, and even a lot more than the creation of a universe over many volumes, with the depth of languages that only an Oxford don such as himself could bring, as well as the richness of the historical sources he plumbed, but that what his largest contribution was, was simply to show people that something that rich, and broad, and deep (if of a particular flavor that certainly isn’t for everyone: but what is?) could be done.
And, of course, he’s not responsible for the commercial fantasy industry that he inspired, once Lin Carter had gotten through reprinting the other earlier masters of fantasy in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series back in the Sixties, and the endless dreadfully hackneyed, completely derivative, shallow imitations of him that he inspired, along with many works that are merely mediocre, some that are quite good, and a few that are brilliant.
But I’d never say that everyone should like Tolkien, any more than I’d say that of any writer, or the work of any creator: taste is taste, and that’s all there is to it.
Of course, I’d only say all that if I were really niggling. Which I’d never do.
Strange as it may seem, Gary, I doubt the local libraries carry 10 volumes of Tolkien trivia. They probably don’t even have all of what I own–LOTR, The Hobbit, the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and “The Tolkien Reader”.
I agree with your reply to Russell. Tolkien’s reply could be found in “On Fairy Stories” in The Tolkien Reader.
Donald, you might be able to get them via interlibrary loan. Can be expensive, but often less so than getting the book itself, plus it doesn’t hang around the house catching dust and annoying your partner…
Possibly, Jes, but inertia kicks in. Contrary to what Gary seems to believe, I do know that there are such things as libraries and I frequent them on a regular basis. If I don’t find things on the shelves there I usually don’t take the next step. I doubt anything in the local system has all the stuff Christopher Tolkien has seen fit to publish. I could be wrong.
But, then again…..
I think you guys missed this part.
Rave on.
Donald: Possibly, Jes, but inertia kicks in.
Well, yes. 😉 I’ve only done it myself for books I’m really truly desperate to read. It’s a bit timeconsuming and a bit expensive, but it is kind of fun, in an Aladdinish “I will make the librarian do my bidding!” kind of way.
As Diderot said, “mankind shall not have peace until the last noble (king, politician) is hung by the entrails of the last priest (minister, reverend, pastor, bishop, Mullah, etc., etc.)