Re-reading the Lord of the Rings, Chapter 57
The two major points here are firstly that after Sauron vanished, so does carnage, and secondly that the gained peace is laden with memories of old that have come to life again.
Clausewitz writes in his treatise on war that the victor releases the defeated into his own again after the war is won, and he justifies it by saying that people have a tendency for peace and that it's unlikely that they'll give their ear to those, who wish to have their revenge as soon as possible.
Recent history knows many counter-examples to this, and ancient history as well.
Clausewitz follows a code of honour there which was peculiar to Christian Europe and ended during Clausewitz' lifetime, ironically, but Napoléon's defeat gave Clausewitz false hope that it did not.
Tolkien quite clearly follows the same code of honour, an imperative that was somehow laid on him, who was born much later, but that was the nature of the 19th century, that the decrees of modernity were for a while forgotten.
And so there are only a few proud men, who still have to be fought at Cirith Mordor, while the rest are willing enough to forget about Sauron's war.
But then again... What does Sauron stand for? Not in particular for the ability to systematically poison the minds of men? Which was, for some 1000 years, roughly from 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D., suspended. So Tolkien is perhaps not as backwards as one may think but thinks ahead.
Which brings us to the second point. The festivities glorify the simple forms of the Middle Ages and Minas Tirith appears as a heritage from before them that hasn't yet grown old, or at least not that old, seperated from the present by a chasm of time.
Everything can become again as it was... well, I think that is true in some sense, actually even more than just in one sense, but I think that every age to come must distinguish itself from its previous incarnations, the truer ones lying further back in time, so that circumstances seperate, what character leaves together, and vice versa.
Clausewitz writes in his treatise on war that the victor releases the defeated into his own again after the war is won, and he justifies it by saying that people have a tendency for peace and that it's unlikely that they'll give their ear to those, who wish to have their revenge as soon as possible.
Recent history knows many counter-examples to this, and ancient history as well.
Clausewitz follows a code of honour there which was peculiar to Christian Europe and ended during Clausewitz' lifetime, ironically, but Napoléon's defeat gave Clausewitz false hope that it did not.
Tolkien quite clearly follows the same code of honour, an imperative that was somehow laid on him, who was born much later, but that was the nature of the 19th century, that the decrees of modernity were for a while forgotten.
And so there are only a few proud men, who still have to be fought at Cirith Mordor, while the rest are willing enough to forget about Sauron's war.
But then again... What does Sauron stand for? Not in particular for the ability to systematically poison the minds of men? Which was, for some 1000 years, roughly from 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D., suspended. So Tolkien is perhaps not as backwards as one may think but thinks ahead.
Which brings us to the second point. The festivities glorify the simple forms of the Middle Ages and Minas Tirith appears as a heritage from before them that hasn't yet grown old, or at least not that old, seperated from the present by a chasm of time.
Everything can become again as it was... well, I think that is true in some sense, actually even more than just in one sense, but I think that every age to come must distinguish itself from its previous incarnations, the truer ones lying further back in time, so that circumstances seperate, what character leaves together, and vice versa.
Eingetragen Am/um
11:58
