There was an article going round recently about the need to create a new narrative with which to fight post-truth politics and hatred. Well, our fiction is already awash with it. From Star Trek to Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings, this is the West not as it is or ever really was, except perhaps in a few heroic moments, but how it wishes to be. At least in the past, when failures to meet these unrealistic expectations were seen as failures, or at worst were subject to spin to make it look as though everything was as it should be after all - the dreams were always regarded as the goal. Now these narratives of tolerance, compassion, and resistance to oppression are under a different threat on a scale not seen in decades. The aspirations of the West are being directly attacked as fundamentally flawed values. Yet they are not. For all the Western world's hypocrisy and many, many failures, the ideals of liberalism, equality and social justice are worthy aspirations, ones we should be proud to defend and not sink into self-loathing and cynicism at every failure, or to give in to fear and hate when a monster tries to tear them down.
#Resist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FQEOvrYU6Y
I studied the Tolkien papers at length at Marquette University Special Collections, assisted by Taum Santoski, who tragically passed away at a terribly young age. I've had some correspondence with Christopher Tolkien back in the 1980s.
ReplyDeleteThe key to understanding the LOTR is not the great triumphs or the bravery of Aragorn and the Fellowship. It is in the Scouring of the Shire, that while great wars are being fought far away, evil can prosper close to home.
The great sagas are mostly tragedies, there are no Happily Ever After endings.
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing;
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.
In every generation, the lowly and the great are both called upon to fight the battles against the evils of their own times. If there is any hope to the struggle, it is not a hope for triumph, for the evil returns, again and again. This is an existential struggle, an eternal rearguard action. It is our turn to shoulder the burden and we must not shrink from the task.
Théoden King: "How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?"
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