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David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's Lessons
Everyone should have a chance to see this article, and think about what he's saying.
I agree 100%, naturally, or I wouldn't be taking this time.
In fact, I've said much of this here previously.
David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's lessons
01/13/2003
By DAVID PERLMUTTER
J.R.R. Tolkien chafed at his characters and their adventures being read as mere stand-ins for current events. No, Sauron wasn't an allegorical Adolf Hitler, and Gandalf was no long-bearded, staff-bearing Winston Churchill. But the creator of The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth, a scholar of medieval literature in his day job, did argue that some old tales have "applicability" to modern times.
People in World War II and the Cold War found such applications in the story of the ring of power (truly a weapon of mass destruction), the quest to destroy it and the war of the shaky coalition of good peoples of the world against an aggressive evil empire.
Now, a new generation is streaming to the second film based on the book trilogy. Its box-office take eventually may hit the Titanic peak. Is such popularity an appreciation of something deeper than spectacular battles, classic characters and jagged scenery?
In Tolkien, there are moral, military and political lessons that apply to every age, especially one mired in a chaotic war between civilization and the forces of terrorism, incarnated if not led by Osama bin Laden. In a complex world, these truths are simple, harsh but timeless:
1) Ordinary individuals matter.
The Lord of the Rings series is red with mighty battles. But in the long run, all are inconsequential. Only the destruction of Sauron's ring of power can terminate his reign. That quest is undertaken (in The Fellowship of the Ring) by heroes from all the free peoples but ultimately carried on (in The Two Towers) and completed (in The Return of the King) by the most innocuous and seemingly unimportant folk of the earth – the funny, little hobbits. Tolkien here broke with an age-old tradition of the adventure epic in not casting a granite-biceped Hercules or Beowulf as his central protagonist. Wars against evil, accordingly, must be won by us. If we wait for others to save us, we are lost.
2) Free peoples either stand together or die alone.
One major plot of The Two Towers is whether the allies against evil will be shorn apart by fear, delusions, machinations of the enemy or selfish agendas. Why, for example, should the riders of Rohan care about what is going on outside their pastures? It is Gandalf, the great and good wizard, who argues for decisive action, because "doom hangs still on a thread." Likewise, all the peoples of the world who reject terrorism must cooperate to stamp it out: Separate peaces only will mean we are buried in separate graves.
3) There is no final victory.
Gandalf cautions there is no closure for an eternal struggle, for even if Sauron falls, "other evils ...may come; Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary." So, too, with a war against terrorism – the enemy isn't one man or one group but a perversion of theology that finds new forms in every age. As our republic's own wise wizard, Thomas Jefferson, put it, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
4) Evil can't be bought off or bargained with.
The coalition of free peoples often considers making deals with Sauron or other villains. In each case, Gandalf rejects the deceptions, noting that evil prospers if it finds partners and that its bleatings of compromise are "to deceive the ignorant." Likewise, today's terrorism, in its guile, confuses us by demanding accommodation, when its final purpose is our full destruction. Once we give in, we have given up.
Those precepts on how to fight intolerance and extremism from the fantasy kingdoms of Middle Earth are eternal. Like all great myths, they challenge and instruct, and we classify them as irrelevant at our own peril.
David D. Perlmutter is an associate professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University.
I agree 100%, naturally, or I wouldn't be taking this time.
In fact, I've said much of this here previously.
David Perlmutter: Middle Earth's lessons
01/13/2003
By DAVID PERLMUTTER
J.R.R. Tolkien chafed at his characters and their adventures being read as mere stand-ins for current events. No, Sauron wasn't an allegorical Adolf Hitler, and Gandalf was no long-bearded, staff-bearing Winston Churchill. But the creator of The Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth, a scholar of medieval literature in his day job, did argue that some old tales have "applicability" to modern times.
People in World War II and the Cold War found such applications in the story of the ring of power (truly a weapon of mass destruction), the quest to destroy it and the war of the shaky coalition of good peoples of the world against an aggressive evil empire.
Now, a new generation is streaming to the second film based on the book trilogy. Its box-office take eventually may hit the Titanic peak. Is such popularity an appreciation of something deeper than spectacular battles, classic characters and jagged scenery?
In Tolkien, there are moral, military and political lessons that apply to every age, especially one mired in a chaotic war between civilization and the forces of terrorism, incarnated if not led by Osama bin Laden. In a complex world, these truths are simple, harsh but timeless:
1) Ordinary individuals matter.
The Lord of the Rings series is red with mighty battles. But in the long run, all are inconsequential. Only the destruction of Sauron's ring of power can terminate his reign. That quest is undertaken (in The Fellowship of the Ring) by heroes from all the free peoples but ultimately carried on (in The Two Towers) and completed (in The Return of the King) by the most innocuous and seemingly unimportant folk of the earth – the funny, little hobbits. Tolkien here broke with an age-old tradition of the adventure epic in not casting a granite-biceped Hercules or Beowulf as his central protagonist. Wars against evil, accordingly, must be won by us. If we wait for others to save us, we are lost.
2) Free peoples either stand together or die alone.
One major plot of The Two Towers is whether the allies against evil will be shorn apart by fear, delusions, machinations of the enemy or selfish agendas. Why, for example, should the riders of Rohan care about what is going on outside their pastures? It is Gandalf, the great and good wizard, who argues for decisive action, because "doom hangs still on a thread." Likewise, all the peoples of the world who reject terrorism must cooperate to stamp it out: Separate peaces only will mean we are buried in separate graves.
3) There is no final victory.
Gandalf cautions there is no closure for an eternal struggle, for even if Sauron falls, "other evils ...may come; Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary." So, too, with a war against terrorism – the enemy isn't one man or one group but a perversion of theology that finds new forms in every age. As our republic's own wise wizard, Thomas Jefferson, put it, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
4) Evil can't be bought off or bargained with.
The coalition of free peoples often considers making deals with Sauron or other villains. In each case, Gandalf rejects the deceptions, noting that evil prospers if it finds partners and that its bleatings of compromise are "to deceive the ignorant." Likewise, today's terrorism, in its guile, confuses us by demanding accommodation, when its final purpose is our full destruction. Once we give in, we have given up.
Those precepts on how to fight intolerance and extremism from the fantasy kingdoms of Middle Earth are eternal. Like all great myths, they challenge and instruct, and we classify them as irrelevant at our own peril.
David D. Perlmutter is an associate professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University.
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