Re-reading the Lord of the Rings, Chapter 62
To some extent this chapter is the logical conclusion to the previous two, that is that the overstretched have such a strong desire to unstretch that they can't bear the lower limit set to it by the responsibilities that freedom entails, but there are other things shimmering through.
Ernst Jünger describes very well in In Stahlgewittern the alienation of a veteran of World War I after returning home, consisting of anger at and repelledness by the ignorance of those, who haven't shared his experiences, the former grounded in the fact that it is they who claim the right to define policy, an anger that even Jesse Ventura shares, and the latter grounded in the fact that they refuse to be instructed by him concerning the facts that he had to experience - and only instruction would do, no debating, no human interest story, cold hard instruction on the pitfalls and dangers that exist outside the ordered circumstances of peace. But they want to hear nothing of it. They want to sweep it under the rug. And give their ears to fairy-tales.
Tolkien takes the view that it is better so - a view that might very well be wrong. For, how does Tolkien imagine that people will ever take up the responsibilities that accompany freedom, if they will buy any fairy-tale, as long as it let's them imagine that they walk within the order of peace?
Well, the answer is obviously that Tolkien thinks that this is the natural role of the elite, to care about these things and tell fairy-tales, which translate the truth for the ears of the common people.
So, in a time without an operating church, how sane is Tolkien's view... In Middle-earth Aragorn is charged with all of this - for everyone within his realm. Now, even Christ had disciples... I don't counsel to sever the bond between the people and the Church through the local selection of bishops united in one faith, for that is a far superior thing to the follies of new and ancient. Of course, in my view gradual schisms make sense, the refining of convictions without violating the basic ones.
But enough of that. Frodo and Bilbo also have to go for another reason, namely so as to close the book on The Ring. When Sam, Merry and Pippin go back, the world is now verily theirs. The spiritual struggle with the forces of co-ercion is over and the bridges to the era of shaping, for an era it is, however short, are removed. A new day has begun and its laws are set.
This is quite general, for the older things get, the more co-ercive they get as well, no matter what they are (not withstanding man's desire to return to, whence he came), and so every struggle for renewal can be cast in these terms.
Ernst Jünger describes very well in In Stahlgewittern the alienation of a veteran of World War I after returning home, consisting of anger at and repelledness by the ignorance of those, who haven't shared his experiences, the former grounded in the fact that it is they who claim the right to define policy, an anger that even Jesse Ventura shares, and the latter grounded in the fact that they refuse to be instructed by him concerning the facts that he had to experience - and only instruction would do, no debating, no human interest story, cold hard instruction on the pitfalls and dangers that exist outside the ordered circumstances of peace. But they want to hear nothing of it. They want to sweep it under the rug. And give their ears to fairy-tales.
Tolkien takes the view that it is better so - a view that might very well be wrong. For, how does Tolkien imagine that people will ever take up the responsibilities that accompany freedom, if they will buy any fairy-tale, as long as it let's them imagine that they walk within the order of peace?
Well, the answer is obviously that Tolkien thinks that this is the natural role of the elite, to care about these things and tell fairy-tales, which translate the truth for the ears of the common people.
It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.That ice is thin though. And it is the downfall of nationalism that it has transfered the fairy-tale telling authority from the Church to the aristocracy, for the aristocracy's and the people's interests are not the same.
So, in a time without an operating church, how sane is Tolkien's view... In Middle-earth Aragorn is charged with all of this - for everyone within his realm. Now, even Christ had disciples... I don't counsel to sever the bond between the people and the Church through the local selection of bishops united in one faith, for that is a far superior thing to the follies of new and ancient. Of course, in my view gradual schisms make sense, the refining of convictions without violating the basic ones.
But enough of that. Frodo and Bilbo also have to go for another reason, namely so as to close the book on The Ring. When Sam, Merry and Pippin go back, the world is now verily theirs. The spiritual struggle with the forces of co-ercion is over and the bridges to the era of shaping, for an era it is, however short, are removed. A new day has begun and its laws are set.
This is quite general, for the older things get, the more co-ercive they get as well, no matter what they are (not withstanding man's desire to return to, whence he came), and so every struggle for renewal can be cast in these terms.
Eingetragen Am/um
11:16
